Top circus act: Donnerstag aus Licht with Le Balcon
Donnerstag aus Licht
Maxime Pascal, Le Balcon and London Sinfonietta
Royal Festival Hall
Rear Stalls PP36, £25
21 May 2019
Southbank page
The world seems to teem with talented people. Where on earth could you expect to find someone who is not only a professional trombonist but a trombonist who can play lengthy tracts of Stockhausen from memory while tap-dancing? Stockhausen asks and Le Balcon answers, all performers, not just the tap-dancing ones, mastering the many challenges presented by Donnerstag with such aplomb that I wonder if the great many himself might even have felt a little disappointed.
That’s my assumption, that Stockhausen wanted Donnerstag to be challenging, just as Parsifal wouldn’t have the effect it does if it were all done and dusted in half an hour. With my retrograde brain the cliff faces of Wagner are rather more assailable than some of the dauntingly sheer walls presented in Donnerstag, and the gymnastic virtuosity of Le Balcon can only give so many leg-ups – so maybe he’d have forgiven them after all.
Which is a long way of saying I’m glad to have seen Donnerstag aus Licht and am also sanguine at the idea of not seeing it for another 35 years. That seems about the right and proper period. To me it’s primarily a spectacle, for the amazingness of human ingenuity that such a thing exists, and for the parade ground it presents of people even more talented than I thought possible. What else did I take from it? I’m not so sure, despite a sweetly earnest production by Benjamin Lazal complete with helpful attempts at illustrative video projections by Yann Chapotel.
In a bitchy way I wonder if a greater cumulative effect might have been achieved were Le Balcon joined by musicians of a similar calibre, rather than London Sinfonietta and the New London Chamber Choir, who felt very much needs-must stand-ins to raise the body count to minimum levels required. Would a complete group of performers of the level of brilliance and intent of the Balcon performers coagulate Donnerstag into something more than a performance? Or would it be the same circus but more so? Maybe I’ll find out in another generation.
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