Prophesied armageddons generally disappoint. In his only opera, Le Grand Macabre, György Ligeti created a large, discursive world theatre in which the plain, unvarnished human condition, with all its base desires and weaknesses becomes the cause of a full-blown, imminent apocalypse: into an imaginary, corrupt land of milk and honey – Breughelland, a vision of gluttony, drunkenness and lechery – Death arrives one day, here called as Nekrotzar or the demonic Grand Macabre, to announce the impending destruction of the world and frivolous humanity. However, seduced by the pleasures of life, with which he is unfamiliar, the only person to die in the end is Nekrotzar himself. Everyone else concludes that having survived this time, the sensible thing to do is to return to their previous lifestyle.


 

Jan Lauwers: Le Grand Macabre could be described as a masterpiece in the form of a cynical joke. Like a jester without a court, Ligeti rubs salt in the wounds of the old continent. Living in a Europe that is changing so rapidly and so dramatically, many might say that cynicism is the last thing we need now, especially since satire is more frequently seen as the weapon of the coward than a brave act of optimism. But Ligeti could never be considered a coward. On the contrary, for him a libretto in which the moral boils down to raw sex, binge drinking and the end of time is no cynicism and no hedonism, but rather an ode, however ironic it may be, to love itself. He says:

Thus, it is the triumph of Eros: we live, we drink, we make love, but all that in disorder, as in real life. It is a rather sordid Eros, not entirely nice. We live, but life is not so beautiful. Therefore, this end is very close to the design of Ghelderode. It is not an act of true hedonism, it is not an act of happiness. Rather, it is sad, very sad. In my version, it is made ironic by the music, the text is not so ironic, but the music is much more, the finale music, this passacaglia, very consonant, very pretty, very pure.

I like things pushed to the extreme, I like the extremes, absolutely insane things, and much more in opera. I believe that, for an understandable musical success where the text is half the picture, one must push everything to the extreme, as much as possible.