On Substack, an essay on György Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre and its (semi-)staging at this year’s Musikfest Berlin. The link is here.Also in the essay (among others), an operatic cast of: Boulez, Berio, Ghelderode, Henze, Schönberg, Oliveros, Nono, Monk, Pousseur, Zimmermann.Subscribers of all kinds—but especially paying!—are welcomed. Here’s a quick preview: If love, even in its triumph, is sad rather than happy, what of the laughter that—far more than love—characterises this opera? Does it express joy, relief, release, or in itself a reaction to and of fear? Laughter, this escape valve and this trap, escapes easy definition. A reviewer...