Fin de partie
György Kurtág’s opera in concert version
Showings and tickets
Showings and tickets
Thursday, 18/09
Saturday, 20/09
The sound of life in checkmate
Four characters await the end of days in a house by the sea: Hamm, an elderly, blind man in a wheelchair; Clov, his servant, who cannot sit; and Nagg and Nell, Hamm’s aged parents, who lost their legs in a bicycle accident and now sit confined in separate dustbins. Outside, there is nothing.
In complete isolation, they are confronted with their fears, compulsions, and uncertainties. As they wait for the claustrophobic, static situation to end, the tension between them grows.
Hungarian composer György Kurtág completed Fin de partie at the age of 91 – his first and only opera, the result of eight years of intense immersion in Beckett’s Endgame. An opera of waiting, helplessness, and decay, where music and text collide in fragments across a merciless no-man’s-land.
Kurtág’s musical language mirrors the rhythm, darkness, and irony of the text. Though written for full orchestra – performed here by the Opera Orchestra under the baton of Edward Gardner in a concert version – he often employs small instrumental groups, creating a concentrated sound world, almost like chamber music. The vocal lines move in the borderland between speech and song. Long, silent pauses alternate with sharp, resonant outbursts that slice through the space.
Was Kurtág the one Beckett was waiting for?
Facts
- György Kurtág’s opera Fin de partie is performed in a concert version, without scenic staging. It is based on Samuel Beckett’s play Endgame (1957).
- When Beckett wrote Endgame, he worked musically and with millimetre precision on rhythm, pauses, and silence.
- The opera premiered at La Scala in Milan in 2018. Experience it in Oslo with the same singers who helped shape the music together with Kurtág during its creation.
- If you are a Beckett enthusiast, you can also experience For Reasons Unknown, a new work by Peder Barratt-Due performed by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra during Ultima 2025.
Frode Olsen. Photo: Adam Olsson
Edward Gardner. Photo: Agnete Brun
György Kurtág. Photo: Lenke Szilágyi
Music by
- György Kurtág
Libretto
- György Kurtág, based on the play by Samuel Beckett
Featuring
- Frode Olsen – Hamm
- Leigh Melrose – Clov, Hamm's servant
- Hilary Summers – Nell, Hamm's mother
- Leonardo Cortellazzi – Nagg, Hamm's father
- Norwegian National Opera Orchestra
Musical Direction
- Edward Gardner
Concert Direction
- Gudrun Elisabeth Glette
In collaboration with
- Den Norske Opera & Ballett
