Fin de partie

Trapped in no man's land

Four people await the end times in a house by the sea: One of them is Hamm, an elderly blind man in a wheelchair. Another is Clov, his servant, who is unable to sit. And then there are Nagg and Nell, Hamm's elderly parents, who lost their legs in a cycling accident and are now stuck in separate rubbish bins . Outside there is nothing.

In complete isolation, they are confronted with their fears, manias and insecurities. As they wait for their claustrophobic, static situation to end, tension builds between them.

The momentous work of a lifetime

Fiona Maddox, The Guardian

The one Beckett has been waiting for

Hungarian György Kurtág is one of the world's greatest living composers, and his Fin de partie is the result of an entire life’s work. At the age of 91, he completed his first and only opera after eight years of intense immersion in Beckett’s Endgame from 1957.

The Nobel laureate’s existential chamber play suits Kurtág's expression perfectly: The music is at times sparse, yet deeply expressive – with a quivering tension between dark humour and veiled beauty.

In The New Yorker, Alex Ross wrote that the opera “seems the equal of the celebrated text on which it is based. Beckett has been waiting for Kurtág all this time.”

The singers Kurtág created the music around

Fin de partie was commissioned by La Scala, where it premiered in 2018. The premiere cast from Milan is also on stage in Bjørvika: Frode Olsen, Leigh Melrose, Hilary Summers and Leonardo Cortellazzi, who helped shape the music together with Kurtág himself.

The Norwegian National Opera Orchestra is the fifth character on stage in this concert version. The subtext – all that remains unsaid – is expressed in their music, under Edward Gardner’s musical direction.

The singers Kurtág created the music around 

Fin de partie was a commissioned work from La Scala, where it premiered in 2018. The premiere cast from Milan will also be on stage in Bjørvika: Frode Olsen, Leigh Melrose, Hilary Summers and Leonardo Cortellazzi, who helped shape the music together with Kurtág himself. 

The Norwegian National Opera Orchestra is the fifth character on stage in this concert version. The subtext, i.e. that which is not spoken, is expressed in their music under the musical direction of Edward Gardner.