''Krapp, ou, La dernière bande'' (English: ''The Last Tape'', German: ''Krapp, oder Das letzte Band'') is a

chamber opera Chamber opera is a designation for operas written to be performed with a Chamber music, chamber ensemble rather than a full orchestra. Early 20th-century operas of this type include Paul Hindemith's ''Cardillac'' (1926). Earlier small-scale operas ...

in one act by

Marcel Mihalovici Marcel Mihalovici (Bucharest, 22 October 1898 – Paris, 12 August 1985) was a French composer born in Romania. He was discovered by George Enescu in Bucharest. He moved to Paris in 1919 (at age 21) to study under Vincent d'Indy. His works include ...

with a

libretto A libretto (From the Italian word , ) is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or Musical theatre, musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to th ...

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

. The libretto is based on Beckett's 1958 play ''

Krapp's Last Tape ''Krapp's Last Tape'' is a 1958 one-act play, in English, by Samuel Beckett. With a cast of one man, it was written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee (actor), Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue". It was inspired by Beckett's e ...

'', and large portions of the play's script were lifted for use in the libretto. Like the play, the opera is a

monologue In theatre, a monologue (also known as monolog in North American English) (in , from μόνος ''mónos'', "alone, solitary" and λόγος ''lógos'', "speech") is a speech presented by a single character, most often to express their thoughts ...

with the only character being that of Krapp. The opera was commissioned jointly by the

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (; RTF; "French Radio and Television Broadcasting") was the French national public broadcaster television organization established on 9 February 1949 to replace the post-war "''Radiodiffusion Française''" ...

and the

Bielefeld Opera The Bielefeld Opera is the venue of Städtische Bühnen Bielefeld (Municipal stages Bielefeld) in Bielefeld, Germany. It is a ''Dreisparten Haus'' (three-department house), offering Play (theatre), plays, music (opera, musical theatre), and ball ...

, Germany. From the very beginning the opera's libretto has existed in three different languages: English (from the original play), French (for the French premiere) and German (for the German premiere).Damned to Fame by James Knowlson
/ref> It premiered using the French-language version on RTF radio on 15 May 1961 and had its stage debut in Paris on 3 July 1961 at the Théâtre des Nations. The original stage production was performed by visiting artists from the Städtische Bühnen, notably

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

baritone A baritone is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the bass (voice type), bass and the tenor voice type, voice-types. It is the most common male voice. The term originates from the ...

William Dooley singing the title role. The work was next performed at the Städtische Bühnen in February 1962 with Dooley singing the role in German. ''Krapp, ou, La dernière bande'' received its

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

premiere on 7 May 1999 with the

BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. The ...

conducted by

Diego Masson Diego Masson (born 21 June 1935) is a French conductor, composer, and percussionist. The son of artist André Masson and brother of the singer and actor Luís Masson, Diego Masson was born in Tossa de Mar, Spain. He studied piano and compositio ...

with the baritone David Barrell in the title role. The performance was at the

BBC Studios BBC Studios Limited is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Wor ...

Maida Vale Maida Vale ( ) is an affluent residential district in North West London, England, north of Paddington, southwest of St John's Wood and south of Kilburn, on Edgware Road. It is part of the City of Westminster and is northwest of Charing C ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, where it was recorded for a future

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

broadcast on 10 September on

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

as part of a wide-ranging festival of Beckett's work in London. In 2003 the work was performed at the National Theatre in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

with the National Theater Opera Orchestra and baritone Ivan Kusnjer as Krapp.Larry L. Lash
"Can Beckett Work as Opera? Prague's National Theater Finds Out"
, ''Andante'' (Oct. 2003), accessed 22 Sept. 2007.

Composing the opera

Mihalovici had asked Beckett if he would write a new libretto for him. Beckett agreed but, not unsurprisingly, found he was unable to write to order. Instead, he persuaded Mihalovici to write music for an existing work and the composer "chose ''La Dernière Bande'' because of the new musical possibilities involved in a character who must sing as both a young and an old man, and whose voice on tape must be accompanied by a live

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

." It took some fourteen months for the ''Krapp: ou La dernière bande'', a score of almost 260 pages, to be completed. From that point, according to James Knowlson, "Beckett and his German translator Elmar Tophoven … iterallysat at the

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, one on either side of the composer, adapting the text to the music or modifying the score … Beckett sometimes changed his original English text to provide extra 'notes' or different rhythms: so, or example,'incomparable bosom' became 'a bosom beyond compare'."James Knowlson, ''Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett'' (London: Bloomsbury, 1996) 467. "Mihalovici's music is

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on ...

, sparse and highly descriptive, relying heavily on a huge

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

battery to paint a pungent landscape for Beckett's moods and words. Beats on wooden blocks suggest a human heartbeat, a swirling

celesta The celesta () or celeste (), also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano (four- or five-octave), albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music ...

the dizziness of inebriation, muted

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

s a nauseating anxiety. Inner torture and pain are revealed through the orchestra as Krapp intones ''

Sprechgesang (, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice"), more commonly known as speak-singing in English, are expressionist musical vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, is directly related to the operatic re ...

'' in the present; a lyrical vocal line caresses the pre-recorded monologues of his younger self. The melody for the section of tape which Krapp rewinds and re-listens to numerous times (his happiest moment, curled up with his lover in a gently rocking boat) is ingeniously captured as an '' idée fixe'' by Mihalovici."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Krapp, ou, La derniere bande Operas One-act operas 1961 operas French-language operas German-language operas English-language operas Chamber operas Operas by Marcel Mihalovici Works by Samuel Beckett Adaptations of works by Samuel Beckett