Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com's Best of 1999
It's apocalypse now in Hungarian composer György Ligeti's brilliantly imaginative opera about a comic-book Armageddon. Ligeti revised and tightened the original 1970s version of this masterpiece, which boils over with Brechtian grotesques. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, always sensitive to the pulse of the most compelling contemporary music, brings off a wacky, threatening, sardonic, and exhilarating account. --Thomas May

Amazon.com essential recording
It seems oddly fitting that 1999--a year marked by Y2K paranoia and doom-and-gloom trainspotters--is the year in which Sony chose to release this brilliantly charged version of György Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre, the Hungarian master's comic tale of apocalypse and "what me worry?" Originally composed between 1975 and 1977, Macabre follows the various bumbling citizens of "Breughelland" during "anytime." Problem is, their time is about to end, thanks to grim reaper Nekrotzar (played with... read more

Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre

Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre, Music, Gyorgy Ligeti, Frode Olsen, Gyorgy Ligeti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Derek Lee Ragin, London Sinfonietta Voices, Charlotte Hellekant, Jard Van Nes, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Laura Claycomb, Sibylle Ehlert, Graham Clark, Steven Cole, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Philharmonia Orchestra, Laura Claycomb, Charlotte Hellekant, Jard Van Ness, Derek Lee Ragin, Graham Clark, Willard White, Frode Olsen, 20th/21st Century Opera, Classical, Classical Music, Opera, Opera/Operetta, Orchestral & Symphonic

Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre
Average customer rating:

Good opera, probably not destined for classic status

just say yes to life -- a slapstick satire of the apocalypse

One of the few contemporary masterworks in opera

This opera is a horrible, boresome joke!!

A great opera of our time

Gyorgy Ligeti Edition Vol 8 - Le Grand Macabre
Esa-Pekka Salonen , Philharmonia Orchestra , Laura Claycomb , Charlotte Hellekant , Jard Van Ness , Derek Lee Ragin , Graham Clark , Willard White , and Frode Olsen
Manufacturer: Sony
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000ICMU
Release Date: 1999-03-23

Tracks:

Le Grand Macabre: Car Horn Prelude
Le Grand Macabre: Scene One - 'Dies irae'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene One - 'Away, You Swagpot!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene One - 'Shut Up!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene One - 'Oh...!' - 'Amanda! Can Do No More!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene 1 - 'Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha! Hey! Give Me My Requisites'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene 1 - 'Melting Snow Is Thy Breast'
Le Grand Macabre: Second Car Horn Prelude
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - 'One! Two! Three! Five!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - 'Shapely And Attractive Figure'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - 'Venus! Venus!' (Mescalina) (Astradamors)
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - 'Stop' - 'Sh!...Quiet, For Heaven's Sake!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - 'Who's There? A Man?' - 'A Man!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Two - Finale: 'Fire And Death I Bring' (Nekrotzar) (Piet) (Astradamors)

Tracks:

Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - Doorbell Prelude
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Arse-Licker, Arse Kisser'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Posture Exercises!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Tsk...' - 'Psssst!' - 'Ha! Head Of My Secret Service!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Ahh!...Secret Cypher!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Hurray, Hurray, My Wife Is Dead' (Astradamors) (Prince Go-Go) (Chorus)
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - Nekrotzar's Entrance
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Woe! Ohh!' - 'For The Day Of Wrath'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'There's No Need To Fear'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Up!' - 'Drink!' - 'Up!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - Galimatias: 'Hmm! It's Delicious!'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Three - 'Where Am I? What Time Is It?'
Le Grand Macabre: Interlude
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Four - 'Ghost Astradamors, Are You Dead?'
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Four - Mirror Canon - Nekrotzar's Death
Le Grand Macabre: Scene Four - Finale. Passacaglia: 'Ah, It Was Good'

Amazon.com's Best of 1999

It's apocalypse now in Hungarian composer György Ligeti's brilliantly imaginative opera about a comic-book Armageddon. Ligeti revised and tightened the original 1970s version of this masterpiece, which boils over with Brechtian grotesques. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, always sensitive to the pulse of the most compelling contemporary music, brings off a wacky, threatening, sardonic, and exhilarating account. --Thomas May

Amazon.com essential recording

It seems oddly fitting that 1999--a year marked by Y2K paranoia and doom-and-gloom trainspotters--is the year in which Sony chose to release this brilliantly charged version of György Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre, the Hungarian master's comic tale of apocalypse and "what me worry?" Originally composed between 1975 and 1977, Macabre follows the various bumbling citizens of "Breughelland" during "anytime." Problem is, their time is about to end, thanks to grim reaper Nekrotzar (played with deadpan grotesquerie by bass-baritone Willard White), who, aided by his bumbling servant Piet the Pot, has decided to lay waste to the world. Of course, nothing ever goes quite right. A pair of indistinguishable lovers (including the radiant mezzo of Charlotte Hellekant) sleeps right through the Armageddon, and the Great Macabre is reduced to asking himself, "Have I not just laid to waste the entire goddamned world?" in the hilarious final scene. Esa-Pekka Salonen's live recording zeroes in on the score's sardonic humor as well as its postmodern raidings. Compared to the first Macabre on disc--sung in German and not as compact as the revised, English version that Ligeti prepared for the 1997 Salzburg Festival revival--this one is the keeper, with better sound staging, wildly imaginative orchestrations, lucid program notes, and an enjoyably perky English rendition of the original text. Hearing all this perfect craziness--the townspeople mimicking a skipping record as they sing "Our Great Leader" in the third scene, the car horn prelude that leads off the production, the absurdist arguments of the Black and White Ministers--is a comic delight. Here is one of Ligeti's masterpieces--a must for fans of modern opera--in its full glory. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews:

Good opera, probably not destined for classic status.......2006-02-13

Though I haven't heard the German-language recording (the original libretto is in German), I have to believe that, in a language in which the listener lacks fluency, the immediacy of the text's impact would be lost. That's a serious loss when one is dealing (as here) with music that exists largely to amplify a text: rather like the acting in a silent movie (or--perhaps a more appropriate comparison here--the action in a Punch-and-Judy show). This English-language recording I therefore found very welcome.

No recording of course can give one a feel for the bizarre stage sets that (I have to think) must be essential to the impact of this opera in a live performance.

Relatively new though this opera is, to me it already seems somewhat dated, heavily redolent of the early 1970s. It also reminds one of Thornton Wilder's THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, in that, after showing our Cosmic Problems, it facilely solves them by telling us (sort of) that Love Conquers All.

It IS refreshing to find such a broadly-targeted satire not unloading principally on the United States. Instead, there's a good deal of comic (and pretty funny) business about the follies of parliamentary government.

just say yes to life -- a slapstick satire of the apocalypse.......2005-06-02

The concept for LE GRAND MACABRE is great, a slapstick anarchistic satire of the apocalypse. The execution is another matter. I have to say that this might well be tremendously enjoyable in live performance, but it just doesn't work very well without the visual drama. As a caveat, I have to say I don't find most recorded opera to be very effective, and modern operas are even worse, because they don't even have the recognizable melodies and arias of the traditional works to carry you along. I can find no fault with the performance or recording, which was live in Paris in February, 1998. The Sony package, #8 in the Ligeti Edition, is fantastic, with a long booklet containing the entire libretto in English and comments by Ligeti on the work's evolution. There are a handful of black-and-white photos of the cast -- my one quibble is that more would have been good, some small attempt to convey the visuals that are otherwise missing.

It seems to me that the anarchistic vision of LE GRAND MACABRE is very much of its time, the 1970s -- it shares that recent past zeitgeist with Monty Python and the Firesign Theater. Young people today can't imagine what it was like living in a world faced with the threat of nuclear annihilation at any moment -- black comedy and absurdity was one logical response. Today's post-9/11 threat is nothing by comparison.

The story involves the mission of Nekrotzar, the Angel of Death, to destroy the world. Death is confronted by Life in the form of two lovers, who in the end prevail. Death and evil are not taken seriously, but are relentlessly mocked throughout, along with governments and self-important leaders of all sorts. The anti-hero, Piet the Pot, is a drunken buffoon everyman who is used as a horse by Nekrotzar. Other characters include an astronomer and his domineering wife, and a kingdom with warring ministers, the White Minister and the Black Minister, and a chief of the secret political police, who are used to ridicule racism, repression, bureaucracy, careerism, and the social evils of hierarchical societies of rulers and ruled.

Although there is a serious point, this is low, grotesque slapstick. Compared to WAITING FOR GODOT, it's juvenile. And musically, it's thin. Esa-Pekka Salonen doesn't have a whole lot to do directing the Philharmonic Orchestra. The singing requires some acrobatics, and there are some very funny moments. I still enjoy Monty Python and the Firesign Theater, but while Michael Palin and John Cleese might be able to improve the dialogue in LE GRAND MACABRE, I doubt that they'd be much help with the music.

Obviously we still have leaders hell-bent-for-destruction who deserve a good mocking as much now as ever.

One of the few contemporary masterworks in opera.......2005-02-07

I will not bother defending Le Grande Macabre for those dismayed at how it differs from earlier Ligeti; having studied the works from 1943 on, I hear a continuity that others may miss. Know only that the opera was influenced by the visual arts of Bosch, Brueghel and Saul Steinberg, the operas of Monteverdi and Verdi, the absurdist theater of Alfred Jarry, and the films of Charlie Chaplin. In other words, be forewarned!

Having not seen the recent San Francisco production I can only imagine the wild visuals, but the performers in this spanking new edition are spot on. Ligeti has considerably abridged and tightened the opera (first written in 1974-77), and has greatly refined his original vision (the composer has even gone on record preferring the English libretto to the original German.) The Wergo original is of interest primarily to completists.

Let me just add that history is everywhere present in LGM; this is the closest Ligeti's come to a "collage" work, which seems completely appropriate given the darkly surreal subject matter. He would never produce something quite like this again, but let us hope against hope that he finishes the long running operaplanned on the Alice books. For more about Ligeti, I recommend the Richard Steinitz work and life (although the earlier bios by Griffiths, Toop and Burde are great as well).

This opera is a horrible, boresome joke!!.......2004-10-31

I realize Ligeti has his strengths in a sort of dischordant, magical way which can be very effective, such as Aeterna, so I was eager to see Ligeti's only opera. I was unfortunate not only to listen to it, but to see it performed. Without a doubt this was the worst performance I've seen of my life. The symbols were not lost on me, they were so painfully obvious they felt like a slap in the face. The character development was non-existant not to mention the storyline, leaving only the lame satire and badly written prose in sing-song form to redeem it. The music was the only strong point, but nothing in this opera even approached Aeterna, most songs only disjointed screaming, honking, and clanging which couldn't even be compared to the da-da movement...because Ligeti was actually trying to say something, and it was intended to be symbolic! The only skill in this opera was making this non-sense and childish production last for four long acts. I have seriously seen more original, creative, and clever works in high school productions. I can definitely appreciate modern and post-modern works, political satires, and even Ligeti...but this type of painfully overstated attempt at writing a political satire (so called "opera") makes it easy to see why Ligeti's first opera was his last.

A great opera of our time.......2001-07-26

Ligeti's opera "Le Grand Macabre" based on the ballade of Michel de Ghelderode is a great musical achievement of our time. This version by Salonen, sung in English, is a reference. Salonen is a young enthusiastic conductor who loves the score (he told once something about composing and opera, after conducting Ligeti's Grand Macabre) and it is an authentic gift hearing Philharmonia Orchestra under his rules. In the casting, this version counts with a shining and lovely Amanda (Laura Claycomb),a funny Mescalina (Jard van Ness) and a really dark (literally) Nekrotzar (Willard White). Only Gepopo (Sybille Ehlert) is not fully convincent. But it is delightful hearing her, in any case, singing "Stern measures".

I am not agree with the stern reviews of some colleagues in this page. This Opera by Ligeti is magical, funny and delicious, as "The magic flute" of Mozart, for example. The music is powerful (the entrance of Nekrotzar, Astradamors' torture...) and filled with beauty (Gepopo's "misteries").

I love this opera and those of Penderecki, and I consider them the best works in their genre of the last 50 years.

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