Le Grand Macabre (completed 1977, revised 1996) is the third stage production by Hungarian composer György Ligeti, and his only major stage-work. Previously, he had created two absurdist sung "mimodramas" Aventures (compl. 1962) and Nouvelles aventures (1965).
Described as an "anti-anti-opera", Le Grande Macabre has two acts and lasts about 100 minutes. Its libretto, based on Michel de Ghelderode's 1934 play La balade du Grand Macabre, was written by Ligeti himself in collaboration with , director of the Stockholm Puppet Theatre. The language was German, the title Der grosse Makaber. But for the first production, in 1978, it was translated into Swedish by Meschke under the French title by which it has been known ever since, and under which it was published. Besides these two languages, Le Grand Macabre has been performed in English, French, Italian, Hungarian and Danish, with only a few notes needing to be changed in order to adjust.
The piece contains a dual role for a coloratura soprano that is considered exceptionally difficult; in its premiere the roles were sung by different singers.
Premiere, productions and revision Le Grand Macabre was premiered in Stockholm on 12 April 1978. At least 30 productions have followed. For one in Paris in February 1997 (under the auspices of that summer's Salzburg Festival), Ligeti the previous year prepared a revision, making cuts to Scenes 2 and 4, setting some of the originally spoken passages to music and removing others altogether. (As it turned out, the composer was annoyed by the Paris staging, by Peter Sellars, and expressed his displeasure publicly. Sellars, he said, had gone against his desire for ambiguity by explicitly depicting an Apocalypse set in the framework of the Chernobyl Disaster.) This 1996 revised score was published and has become standard. Conductors who have championed Le Grand Macabre include Elgar Howarth, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Boder, Alan Gilbert, Sir Simon Rattle, Thomas Guggeis, who led a new staging by Vasily Barkhatov in November 2023 at Oper Frankfurt, and Pablo Heras-Casado, who conducted a different new production a week later at the Vienna State Opera.
Roles +RoleVoice typePremiere cast, 12 April 1978Conductor: Elgar HowarthChef der Gepopo (Chief of the Gepopo, the political police)high coloratura sopranoBritt-Marie AruhnClitoria (Amanda in the revision), loversopranoElisabeth SöderströmSpermando (Amando in the revision), lovermezzo-sopranoKerstin MeyerMescalina, wife to Astradamors (and sadist)mezzo-sopranoBarbro EricsonFürst Go-Go (Prince Go-Go)countertenor (or boy treble)Gunilla SlättegårdPiet vom Fass (Piet the Pot)tenorSven-Erik VikströmNekrotzar (title role)baritoneErik SaedénAstradamors, astronomer (and masochist)bassArne Tyrénsupporting roles:Venuscoloratura sopranoMonika Lavén/Kerstin Wiberg (voice)Ruffiack, ruffian No. 1bassRagne WahlrothSchobiack, ruffian No. 2baritoneHans-Olof SöderbergSchabernack, ruffian No. 3bassLennart StregårdWhite-party ministerspoken roleDmitry Cheremeteff/Sven-Erik Vikström (voice)Black-party ministerspoken roleNils Johansson/Arne Tyrén (voice)Chorus: people of Breughelland; spirits; echo of Venus The roles of Venus and Chef der Gepopo are occasionally sung by the same coloratura, a dual role that is considered exceptionally difficult. Opera critic Joshua Kosman called it "fiercely demanding".
Musical numbers Act 1
Scene 1 Car Horn Prelude Scene One: Dies Irae Away, you swag-pot! Shut up! Oh...! – Amanda! Can do no more! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Hey! Give me my requisites, slave Melting snow is thy breast Second Car Horn Prelude
Scene 2 One! Two! Three! Five! Shapely and attractive figure Venus! Venus! Stop! – Sh!… Quiet, for heaven's sake! Who's there? A Man? – A Man! Finale: Fire and death I bring
Act 2
Scene 3
Door Bell Prelude Arse licker, arse-kisser! Posture exercises! Tsk… – Pssst! Ha! Head of my Secret Service Ahh!… Secret cypher! Hurray, hurray! My wife is dead, hurray! Nekrotzar's Entrance Woe! Ooh! For the day of wrath
There's no need to fear Up! – Drink! – Up! Galimathias: Hmm! It's delicious Where am I? What time is it? Interlude Scene Four: Ghost Astradamors, are you dead? Mirror Canon Finale. Passacaglia: Ah, it was good
Orchestration Ligeti calls for a very diverse orchestra with a huge assortment of percussion in his opera:
Woodwinds
Brass 4 horns in F
1 bass trumpet in C
1 contrabass tuba
Percussion timpani percussion (three players)
Keyboard celesta (doubling harpsichord) grand piano (doubling electronic piano) electronic organ (manuals only, doubling regal)
Strings mandolin harp
3 violins 2 violas 6 cellos 4 double basses
The vast percussion section uses a large variety of domestic items, as well as standard orchestral instruments:
xylophone vibraphone glockenspiel marimba
4 music boxes 6 Electric doorbells 2 tambourines military drum 2 snare drums 3 bongo drums
conga tenor drum parade drum 4 tom-toms 2 bass drums 2 triangles 3 crotales 3 suspended cymbals
gong in E
2 tam-tams tubular bells
maracas 2 güiros 2 whips
ratchet 3 wood blocks log drum
5 temple blocks large sledgehammer wooden slats slide whistle whistle cuckoo whistle signal whistle siren whistle steamboat whistle 2 sirens 2 flexatones
duck-quacker hum pots large alarm clock
wind machine paper bag tray full of crockery sauce pan pistol lion's roar
Synopsis Act 1 Scene 1 This opens with a choir of 12 jarring car horns, played with pitches and rhythms specified in the score. These suggest, very abstractly, a barren modern landscape and a traffic jam of sorts. As the overture ends, Piet the Pot, "by trade wine taster", in the country of Breughelland (named after the artist that loosely inspired it), appears to deliver a drunken lament, complete with hiccups. He is accompanied by bassoons, which become the representative instrument for his character. The focus switches to two lovers, Amanda and Amando, who are played by two women even though they represent an opposite-sex couple. Nekrotzar, prince of Hell, hears the lovers from deep inside his tomb and subtly joins their duet. The lovers, confused, discover Piet and become enraged, believing he is spying on them. Piet protests that he "spoke no word, so who spoke? The almighty?" The lovers hide in the tomb to make love.
Nekrotzar emerges, singing a motif, exclaiming "away, you swagpot! Lick the floor, you dog! Squeak out your dying wish, you pig!" Piet responds in kind, with confused drunken statements, until Nekrotzar at last tells him to "Shut up!". Piet must become Death's slave and retrieve all of his "instruments" from the tomb. As Nekrotzar's threats grow deadlier, Piet accepts them with only amused servility, until he is told his throat is to be "wracked with thirst". He objects, because his master had "spoke of death, not punishment!" As Nekrotzar explains his mission, accompanied by percussive tone clusters in the lowest octave of the piano and the orchestra, a choir joins in, admonishing "take warning now, at midnight thou shalt die". Nekrotzar claims he will destroy the earth with a comet God will send to him at midnight. A lone metronome, whose regular tempo ignores that of the rest of the orchestra, joins in. Nekrotzar, making frenzied proclamations, dons his gruesome gear, accompanied by ever more chaotic orchestra, women's choir, and a bass trombone hidden on a balcony, his characteristic instrument. He insists that Piet must be his horse, and Piet's only protest is to give his final cry, "cock-a-doodle-doo!" As they ride off on their quest, the lovers emerge and sing another duet, vowing to ignore the end of time completely and enjoy each other's company.
Scene 2 This begins with a second car horn prelude, which announces a scene change to the household of the court astronomer, Astradamors, and his sadistic wife, Mescalina. "One! Two! Three! Five!" exclaims Mescalina, beating her husband with a whip to the rhythm of shifting, chromatic chords. Astramadors, dressed in drag, unenthusiastically begs for more. She forces him to lift his skirt, and strikes him with a spit. Convinced she has killed him, she begins to mourn, then wonders if he's really dead. She summons a spider, apparently her pet, accompanied by a duo for harpsichord and organ – Regal stops. Astradamors rises, protesting that "spiders always give [him] nausea". As punishment for attempting to fake death, she forces him to take part in an apparent household ritual, a rhythmic dance termed "the Gallopade". This ends with the astronomer kissing her behind, singing "Sweetest Sunday" in falsetto.
Mescalina orders her husband to his telescope. "Observe the stars, left, right. What do you see up there? By the way, can you see the planets? Are they all still there, in the right order?" She addresses Venus with an impassioned plea for a better man, accompanied by an oboe d'amour. As she falls asleep, Astradamors quietly claims he would "plunge the whole universe into damnation, if only to be rid of her!" Right on cue, Nekrotzar arrives, announced by his trumpet, as Venus speaks to Mescalina. Venus informs Mescalina that she has sent "two men", and Nekrotzar steps forward, claiming to be the "well-hung" man Mescalina requested. They perform a stylized lovemaking, as Venus screeches her approval and Piet and Astradamors add their commentary. Nekrotzar suddenly bites Mescalina's neck, killing her, and insists that Piet and his new servant "move this thing [her corpse] out of the way". Driving triplets launch into the trio's humorous rant, "fire and death I bring, burning and shrivelling". Nekrotzar orders his "brigade" to "attention" and they prepare to set off for the royal palace of Prince Go-go. Before doing so, Astradamors destroys everything in his home, proclaiming "at last, I am master in my own house".
Act 2 Scene 3 This opens with doorbells and alarm clocks, written into the score like the car horns earlier. These seem to represent the rousing of Breughelland as Death approaches. The curtain opens to the throne room, where two politicians dance a lopsided waltz and exchange insults in alphabetical order. "Blackmailer; bloodsucker!" "Charlatan; clodhopper!" "Driveller; dodderer!" "Exorcist; egoist!" "Fraudulent flatterer!" The prince arrives and begs them to put "the interests of the nation" over selfishness. They do so, but force Go-go to mount a giant rocking horse for his "riding lesson". The snare drum leads variations of military march-like music as the politicians contradict one another's advice, finally telling the prince "cavalry charge!" "As in war!" Go-go, who alternately refers to himself in the royal first-person plural, says, "We surrender!" and falls off his horse, to which the black minister says, over-significantly, "thus do dynasties fall". The prince recalls that war is barred in their constitution, but the politicians proclaim the constitution to be mere paper. Their manic laughter is accompanied by burping noises from the low brass. They move on to "posture exercises: how to wear a crown, with dignity". The politicians give him more conflicting advice as Go-go hesitates, accompanied by his characteristic instrument, the harpsichord. When Go-go puts on the crown, the politicians order him to memorize a speech and sign a decree (which raises taxes 100%), arguing over every insignificant issue the whole time. Each time the prince objects, they harmoniously threaten "I shall resign", a possibility of which Go-go seems to be terrified. The prince grows hungry, so the politicians tempt him with a gluttonous feast (to which the fat but boyish monarch sings an impassioned ode). With food in mind, Go-go finally asserts himself and says "we will accept your resignations" after dinner.