Work of the Week - György Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre

In one of the signature events of the New York cultural season, director Douglas Fitch and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert will present the much-anticipated, fully-staged New York premiere of György Ligeti’s satirical "anti-anti-opera" Le Grand Macabre on 27th May at New York’s Lincoln Center.

Alan Gilbert, an outspoken supporter of Ligeti's work throughout his career, comments:

Le Grand Macabre is an incredibly important piece and amazingly, has not yet been presented in New York City so I am really thrilled that we’re able to bring the New York première of this work. It’s basically an opera about the existential crisis in the modern world. About finding meaning in life with all the nonsense and craziness that is going on.

Promotional video featuring Alan Gilbert

The work draws the audience into a strange and sinister world where characters such as Gepopo, Prince Go-Go, Piet the Pot along with their fellow inhabitants of Brueghelland are informed by menacing Nekrotzar that their world will end at midnight. Musically, Ligeti fuses extremes of register and an array of timbres into the surrealist opera with an overture of car horns to a mesmerizing Passacaglia in the second act. The work is regarded as on of the most important operas of the 20th century and since its 1978 world premiere has been performed on the world’s most prestigious stages.

Further performances will take place in New York on 28th and 29th May.

• György Ligeti - Profile
• More Information on the Official New York Philharmonic Website