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

to and fro in shadow from inner to outer shadow

—

from impenetrable self to impenetrable unself by way of neither

— 

as between two lit refuges whose doors once neared gently close, once away turned from gently part again

—

beckoned back and forth and turned away

—

heedless of the way, intent on the one gleam or the other

—

unheard footfalls only sound

— 

till at last halt for good, absent for good from self and other

— 

then no sound

— 

then gently light unfading on that unheeded neither

— 

unspeakable home

° °

Libretto, by Samuel Beckett