page_title: Dienstag aus Licht
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Dienstag aus Licht / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The National Theatre of Japan in Chiyoda, Tokyo 日本語: 国立劇場 （東京都千代田区）
context_page_description: Dienstag aus Licht is an opera by Karlheinz Stockhausen in a greeting and two acts, with a farewell, and was the fourth of seven to be completed for the opera cycle Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche. It was begun in 1977 and completed from 1988 to 1991, to a libretto by the composer.
context_section_description: Dienstag is an opera for 17 solo performers (three singers, 10 instrumentalists, 4 dancer-mimes), actors, mimes, choir, orchestra, and electronic music. Tuesday is the red day of conflict between Michael and  Lucifer (Stockhausen 1989b, 200).
  As was the case for most of the operas in the Licht cycle, component sections of Dienstag were commissioned and composed separately, and given seriatim premieres. The first component of this opera was in fact the first part of the entire Licht cycle to be composed: Jahreslauf (Course of the Years), which became the first act of Dienstag, was originally written in 1977 as an independent piece for gagaku ensemble. Stockhausen finished it in Kyoto in the fall of 1977, and it was premiered by the Imperial Gagaku Ensemble at the Tokyo National Theatre on 31 October. This version is dedicated to Jaynee Stephens. A concert version for European instruments, with the slightly different title Der Jahreslauf (The Course of the Years), was performed in the Large Broadcasting Hall of the WDR, Cologne, on 10 February 1979. The day before the premiere, a studio recording was made for commercial release, and the same musicians participated in five staged performances of this act produced by the Paris Opera at the Opéra-Comique  from 20 to 24 November 1979 (Stockhausen 1989a, 156). It was while working on this piece in Japan that the idea occurred to him of composing a seven-part cycle of operas, all based on a single, multi-layered musical formula (Kurtz 1992, 2). In the spring of 1991 Stockhausen added a narrative frame for Michael and Lucifer (Kurtz 1992, 236).
  The Dienstags-Gruß (Tuesday's Greeting) was commissioned by the University of Cologne for the celebration of the 600th anniversary of its founding in 1388. It was premiered under the title Willkommen mit Friedensgruß (Welcome with Peace Greeting) on 4 November 1988 in the Kölner Philharmonie, as part of the ceremony marking the anniversary. The performers were Annette Meriweather (soprano), the Collegium Musicum Vocale of the University of Cologne, and an ensemble of nine trumpets (rehearsed by Markus Stockhausen) and nine trombones (rehearsed by Michael Svoboda), with Michael Obst and Simon Stockhausen (synthesizers). Dieter Gutknecht, music director of the university, conducted. Willkommen opened the ceremony, followed by the rector's greeting, speeches by the mayor of Cologne, the governor of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the president of Germany, and the conferring of honors by the rector. The Friedensgruß was then performed and, after a celebratory lecture, the final section was repeated as a "closing hymn" (Stockhausen 1989a, 58).
  The second act, Invasion, was originally commissioned for the Ensemble InterContemporain by Michel Guy, director of the Festival d'Automne, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989. However, the administration of the ensemble declined to perform it after being informed of the requirements. Consequently, the score was not worked out until 1990 (Stockhausen 1998a, 16). The solo synthesizer part together with the electronic music for the closing five scenes of this act ("Pietà", "Explosion", "Jenseits", "Synthi-Fou", and "Abschied") constitute Stockhausen's Klavierstück XV (Kiec 2004, 144). The score is dedicated to the composer's son, Simon Stockhausen, who gave the premiere performance at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne on 5 October 1992.
  Dienstag as a whole was originally commissioned by the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, but on 7 May 1991 the new Sovrintendente of La Scala, Carlo Fontana, wrote Stockhausen to say cuts to government support of La Scala had forced cancellation of the premiere there in 1992 as planned, and subsequent correspondence led to the release of rights for the premiere (Stockhausen 1998a, 28–38). Dienstag was given its staged premiere on 28 May 1993 by the Leipzig Opera. Subsequent performances were on 29 and 30 May. The stage realisation was by Uwe Wand, Henryk Tomaszewski, and Johannes Conen. Karlheinz Stockhausen was the music director and sound projec
caption: The Tokyo National Theatre, where Jahreslauf was premiered in 1977
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