Prom 43: Kurtág - 'Endgame' ('Fin de partie'), BBC SSO, Thurs. 17 Aug. 2023

[bluestateprommer]

Thursday 17 August 2023
19:30
Royal Albert Hall

György Kurtág: Fin de partie (Endgame)
(full original title: Samuel Beckett: Fin de partie: scènes et monologues, opéra en un acte)
(semi-staged, sung in French, with English surtitles; UK premiere)

Frode Olsen (Hamm)
Morgan Moody (Clov; Proms debut artist)
Hilary Summers (Nell)
Leonardo Cortellazzi (Nagg; Proms debut artist)

BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor

https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ez59hn

https://www.royalalberthall.com/tickets/proms/bbc-proms-2023/prom-43-gyoergy-kurtag-endgame/

[french frank]

Thursday, 17th August, 19.30:

" ‘Beckett has been waiting for Kurtág all this time,’ wrote The New Yorker after the triumphant La Scala premiere of György Kurtág’s Endgame (Fin de partie) in 2018. Subsequently named one of the greatest operas of the century by The Guardian, Kurtág’s ‘unforgettable’ adaption of Samuel Beckett’s absurdist play has its highly anticipated UK premiere.

"The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra is led by its Chief Conductor Ryan Wigglesworth. " [RAH website]

[bluestateprommer]

Link to the French libretto of Fin de partie, c/o La Scala (amazing that this link still works almost 5 years on), for anyone who wants it:

https://static.teatroallascala.org/static/upload/lib/libretto_2018_findepartie.pdf

[edashtav]

What an event: just the ticket for The Proms! Many thanks to Ryan Wigglesworth, Tom Service and everyone in the BBC who conspired to engineer this ‘happening’. Were I fit, I’d have been in the RAH. Circumstances mean that I must listen to it in ‘chunks’. Part 1 was the English Prologue and the subsequent half an hour. Wondrously scored, sung and played with confidence and precision, it was splendid!

To be continued…

[Master Jacques]

A superb evening. I'm glad to have been there (just finished writing the event up) and look forward to listening again. There is so much to say about this last oozing from the orchard of old-style European High Art, from one of its last surviving great practitioners. Highly recommended!

[Gargoyle]

A superb evening. I'm glad to have been there (just finished writing the event up) and look forward to listening again. There is so much to say about this last oozing from the orchard of old-style European High Art, from one of its last surviving great practitioners. Highly recommended!

yes, a great event and a bit of a surprise to have it programmed. where is your write up going to be published, I'd like to read it?

[Master Jacques]

yes, a great event and a bit of a surprise to have it programmed. where is your write up going to be published, I'd like to read it?

Thank you, Gargoyle. It's for Opera, next issue (which comes out in early September). A great event indeed. Although Milan, Amsterdam, Paris (and soon New York) have had the full stage production (by Pierre Audi), I honestly don't think we missed much by having it in concert, which enabled us to appreciate Kurtág's extraordinary orchestra in plain sight.

[edashtav]

Thank you, Gargoyle. It's for Opera, next issue (which comes out in early September). A great event indeed. Although Milan, Amsterdam, Paris (and soon New York) have had the full stage production (by Pierre Audi), I honestly don't think we missed much by having it in concert, which enabled us to appreciate Kurtág's extraordinary orchestra in plain sight.

It’s very helpful to get your assurance that those in the RAH lost little in terms of staging but gained by seeing Kurtag’s idiosyncratic ensemble and orchestra. I continue to feel very satIsfied by the BBC SOUNDS broadcast. Let’s hope we can encourage more FOR3 Boarders to dip into this wonderful evening: it’s so full of vivid experiences that it contains ‘something for everyone’. Oh dear, I’ve made it sound eclectic which it isn’t. Neither is is a work of a kleptomaniac. I cannot classify it- it’s original and unique.

Good to hear jt will get a full review in Opera.

[Beresford]

... There is so much to say about this last oozing from the orchard of old-style European High Art, from one of its last surviving great practitioners.

"Last oozing" doesn't sound complementary, but maybe it is. Why "last"? Is the old-style referring to Beckett or Kurtag? Does nobody create European High Art anymore, and what has taken it's place, other than stuff about slavery, gender, etc?
I hope to be pleased when Rebecca Saunders' opera comes out. Will that be more oozing do you think?

[Master Jacques]

"Last oozing" doesn't sound complementary, but maybe it is. Why "last"? Is the old-style referring to Beckett or Kurtag? Does nobody create European High Art anymore, and what has taken it's place, other than stuff about slavery, gender, etc?
I hope to be pleased when Rebecca Saunders' opera comes out. Will that be more oozing do you think?

I was thinking of Keats's Ode to Autumn when "oozing" came to mind, so it was certainly meant to be complimentary!

"Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours"

The word does have an air of dissolution about it, for sure.

When Beckett wrote Endgame (actually before Godot, though staged later) he was creating a theatrical revolution, although of course one of his constant themes is that Western Civilisation is clapped out. Kurtág's opera is certainly a reveille for the West. Funnily enough, my Opera review actually addresses that very question: the replacement of 'high art' by music which has to justify itself socially.

The trouble with Darmstadt-style compositions written in 2023, is that they can simply seem comfortable, nostalgic atavism. Kurtág at 97 (92 when Endgame came out) is old enough, and sage enough, not to fall into that particular trap. I share your respect for Saunders, by the way.

[Gargoyle]

Thank you, Gargoyle. It's for Opera, next issue (which comes out in early September). A great event indeed. Although Milan, Amsterdam, Paris (and soon New York) have had the full stage production (by Pierre Audi), I honestly don't think we missed much by having it in concert, which enabled us to appreciate Kurtág's extraordinary orchestra in plain sight.

thanks!

[Brixton Dave]

I was at the Royal Albert Hall performance - and just listened again on BBC Sounds.
It was commendable the Proms put it on. In the RAH we had surtitles provided by the Dutch National Opera.
Listening on BBC Sounds - equivalent to live Radio 3 - there were no clues as to what was going on - notorious rubbish bins included.
I was given a print-out of the libretto by a friend last night. This was from a link on Wikipedia to La Scala, who did the premiere in 2018. Obviously the La Scala libretto is in French and Italian only.
Deems a bit pathetic actually that the BBC put this on with no ancillary support. As I said in the RAH there were surtitles, albeit on loan from Dutch Opera. The only available libretto (none was in the £6 programme) is only in French/Italian.

I guess the BBC sounds recording will disappear in 30 days. There were no TV cameras to record this signature event.

Of course I may be barking up the wrong tree here - possibly the Estate of Samuel Beckett does not allow free dissemination of texts and libretti.
I see some kind soul has put up a version of "Endgame" on YouTube with Norman Beaton and Charley Drake in English.
Would that the BBC could have at least allowed us to download a translation of the libretto whilst listening to their 2 hour + tribute to the operatic theatre of the absurd.

If Dutch National Opera have the rights maybe they will produce a DVD?

[RichardB]

Seeing these responses I wonder whether this is the same piece I heard. To me it seems like a travesty of Beckett's work, but perhaps that wouldn't matter so much if it weren't so musically uninteresting. Admittedly I don't have that much time for Kurtág's music in general, with one or two exceptions. It's a truism to say that Beckett's writing can't be set to music, but I haven't yet come across very many counterexamples, and this is certainly not one of them.

But Master Jacques, it is simply not true that Beckett wrote Endgame before Godot.

[Master Jacques]

But Master Jacques, it is simply not true that Beckett wrote Endgame before Godot.

I was surprised by this, too - but it appears to be true that he was at least working on it earlier, an idea which was repeated on Thursday.

As to the Kurtág, I think we have to try to forget the consummate glories of the original play while we're listening to his 'Scenes and Monologues', which does something different, rebalancing Beckett towards Nell and Nagg. (And it certainly helps, if we happen to be sympathetic to his music.)

[RichardB]

I was surprised by this, too - but it appears to be true that he was at least working on it earlier, an idea which was repeated on Thursday.

I really don't think so. Beckett's biographer James Knowlson clearly states that Endgame was begun in 1954, whereas Godot was completed in 1949. I can't find any reference to the former having been begun in the 1940s.