Fin de partie (opera)

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Opera dates
Title: Fin de partie
Shape: Opera in one act
Original language: French
Music: György Kurtág
Libretto : György Kurtág
Literary source: Samuel Beckett : Endgame
Premiere: 15th November 2018
Place of premiere: Teatro alla Scala , Milan
Playing time: about 2 hours
Place and time of the action: a house by the sea
people

Fin de partie: scènes et monologues, opéra en un acte is an opera in one act by György Kurtág (music and libretto ) based on Samuel Beckett's drama Endspiel . It premiered on November 15, 2018 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

action

Four people, all of whom are physically restricted in different ways, live trapped in an empty dark room. Hamm is blind and dependent on a wheelchair. His servant Clov, on the other hand, can no longer sit. Hamm's elderly parents Nagg and Nell have lost their legs and live in garbage cans. Living together is difficult: Nell can't stand his parents chattering, and Nell detests Nagg. Clov takes care of the others in a sarcastic way. Everyone is just waiting for an end to this depressing situation. Nell dies. Hamm dismisses Clov from his service and withdraws from the world under a sheet.

The opera is divided into the following scenes:

1. Prologue I. It is completely dark.

Prologue II - "Roundelay" ('Rundgesang'). Nell sings Beckett's poem "on all that strand at end of day", a memory of footsteps as the only sound on a beach.

2. Clov's pantomime. Clov and Hamm appear. Clov has problems with his legs and makes awkward repetitive movements like those in his usual household chores. Occasionally he laughs nervously.

3. Clov's first monologue. Clov discovers or hopes that this unbearable situation will soon be over.

4. Hamm's first monologue. Hamm also thinks about his misery. He wonders if his parents are suffering as much from the situation as he is. Despite his exhaustion, he feels unable to put an end to it all.

5. "Poubelle" ('garbage can'). Nagg knocks on the lid of the other garbage can until Nell looks out. He asks her to kiss him, but the attempt fails like every day. Both suffer from their physical ailments. Nell has run out of teeth and both of them can barely see or hear anything. They briefly remember their bicycle accident in the Ardennes , in which they lost their legs, and a boat trip on Lake Como . That's the only thing they can laugh about. Hamm feels disturbed by the chatter of the two and asks Clov to throw the garbage cans into the sea with his parents. When the servant goes to the garbage cans, he discovers that Nell has no pulse. She just mumbles the words "so white".

Song: "Le monde et le pantalon" ('The world and the pants'). Nagg tells the story of the British and the tailor who does not get his pants ready in three months, "Poldy Bloom singing a Jewish-Irish-Scottish ballad" after Ulysses by James Joyce . When the Englishman angrily points out that God created the world in six days, the tailor replies that he should take a look at the world (contemptuous gesture) and his trousers (loving gesture). Hamm angrily interrupts Nagg and the old man withdraws into his bin. Clov examines Nell's pulse again, but sees no improvement.

6. story. Now Hamm wants to tell a story. Since Clov doesn't feel like it, Nagg should play the listener. However, it must first be woken up and then asks for a candy. Hamm promises to give him one later. He says that a long time ago at Christmas a father asked him for bread for his son. He (Hamm) then took the man into his service. According to the story, Nagg demands more and more vehemently for his reward. Clov interrupts the conversation because he saw a rat in the kitchen. Hamm claims there are no more sweets.

7. Nagg's monologue. Nagg remembers Hamm's childhood. At that time his son still needed him. He withdraws into his garbage can and closes the lid.

8. Hamm's penultimate monologue. Hamm ponders his difficulties in dealing with other people.

9. Hamm and Clov's dialogue. Hamm asks Clov for a sedative. However, there is nothing left.

10. “C'est fini, Clov” and Clovs Vaudeville . Hamm believes the end is near. He tells Clov that he no longer needs his services. Before he left, Clov should tell him a few words that he would remember later. Hamm notices that Clov spoke to him for the first time before he left. Clov sings a vaudeville about a bird set free to fly to its owner's lover.

11. Clov's last monologue. Clov tells Hamm that he never understood the importance of friendship. Now he feels too old to develop new habits. His routine will never change until the end.

12. Transition to the finals. When Clov is on his way, Hamm thanks him. Clov thanks you too. Hamm asks him to cover him with a sheet as the last act.

13. Hamm's last monologue. In the meantime Clov has put on his coat and hat and is standing motionless in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Hamm. He is lost in thoughts and memories and finally realizes that he is alone.

The end of the novel. Hamm has to play the final alone.

14th epilogue.

layout

The opera requires a large orchestra of 60 players. Nevertheless, mostly only a minimal cast is used. There are only occasional short orchestral interludes. The sound is dominated by lower instruments such as alto and bass flute, English horn , contrabassoon or tuba , tuned percussion instruments as well as a celesta , a pianino played continuously with a mute , a piano and a cymbalom . The vocal parts resemble extended recitatives with only rare lyrical passages. Andrew Clements compared this in his Guardian review with Claudio Monteverdi's dramatic directness and the compact instrumentation with Anton Webern's compositional style . He found the tonal minimalism, against which the few emotional outbursts particularly stand out, compelling. Christian Wildhagen of the NZZ reminded the vocal style of Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and Olivier Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise .

Kurtág's music is based precisely on the emotional content of the text, with the level of detail reaching down to individual syllables and sounds. In his review for TheaterMagazin , Albrecht Thiemann called the Nell's Roundelay "dabbed into the silence" in the prologue by trombones, cimbalon, harp, pianino, piano and percussion as a "pointillist audio image of futility [...] made of dreamily groping, quietly breathing pastel tones" . For Clov's subsequent pantomime, which is only minimally orchestrated, the tempo is not fixed. In the trash can scene there is a short comical giggle duet by Nell and Nagg. The consistent structure of motifs is difficult to identify when listening.

Work history

György Kurtág's only opera Fin de partie was commissioned by the Teatro alla Scala Milan and its artistic director Alexander Pereira . He worked on the composition from 2010 to 2017, after having dealt with the material for several decades. Kurtág had been deeply impressed by Samuel Beckett's drama Endspiel since he saw it in Paris in 1957, the year it was premiered. According to his own statement, he had initially hardly understood anything about the play, but then bought a text edition that, together with that of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, became his “Bible”. Due to the length of time it was written, the planned premiere location changed from Zurich to Salzburg and finally to Milan, analogous to the various places where Pereira worked.

Kurtág set Beckett's drama verbatim. Its libretto version uses around 60 percent of the text. He divided the work into short scenes and added Beckett's poem "Roundelay" ('Rundgesang') from the 1970s as a prologue.

The world premiere at the Teatro alla Scala on November 15, 2018 was conducted by Markus Stenz . The production came from Pierre Audi , the stage and costumes from Christof Hetzer and the lighting design from Urs Schönebaum . The singers were Leonardo Cortellazzi (Nagg), Hilary Summers (Nell), Frode Olsen (Hamm) and Leigh Melrose (Clov). It was a co-production with De Nationale Opera Amsterdam. Although some spectators were overwhelmed by the work and left the hall prematurely, there was loud applause from the great majority. The production received excellent reviews, was voted “World Premiere of the Year” by a large margin in the critics' survey by Opernwelt magazine , and was named best world premiere at the 2019 International Opera Awards .

Even after the premiere, the then 92-year-old composer did not consider the work to be complete. He therefore referred to the listed score as a first, preliminary version, a "versione non definitiva".

Recordings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Gerhard R. Koch : Speaking speechless. In: Opernwelt Jahrbuch 2019, p. 38.
  2. ↑ a b c Fiona Maddocks: Fin de partie review - Kurtág's thrilling endgame. In: The Guardian , November 24, 2018, accessed November 28, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c Andrew Clements: Fin de Partie review - Kurtág's compelling musical testament. In: The Guardian , November 19, 2018.
  4. ^ A b c Christian Wildhagen: Kurtág premiere at the Scala: All poetry comes from the bin. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , November 16, 2018, accessed on November 28, 2019.
  5. ^ A b Albrecht Thiemann: Milan: Kurtág “Fin de partie”. Review of the premiere. In: Das TheaterMagazin, 1/2019, accessed on November 28, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b Information on the world premiere at the Teatro alla Scala Milan ( Memento from May 6, 2019 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. ↑ Michael Ernst: “Everything is out” - György Kurtág's opera “Fin de partie” premiered at La Scala in Milan. In: Neue Musikzeitung , November 16, 2018, accessed on November 29, 2019.
  8. ↑ 2019 Opera Awards , accessed November 28, 2019.
  9. ↑ Information on the radio broadcast on December 7, 2018 on SWR2 , accessed on November 28, 2019.