Kein Licht – Philippe Manoury, Nicolas Stemann, Elfriede Jelinek, Julien Leroy

United Instruments of Lucilin will start selon 17-18 with « Kein Licht », an eagerly expected creation already rewarded by an international prize. The work inspired by the Fukushima disaster is the fruit of Philippe Manoury and Nicolas Stemann based on texts by Elfriede Jelinek, the author of The Piano Teacher and Nobel Prize in literature.

Thinkspiel for actors, instrumentalists and electronic music in real time based on a text by Elfriede Jelinek. Commissioned by the Opéra Comique. World premiere on 25 August 2017 as part of the Ruhrtriennale, Germany. On 11 March 2011 the eastern coast of Japan is devastated by an earthquake and the resulting tsunami. The cooling systems of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima fall off, the cores of two reactors melt. The implications are gigantic as to the role of nuclear energy policy worldwide.
Committed and moralistic, Nobel Prize laureate Elfriede Jelinek soon wrote Kein Licht, a variation of monologues expressing terror, grief, loss and anger in a highly musical writing. Nicolas Stemann is familiar with her texts which he often stages. Philippe Manoury works on the interaction between acoustics and computing and explores new forms of musical theater.
With Kein Licht, Stemann and Manoury organize a meeting between text theater and theater music composed beforehand or in real time. They offer us a visual and polyphonic reflection, which is also interactive and humorous, on the place of technology in our lives and the place of life in the face of technology.

The polyphonic text Kein Licht is a dialogue between characters lost in space and time in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. Striving to reconstruct themselves, these characters exchange words of suffering, loss and tragedy, sometimes with much humor. Neither exactly an opera nor a Singspiel, Kein Licht is a “thinkspiel”, that is a play on thought. This musical production aims to make us think about the issues of our time. Theater and music will be created before you and will result from a common and live elaboration as rarely seen previously.

Music direction Julien Leroy
Staging Nicolas Stemann
Scenery Katrin Nottrodt
Video Claudia Lehmann
Costumes Marysol del Castillo
Lights Rainer Casper
Musical computing – IRCAM Thomas Goepfer
Singing coach Christophe Manien
Staging assistant Ruth Orthmann
Scenery assistant Emilie Cognard
Traduction Ruth Orthmann

Soprano Sarah Maria Sun
Mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen
Contralto Christina Daletska
Baritone Lionel Peintre
Actors Caroline Peters / Niels Bormann
Vocal quatuor Chœur du National Theater in Zagreb
Orchestra United Instruments of Lucilin
Violins André Pons-Valdès, Winnie Huang
Alto Danielle Hennicot
Cello Jean-Philippe Martignoni
Bass Johannes Nied
Flute Sophie Deshayes
Clarinet Marcel Lallemang
Oboe Clémence Ganet
Trompet Philippe Ranallo
Horn Steve Boehm
Piano Pascal Meyer
Percussion Guy Frisch

Production Opéra Comique
Co-production Ruhrtriennale, Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, Festival Musica de Strasbourg and Opéra National du Rhin, Münchner Kammerspiele, Ircam–Centre Pompidou, United Instruments of Lucilin and 105 individual donors.
2016 Fedora Prize Fonds de Création Lyrique

Photos: © Caroline Seidel