Morton Feldman / Samuel Beckett: Neither

When Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett met for the first time in Berlin in 1976, they soon agreed on their dislike of opera. Feldman was not exactly sure what he wanted from Beckett, and referred to something aloft, something pending. Beckett jotted down a few words and promised to develop them later. While waiting for the text, Feldman began with the composition, finally receiving a brief letter from Beckett with ten lines of text: an abstract construct of 87 words entitled Neither.

Morton Feldman’s Neither can be read as an attempt to redefine the genre of opera beyond traditional models, making it yet another unique work of twentieth century opera presented in the program of Ruhrtriennale. Neither’s music moves with delicate nuances and changing states. Rhythmic textures that overlap like shadows keep the music aloft, generating a sense of constant anxiety. The lone soprano voice amplifies this impression with its repetitions and miniature series of pitches, allowing Beckett’s text to dissolve completely in sound.

For Romeo Castellucci, the title Neither is the key to the work and its staging. Castellucci transforms the interlinking contrasts in the text, the swaying between self and non-self, and the oscillation of the music between sound and silence into threatening, theatrical images full of unresolved tension. The result is a puzzling atmosphere that takes the intensity and the psychological patterns of American film noir as its point of orientation, without taking up its narrative logic.

For over twenty years now, Italian director Romeo Castellucci has been working on a theater that not only transgresses its own limitations, but abolishes them entirely. Castellucci, whose FOLK was performed in 2012 at Ruhrtriennale, will also be staging Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps at this year’s festival.

For this performance, Emilio Pomàrico, who is intimately familiar with Feldman’s Neither, will be conducting the Duisburger Philharmoniker, and the soloist is the US-american soprano Laura Aikin.