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    "original_url": "https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/09\/22\/arts\/music\/deutsche-oper-mittwoch-aus-licht.html?emc=edit_nn_20260923&nl=the-morning&segment_id=226928",
    "parsed_content": "AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSupported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTWith Helicopters and Dancing Camels, an Opera House Changes Its GrooveThe Deutsche Oper Berlin is staging Karlheinz Stockhausen\u2019s epic \u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d at the start of a new season and a new era.Listen \u00b7 7:14 min Share full article\u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin.Credit...Julian RoederBy Ben MillerReporting from BerlinSept. 22, 2026See more of our coverage in your search results.Encuentra m\u00e1s de nuestra cobertura en los resultados de b\u00fasqueda. Add The New York Times on GoogleAgrega The New York Times en Google By the time that Lucicamel, an intergalactic camel, takes on the job of receiving radio messages from around the universe, he has already defecated seven luminescent orbs, drunk champagne and had his hooves shined.Opera plots are often merrily madcap or implausibly melodramatic, but this space ritual in celebration of love and light could only come from the mind of Karlheinz Stockhausen. His 29-hour, seven-opera cycle \u201cLicht,\u201d has never been performed in its entirety. The sequence with the camel is from \u201cMittwoch aus Licht,\u201d which premiered Saturday at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. It is the first production of the house\u2019s first season under new artistic leadership, and only the second time the opera has been staged.In addition to dancing camels, the piece contains tremendously complex choral and instrumental writing. In its most infamous moment, a string quartet rises into the sky in individual helicopters, with video and audio beamed down into the theater below.It\u2019s a daunting task for any opera company, and sends a strong signal from Deutsche Oper\u2019s new leadership about the company\u2019s direction.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201c\u200aThe DNA of the Deutsche Oper is to be a progressive opera house that lives in its time,\u201d said Aviel Cahn, who took over the leadership this year after decades running opera houses in Belgium and Switzerland.ImageAviel Cahn, the Deutsche Oper director, wearing the new usher overshirt from the Berlin fashion and media brand 032c.Credit...Katrin Streicher for The New York TimesBerlin has three repertory opera companies, including the ornate Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Komische Oper, which under the leadership of Barrie Kosky became a runaway critical and public success. The Deutsche Oper, founded in 1912 as a bourgeois house for serious art lovers uninterested in the Staatsoper\u2019s royal pomp, later became West Berlin\u2019s main opera house when the city was divided. These days, it fills a lower percentage of its seats than the other two \u2014 just under 75 percent last season, compared with 87 at the Staatsoper and 92 at the Komische.A city\u2019s third opera house needs a clear and independent artistic profile. Cahn\u2019s decision to stage Stockhausen as his first premiere is one important signal, as are several other productions on the program. As is typical for Cahn, there will be collaborations from artists in other disciplines, including the theater director Milo Rau, the Belgian performance collective FC Bergman and the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans.The approach to repertory revivals is also changing. Last season, the Deutsche Oper performed a staggering 35 works. (For comparison, the Metropolitan Opera in New York staged 18.) Some older productions in the repertoire were shown only two or three times, with limited or no rehearsal. For his first season, Cahn has held the number of performances steady, but cut the number of works by 10.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT\u201cAudiences will understand the quality and care you give to repertory pieces,\u201d he said, \u201cand that will resonate. If you feel that it\u2019s just a routine, that\u2019s maybe not enough.\u201dImagePosters for \u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d outside the Deutsche Oper Berlin.Credit...Katrin Streicher for The New York TimesTo that end, he is making some additional big changes \u2014 including expanding the house\u2019s existing second-stage programming into a stream called Unlimited that includes poetry, dance, experimental theater, and a collaboration with the techno club Berghain \u2014 and many small ones.The house has a new a bright-red logo and graphic identity. The plaza next door has been spruced up. An underused lobby area has been converted into what Cahn calls a \u201cchill-out\u201d lounge for audience members, complete with beanbags. And the ushers\u2019 black suits have been replaced by customizable blue overshirts from the Berlin fashion and media brand 032c.\u201cIf you\u2019re coming here for the first time, it matters what kind of groove you get,\u201d Cahn said.He added that because it is \u201chard to find conductors who want to commit,\u201d he was also trying a new model for company\u2019s musical leadership. Instead of a single music director, Cahn is starting out with three principal conductors, including Titus Engel, Michele Spiotti and Maxime Pascal, who oversaw the Stockhausen premiere.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTPascal said the idea was to combine \u201cthe best of each person, to create something with inspirations coming from everywhere, in a horizontal way, and to \u201cbreak the archetype\u201d of the authoritarian, patrician music director.ImageA scene from \u201cMittwoch aus Licht,\u201d with screens showing members of a string quartet inside helicopters.Credit...Julian RoederCahn said that he would see how the new model goes and that he wasn\u2019t necessarily looking to hire a single name down the line. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have the absolutely ideal person for the job, this model is very interesting,\u201d he said.At \u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d on Saturday, the audience was typical for a Berlin opera premiere: elegantly dressed older women, some with blue hair, mingled with a younger, cooler crowd that included a bearded man in a floor-length leopard-print gown. The crowd was also dotted with Stockhausen ultras.\u201cWe\u2019re part of the cult,\u201d said Ford Hickson, who had traveled there from London with a friend for the performance. After seeing the world premiere of \u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d in Birmingham, England, in 2012, Hickson was hooked: \u201cThe music and the weirdness of it just transported me,\u201d he said.Some members of the house\u2019s more traditional audience were transported by the music \u2014 the \u201cHelicopter Quartet,\u201d especially, was greeted with riotous applause \u2014 while others were more skeptical. Bettina de la Chevallerie, from Berlin, said she was curious about new music and thought it was important to come and see what the piece was about. She said she found it \u201critualistic \u2014 and to be honest somewhat boring.\u201dA few weeks before the season\u2019s first main-stage premiere, Cahn had staged a 30-hour series of performances to inaugurate his first season. Curated by the contemporary artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, who lives near the opera house in the Charlottenburg district, it featured a costume parade created by the artists \u00c1lvaro Urbano and Petrit Halilaj that marched around the neighborhood as though the circus had come to town.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTImage\u201cIf you\u2019re coming here for the first time, it matters what kind of groove you get,\u201d Cahn said.Credit...Katrin Streicher for The New York TimesA jazz band played outside as evening turned to night. Later, inside, visitors were invited to the first of what will become a series of raves on the stage called Late Nights. (There will also be a series of parties in the lobby called Glam Nights).As they filed onto the stage, with lights pulsing and smoke pouring out of the wings, slow, throbbing electronic music, cut up with some famous opera snippets, filled the auditorium. As the night went on, the music picked up a beat and the public began to dance.\u201cThis place should be so attractive that it attracts people to come, meet and linger \u2014 whether we\u2019re doing \u2018Tosca\u2019 or \u2018Mittwoch aus Licht,\u2019\u201d Cahn said. \u201cA lot of people have an attitude that the Deutsche Oper is a little bit dusty: you know, the West Berlin bourgeoisie. This image is not what we are, not what we want to be.\u201dAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT",
    "published_at": "2026-09-22T09:00:08+00:00",
    "author_name": "Ben Miller",
    "site_name": "The New York Times",
    "section": "Music",
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    "ai_headline": "With Helicopters and Dancing Camels, an Opera House Changes Its Groove",
    "ai_simplified_title": "Deutsche Oper Berlin Stages Stockhausen's \"Mittwoch aus Licht\" for New Era",
    "ai_excerpt": "The Deutsche Oper Berlin stages Karlheinz Stockhausen\u2019s epic \u201cMittwoch aus Licht\u201d as its first production under new artistic leadership. This signals a progressive direction for the opera house, aiming to attract new audiences with experimental programming and collaborations.",
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