"le grand macabre" was premiered in stockholm on 12 april 1978 and has received more than 30 productions . in preparation for a 1997 production at the salzburg festival, ligeti made substantial revisions to the opera in 1996, tightening the structure by means of cuts in scenes 2 and 4, setting some of the originally spoken passages to music and removing others altogether . the revised version was premiered in salzburg on 28 july 1997, in a production directed by peter sellars . the composer was annoyed by sellars's production, which opposed ligeti's desire for ambiguity by explicitly depicting an apocalypse set in the framework of the chernobyl disaster .