Licht

Licht (Light), subtitled "Die sieben Tage der Woche" (The Seven Days of the Week), is a cycle of seven operas composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen between 1977 and 2003. The composer described the work as an "eternal spiral" because "there is neither end nor beginning to the week." Licht consists of 29 hours of music. The Licht opera project, originally titled Hikari (光 , Japanese for "light"), originated with a piece for dancers and Gagaku orchestra commissioned by the National Theatre in Tokyo. Titled Der Jahreslauf (The Course of the Years), this piece became the first act of Dienstag. Another important Japanese influence is from Noh theater, which the composer cites in connection with his conception of stage action. The cycle also draws on elements from the Judeo-Christian and Vedic traditions. The title of Licht owes something to Sri Aurobindo's theory of "Agni" (the Hindu and Vedic fire deity), developed from two basic premises of nuclear physics, and Stockhausen's conception of the Licht superformula also owes a great deal to Sri Aurobindo's category of the "supramental". It is centered on three main characters, Michael, Eve, and Lucifer. Many of the events in the opera refer to The Urantia Book, which was sold to Stockhausen by a remarkable figure during his New York Philharmonic concert in 1971. In his analysis of the cycle, Gregg Wager states that "There can be little doubt ... that Stockhausen's first and foremost inspiration for Lucifer's rebellion ... originated from the Urantia Book ... specific terms such as "Local System", "Planetary Princes" or "Paradise Sons" can only be from the Urantia Book". Wager also points to the fact that Michael is clearly identified in Donnerstag as originating from "Nebadon", which is another location name peculiar to the Urantia Book. The emblems of Michael and Lucifer in Licht are also derived from the Urantia Book. According to Stockhausen biographer Michael Kurtz, "Michael, Lucifer and Eve are, for Stockhausen, more than theatrical figures.