“Breughelland”: Subverting the Antinomy of Utopia and Dystopia

Abstract

Is György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (1974–1977/1996) a dystopian work, or rather one of utopia? Traditionally, dystopia and utopia have formed an alternative. Yet Ligeti and librettist Michael Meschke enact an intertwinement of dystopia and utopia, in a series of moves and countermoves: (1) Death threatens to eliminate all life. (2) The earth is saved from the fate of the destruction of life – “Death is dead” (II/4). (3) Yet “Breughelland” is and will remain a crude and cruel tyranny. (4) The farcical character of the whole calls into question whether any of the previous moves can be taken seriously. Ligeti's/Meschke's subversion of the antinomy of utopia and dystopia, introduced in the opening “Breughellandlied,” turns out to be in the spirit of Piet the Pot's namesake Pieter Breughel the Elder, as a closer look at his 1567 painting Het Luilekkerland, an inspiration already to de Ghelderode, reveals. The irritating role thus assigned to consumption, however, seems to trivially lose all ambiguity through the words of the opera's final stanza. While this is a weighty objection to the reading proposed here, the conclusion attempts to outline a rejoinder to it.