Opera for 14 musical performers
3 solo voices, 8 solo instrumentalists, 3 solo dancers
choir, orchestra and tapes
1978-1980
Thursday is Michael's Day
Donnerstag's Gruss / Thursday's Greeting (1978)
8 brass instruments, piano, 3 percussionists
ACT ONE Michaels Jungend / Michaels Youth
Kindheit / Childhood (1979) tenor, soprano, bass, trumpet, basset-horn, trombone, dancer, tapes
Mondeva / Mooneve (1978/79) tenor, basset-horn, soprano, bass, trombone, mime, elec. organ, 2 tapes
Examen / Examination (1979) tenor, trumpet, dancer, piano, basset-horn, soprano, bass, 2 mimes, 2tapes
ACT TWO Michael's Reise Um Die Erde / Michael's Journey Round The Earth (1978)
trumpet and orchestra
Listening guide to Michael's Reise
ACT THREE Michaels Heimkehr / Michaels Homecoming
Festival (1980) tenor, soprano, bass, trumpet, basset-horn, trombone, 2 soprano saxophones, elec. organ, 3 dancer-mimes, old woman, choir, orchestra, tapes
Vision (1980) tenor, trumpeter, dancer, hammond organ, tape, shadow plays
Donnerstag's Abschied / Thursday's Farewell (1980) 5 trumpeters
Short synopsis of the opera
In the foyer of the opera house the audience is greeted by music. The Michael melody is predominant.
Act One opens slowly with a soft taped chord of trumpet, basset-horn and trombone. The child Michael learns from his father and mother, until domestic disharmony, poverty, war and mental illness destroy the family, and the mother is killed inside a mental hospital while the father dies in battle. Michael (tenor) has fallen in love with a fantastic extra terrestrial bird/woman, Moon-Eve; whom he seduces, until she disappears. He then has to pass a musical examination, in which he retells his childhood as a singer, trumpeter, and dancer. This scene is in three sections, and in three musical layers. When Michael sings the Eve melody is at the top, when he plays trumpet the Lucifer melody is uppermost, and when he dances the Michael melody is at the top.
In Act Two, Michael explores the world as a trumpeter, and stops in 7 countries to converse with the people there. The orchestra plays the world's music with stylistic features appropiate to the country Michael is visiting. Michael is eventually distracted by the playing of the basset-horn and once again meets Moon-Eve with whom he plays a beautiful duet until the end of the act. Listening guide to Act 2!
In Act Three the angel Michael has returned to heaven. Celestial choirs sing in his honour, and he receives gifts, until an old woman brings the festival to a halt, and Three Compositions of Light, (commisioned from a visual artist), are presented to him. Michael's final gift is a small globe, but Lucifer has hidden his dancer-mime within it and together with a trombonist / tap dancer; he fights Michael. The scene ends with Lucifer (bass) pouring scorn on the whole festival, and leaving through the auditorium. In the final Vision scene Michael, as tenor, trumpeter and dancer explains the meaning of the opera with the help of shadow plays.
"I became a human ...to bring celestial music to humans , and human music to the celestial beings. So that Man may listen to God and God may hear his childen".
As the people leave, they hear the five phrases of the Michael melody, played by five trumpeters from the roof of the opera house.
