Montag of Licht

Over the past seven years, Le Balcon, the Festival d’Automne and the Philharmonie de Paris have joined forces to honour the legendary Karlheinz Stockhausen with a complete performance of his monumental Licht cycle.

Licht is a series of seven operas, spanning thirty hours of music. Drawing from his personal vision of the cosmos, Stockhausen crafted his own artistic journey through sound and space. The cycle took him twenty-five years to complete and revolutionized both music and dramaturgy in a theatrical context.

This year, the ensembles take on the cycle’s first opera, Montag, to be performed at the Festival d’Automne. Montag celebrates the birth of Earth and its feminine qualities—the moon, water and childbirth. Eve, the mother of all beings, is central to the opera, as Monday is her day. The work blends avant-garde elements with a sense of fantasy, creating “an ode to bringing people together through a narrative of birth.” The opera features a combination of instrumental virtuosity and electronic music, enhancing the effects on stage. It is widely regarded as one of the most complex and ambitious works in the Licht cycle.

This production represents a collaboration across the musical, theatrical and digital arts. More than sixty people are involved, including students experiencing the stage for the first time. Additionally, since Stockhausen passed away just fifteen years ago, this project allows the ensembles to work with musicians and artists who directly collaborated with him.

The production of Montag has been made possible by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Further Information:
festival-automne.com

Dates

November 29, 2025
Philharmonie de Paris, Salle Pierre Boulez