Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Helsinki Chamber Choir

Le Grand Macabre, based on a play by the surrealist dramatist Michel de Ghelderode, combines elements from absurdist theatre, the medieval dance of death and an untrammelled funfair extravaganza. In an interview from 1956, Ghelderode commented: “I have stood the figure of death on its head in Grand Macabre. I have transformed it into a comedic model: that was my revenge.” Ligeti, who personally witnessed the horrors of the Second World War and came very close to death on a number of occasions, places his opera in the fictitious Breughelland, a totalitarian-ruled, corrupt and utterly run-down republic possessing features originating from the images of the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel. Alongside Mescalina, wife of the court astrologer Astradamor, with her collection of giant spiders, and Gepopo, the head of the secret police, this is where the Grand Macabre Nekrotzar, a demagogue and highly dubious character, performs his evil deeds. When the deadline of his prophesised apocalypse arrives, all inhabitants survive – with the exception of the Grand Macabre himself who had always maintained that he was the reincarnation of Death.

Since the 1960s, music by György Ligeti has repeatedly been performed at the Berliner Festwochen, and later at the Musikfest Berlin: “My homeland is actually Berlin, as strange as that may sound. […] The city has become highly interesting through its proximity between West and East”, commented the composer in 2003. Now Le Grand Macabre will open the Musikfest Berlin as a simultaneous celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele. Since its foundation as the Berliner Festwochen in the Western part of the city in 1951, the festival has always functioned as a connecting bridge between political systems, shaped the cultural dimensions of reunification and since 2001 has also had its own venues: the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Gropius Bau.