Music in the Belly

In 1975, Karlheinz Stockhausen composed an enigmatic work for Percussions de Strasbourg. The score contained more stage directions than music, consisting of twelve melodies linked to the signs of the zodiac that played from music boxes built by the composer himself. It was his daughter Julika who inspired him to write the opera when, at the age of two, she discovered small noises inside herself, feeling her stomach growl: 'You have music in your stomach,' her father told her. A few years later, he woke up one morning after dreaming about the opera and committed it to paper. Almost fifty years after the opera's first performance, the ensemble Percussions de Strasbourg asked Simon Steen-Andersen to develop a new interpretation and staging. The Danish artist was guided by one simple question: what would Music in the Belly have looked and sounded like in Stockhausen's dream, even before he woke up?