Helmut Lachenmann: Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern

Ever since its 1997 Hamburg premiere, Helmut Lachenmann’s only work in the genre has been considered the ultimate late twentieth century opera. While refusing the theatrical narration of the fairy tale in the sense of a plot with figures, dialogues, scenes, and arias, the work nonetheless follows the course of Andersen’s text precisely, whereby all the action is dissolved in the music itself. Yet hardly a single tone is created in a conventional way. The acoustic palette used by this extraordinarily diverse music ranges from the swooshing, hissing, grating sounds of the strings, the sounds of rubbing, clapping, and knocking to various breathing and vocal techniques. The result is a beguiling acoustic cosmos of noise and sounds, a threatening and piercing sonic aura of convincing sensuality.

Despite all its strangeness complexity, this music is also quite concretely visual and leads the attentive listener though Andersen’s scenes of cold abandonment while making directly audible the young girl’s visions of life in warmth and safety and her revolt against the dominant torpor with the swish of a match.

For Lachenmann’s Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern, Robert Wilson has created a space, stage, and lighting concept especially for Jahrhunderthalle, where Lachenmann’s original idea—to include the audience in a complete circle with the instrumentalists and singers—can be realized to a degree that is scarcely possible in an opera house. This acoustic space will intensify the listener’s experience of complete immersion in the music.

It will be exciting to see what theatrical events and images Wilson—who at last year’s Ruhrtriennale the director and performer of John Cage’s Lecture on Nothing—has in store for us in a spatial concept using his non-illustrative approach.

With hr-Sinfonieorchester and conductor Emilio Pomárico, we are pleased to present an orchestra and a conductor with many years of experience performing Lachenmann’s music.