György Kurtág, Fin de partie (2018)

Here's an opera based on Samuel Beckett's play, known in English as Endgame.  But it was originally written in French, so it makes sense for the opera to follow suit.  Whether a Beckett opera makes sense full stop...well, it's open to debate!  Certainly not a "normal" opera.  His aesthetic seems rather defiantly anti-operatic.  But here it is.  It's interesting to note also that this is Kurtág's first opera; he worked on it for eight years and completed it at the age of ninety-one.  That's the kind of dedication we're looking for!

So, yes.  Like Waiting for Godot, Endgame doesn't have much of a plot, per se.  There's a wheelchair-bound blind man, Hamm, and his attendant, Clov.  And there are Hamm's parents Nell and Nagg, who are stuck in trashcans for some reason.  And they babble incessantly at each other, going round and round in circles, all sort of barely tolerating each other.  And also, apparently it's the end of the world.  In the end, Clov resolves to leave Hamm but then doesn't.  Yup, that sounds like Beckett all right.  I actually read the play back in university, though naturally I don't remember it too well.

As for this opera, I think it, and this world premiere production in particular (at La Scala!) (exclusively on Medici for now, I think), is probably the best possible version of itself.  The grimy production seems dead-on, and all four singers give it their all and absolutely kill it.  I can hardly decide who's "best" but Frode Olsen as Hamm--the biggest role by some margin--might be it.  It's funny, because after never having seen him, I've now seen him in back-to-back operas: he had a smallish role as the Roman governor in Theodora.  He was effective there, and he is here too (and he is extremely NOT the Frode Olsen who comes up first when you google his name, a soccer player who, wikipedia matter-of-factly informs us, "was convicted to 7 months in prison for having sexual intercourse with his then 15 year old niece").  But I also kinda love Leigh Melrose as Clov; he somehow makes the character more sympathetic than you'd think possible.

And yet, sad to say, I ultimately admired this way more than I liked it (though, in case it's not clear, let me note that I admired it A LOT).  The music is...well, kind of the music one would envision accompanying Beckett: sort of clanking stuff, though not wholly unmelodic, mainly staying in the background.  It's not unpleasant, but it's hard to imagine just listening to the score here.  And watching the characters go 'round and 'round to it gets kind of boring, I'm not gonna lie to you.  Supposedly it includes about sixty percent of the dialogue from the play; I read an article that said that Kurtág was thinking of expanding it, but crikey man--is that truly necessary?  I think you've already well and truly made your point.