Although Neither is frequently called an opera, and occasionally even an "anti-opera," it bears more relation to a "Monodrama" than any conventional opera — imagine a droning, minimalist Erwartung freed from the constraints of narrative. Rather than relying on the unfolding of a story to provide a sense of drama, Neither draws its persuasive power from an escalating musical tension, relentlessly cycling between Beckett's harrowing stanzas as it spirals toward its "unspeakable home." Constant, ebb-and-flow tension; an impending sense of revelation that never quite flowers into climax; an apprehension of the timeless present as being both liberation and prison — all are qualities that may equally well describe the music of Feldman or the writing of Beckett. --A. Ruch
Waiting for the text from Samuel Beckett to compose the opera Commissioned by the Rome Opera in 1977, Morton Feldman received this libretti - poem of 87 words.
NEITHER<br/>
to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow<br/> --<br/> from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither- - <br/>
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