Librettist: Samuel Beckett
Libretto based on Samuel Beckett’s Ping
Date: 2011
Language: English
Duration: 40 minutes
Small-scale
Speaker/Soprano
2 Cl | Vla | Vc | Perc
Ping is noted as the first opera or music-theatre work by Portuguese composer Vasco Mendonça. He describes it as “a multimedia fantasy for voice, video and performers.”
The text is an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s 1966 short prose piece of the same name. The work traces the flickering consciousness of a solitary performer confined to a small, bare, white room—a protagonist under extreme duress, perhaps in their final moments. Following its 2011 premiere, the production toured in the UK in 2013 with Helen-Jane Howells in the lead role.
Date: 2011
Venue: São Luiz Teatro Municipal, Lisbon
Cast: Joana Manuel and ORCHESTRUTOPICA
