In chess jargon, an endgame marks the final stage of a match, when there are only a few pieces left on the board. It is not always apparent when the endgame begins – but when it does, the number of moves available to each player is generally more limited than it was before, making this part of the game more fixed. In one of Samuel Beckett’s most famous works, Endgame comes to indicate the last stage of the characters’ lives, caught at a moment of suspension and waiting. Composed in his 80s and first performed in his 90s, György Kurtág’s adaptation of Beckett’s play is itself one more endgame, his first opera and swan song at once. It is somehow logical, then, that the Staatsoper Berlin would stage a new production of Fin de partie at the start of the new year, when ends and beginnings are on everyone’s mind.
At their core, both Endgame and Fin de partie are static pieces of theatre. Stagnation and the trickling of time are not just stylistic devices, but the very themes of each work. The physical disability of most of the characters reflects an all-round immobility, which translates into self-aware, impatient resignation. One of director Johannes Erath’s priorities was not to let the production become inert, trying to avert the risk of a ‘concert-version’ effect.
In order to do so, Erath envisioned a busy setting divided into multiple interconnected spaces. At the beginning, the audience is invited to focus on the proscenium, where Nell appears on top of a heap of debris to recite the first words of the opera – Beckett’s poem Roundelay. Right behind her, a dark wall almost completely separates her from the background, if not for a central opening which connects the two sections. The upstage area recreates the interiors of the family home, where Hamm and his domestic Clov coexist (for lack of a better word).
This multilevel staging is further animated by projections, both on the walls of the house and on the partitioning panel. Doubling the characters or visualising scenes from the past, these images contribute to the sense of temporal haze which pervades the piece. A major change of scenery at the end of the opera replaces the domestic setting with a bulky, toppled-over Ferris wheel, foregrounding an underlying element of Erath’s production – its absurdist, circus-like streak. Fittingly, logic was halted on stage as much as it is in the text and in the score, while maintaining visual appeal thanks to Olaf Freese’s lighting and Bibi Abel’s videos.
Ever since Fin de partie premiered in 2018, critics pointed out how Kurtág – known for his miniature pieces of condensed depth – integrated the large-scale demands of opera into his idiom, creating a work that’s testimony both to his own tradition and to that of a now-past vanguard. The score of Fin de partie is a fragmented one, where voices on stage and voices from the orchestra are intertwined, often doubling and following one another. Short utterances prevail over extended forms, with rhythm being a constant, multiform driving force.
Left to play with – or against? – one another, the four soloists engage in an alienating game of killing time and reminiscing. Paradoxically, the only thing that unites them is their isolation, much like inmates of the same prison. There is hardly any moment when their vocal lines meet or overlap, which makes the opera into a series of splintered, recitativo-style monologues. At the centre of this web of unravelled filaments, Laurent Naouri’s Hamm was the most domineering, thanks to a deep baritone which proved agile in some brief melismatic sections. As his counterpart, Bo Skovhus also sang Clov with a full baritone, but provided it with a lighter edge that accentuated the contrast between the two personalities and their power relations. Stephan Rügamer exhibited an easy tenor, appropriate for Nagg’s jocular demeanour, while due to her short part Dalia Schaechter’s Nell mostly left an impression with her opening reciting of Roundelay.
Conductor Alexander Soddy readily adapted to the fractured speech, supporting the singers with pliant phrasing and a rich instrumental palette. Overall, Kurtág’s orchestration favours the low register, with an emphasis on brass and tuned percussion. Soddy brought out the internal variety of such timbral concoctions, whose full, dark colours mixed with the light sound of the occasional flute or strings. Through these blends, Kurtág’s harmonies – an essential component of his characterisation – were allowed to suffuse and tinge each moment of the opera.
