Second creation of the season at the Paris Opera (after A Quiet Place by Leonard Bernstein, column from March 14, 2022), Game over by György Kurtag is the only opera (so far!) by an almost centenarian. It is presented in a beautiful staging by Pierre Adui with four remarkable singers. Above all, he is very faithful to the spirit of Samuel Beckett.
The first opera of a nonagenarian
We mentioned (article of last April 4 on Xenakis) this series of composers whose centenary we celebrate, have celebrated and will celebrate these days, Xenakis therefore, Boulez, Berio, etc. Kurtag is one of them. The Hungarian was born in 1926. We therefore hope to see him celebrate his 100th birthday alive. And, remarkable intuition, he waited until he was ninety to write Game over, even if this opera obviously had a long gestation. But Kurtag has been writing for the voice for a long time, and in various languages, Hungarian of course, Russian, German, English, inspired (these are cycles of melody with orchestra, instrumental ensemble, piano) by the great poets of these various dialects. In recent years (but perhaps for 30 years) it is towards French prosody that he has turned – let us also remind those who do not know that Beckett, although Irish, wrote some of its major pieces in our language.
In the program the names of Debussy and Poulenc are mentioned. We admit that we have not always realized this. In any case, French prose has been the subject of a very fine study by Kurtag, we can attest to that.
A work to music… very contemporary
The premiere of Game over took place in November 2018 at La Scala in Milan (Kurtag was therefore 92 years old) in this same staging by Pierre Audi who is coming to Paris today, and with the same singers. Beyond music and singing, we were personally passionate about Audi’s work, which could, without changing anything, turn into a theater production, replacing singers with actors. No, of course, that Kurtag’s work is uninteresting, quite the contrary. But let’s warn: it will first delight those who enter contemporary music on a level footing – the very music which, for 70 years has acted as Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, even if, in this case, the Ancients are not always wrong. We heard a few comments (not necessarily representative, but we came across those!) who expressed their dismay in the face of a music that must be tamed, especially since it is based on an author whose desperate humor, so particular , is fully illustrated here for two hours. And we know, alas! that opera lovers – we had already felt it during the satin slipper (chronicle of May 23, 2021) – are not necessarily theater lovers…
Hilary Summers (Nell) and Leonardo Cortellazzi (Nagg) in their drums. On the right Frode Olsen (Hamm) C) Sébastien Mathé, Opéra national de Paris
Superbly written for alloys of instruments in the form of sound drops – the influence of a Webern but also of those works which made Kurtag best known, the Jatekok (Games)very brief pieces written for young piano students, who today number more than a hundred, with, of course, this folk inspiration (also) that one finds in Hungarian composers, Bartok, Kodaly or Ligeti-, with sometimes unexpected touches, an accordion tune, numerous percussions and, of course, the excellent Hungarian instrument, the cimbalom, Kurtag’s music, in a very well written atonal dimension, finds in Beckett’s collected phrases a counterpoint perfect voice.
Very beautiful decor in a night at the end of the world
Game over is undoubtedly the least known of the… three most famous pieces by Beckett, behind Waiting for Godot and Oh! the good days. But it is the atmosphere of Godot that we find, in the superb decor – an enormous house painted white, with unfinished roughcast, in the middle of a kind of night at the end of the world – designed by Christof Hetzer and beautifully animated (because all of this is very static) by the lights and especially the shadows (projected on the house without, sometimes, the character being on stage) by Urs Schönebaum. A frozen universe, where the characters talk, don’t stop talking to deceive their immobility, their absence of destiny, their aging in place… But the title Game over, contrary to Godot where the vagabonds, Vladimir and Estragon, kept, at the end, a slim hope that Godot finally arrives, says the fate of the characters well.
They are four, as in Godot
They are therefore four, as in Godot: Hamm, a tyrant, still middle-aged but who, on a deck chair which is perhaps a wheelchair, does not take off his dark glasses -blind?- with even a scarf (perhaps bloody? ) which he wears at the beginning and which he will put back on at the end -waiting for death? All these questions in the form of enigmas which are with Beckett and will of course remain unresolved. Like the final immobility of Clov, the restless, lame and perhaps scapegoating “servant”, who gave Hamm medicine but now there are no more drugs: Clov and his dog – a stuffed dog, on wheels, a very nice idea for staging – will they leave? Will they be leaving alone?
Nagg (Frode Olsen) and Clov (Leigh Melrose) C) Sébastien Mathé, OnP
Leaving Hamm alone. Because, we understand, but it’s an admirable ellipsis and of the play and of the opera, Hamm’s parents, Nell and Nagg, are dead. They who offered us a long magnificent scene, of tenderness, sweetness and regret, coming out of two drums, only their heads (in the manner of Winnie at the end ofOh! the good days) recounting their memories. Then Nell, the woman (moving contralto by Hilary Summers, whose vibrato adds to the empathy) will disappear, Hamm will tell a story without head or tail to Nagg who has come out, again, a little annoyed, from his underground (magnificent Leonardo Cortelazzi , high tenor and joyful despite his miserable life) And then…
The tasty text of an… Irishman
So Nagg will be left alone. We took great pleasure in ALSO hearing Beckett’s text and, we repeat, this staging could be used without change in the theater, rendering very well the despair tinged with terrible humor which is the very spirit of Beckett. Including in this string of little used words which is the greed of a foreign to our language but having learned it with such greed that his Nobel will reward a bilingual work: Bernic! Go back to your orgies… The fun is over. It’s badass. Not to mention those sentences of an absurdity so different from that, for example, of an Ionesco: exchange of Nell and Nagg –Do you believe in the future life? – Mine always has been.
Four “debuts” at the Paris Opera
We were obviously a little surprised to see, for an opera in French… theater, a cast where no one is French. But reassured very quickly by the work provided on the prosody on the part of singers, three of whom (thus little known) are making their debut at the National Opera. In this case the three men: the Italian Cortellazzi, the excellent English baritone, Leigh Melrose, a very moving Clov who we constantly wonder if he will not either burst into tears or kill everyone (and Melrose preserves this ambiguity there)
Nagg (Frode Olsen) and the shadow of Clov (Leigh Melrose) C) Sébastien Mathé, Opéra national de Paris
We saved for last the formidable Norwegian bass Frode Olsen, who plays the crushing role of Hamm, with a cold (Scandinavian!) but very understandable accent which makes the words he speaks all the more “exotic”. It is also necessary to have a very great talent as an actor to give, in addition to the right colors of the vocality of the role, as much relief to a character seated for two hours, whose eyes you cannot see and who therefore expresses himself through the rest of the body without ever missing naturalness.
Very applauded finally Markus Stenz, the German conductor who makes his debut in front of an orchestra whose instrumental quality he emphasizes without ever losing sight of the singers to whom he gives all the entries. Sign of the complicity that must have been established with the musicians of the orchestra from which he draws the best, they, instead, as often, of deserting the pit as soon as the last note heard, remained there, standing, to watch Stenz take the stage and take their share of his success. Worthy, that evening, end of the operatic game which will continue for a few more days!
Game over by György Kurtag, direction by Pierre Audi, musical direction by Markus Stenz. Opéra-Garnier, Paris, May 10, 13, 14, 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m.