NMD26: The Last Tape

Mark Padmore, singer
Elaine Kelly, conductor
Judy Hegarty Lovett, director
Izumi Kimura, pianist
Ellen Jansson, pianist
Alex Petcu, percussion
Conor Lovett, actor
Stephen Dillane, actor
Mel Mercier, sound designer
Morgan Dunne, sound engineer
Kelly Jehanno, stage manager
Megan Riordan, associate producer
Maura O Keeffe, associate producer

Marcel Mihalovici, The Last Tape   Rearranged by Andrew Synnott  [Irish Premiere]

The Last Tape is a new hybrid adaptation of Marcel Mihalovici’s chamber opera in one act, with a libretto by Samuel Beckett, based on his play Krapp’s Last Tape. The elderly Krapp, before making his annual birthday tape recording, listens back to a previous tape, revisiting the supposed highlights of the year just ended. Now approaching the end of his sixty-ninth year, he listens to a recording made half a lifetime earlier and confronts the choices that led him to privilege some parts of his life over others. In this final tape, he weighs the cost of those decisions.

This work in progress redux presentation, shown in advance of its Irish premiere at Kilkenny Arts Festival later this year, marks the twenty-sixth Beckett production directed by Judy Hegarty Lovett and her third collaboration with singer Mark Padmore. Padmore is joined by pianists Ellen Jansson and Izumi Kumara, under the direction of Grammy-nominated conductor Elaine Kelly, performing Andrew Synnott’s new arrangement of Mihalovici’s original score. Actor Conor Lovett joins Padmore in the role of Krapp.

With The Last Tape, Gare St Lazare Ireland continues its ongoing interdisciplinary exploration of Beckett’s work, combining music, theatre and the visual arts. The production offers a rare opportunity to encounter one of Beckett’s two operas in a developmental form.

Presented by New Music Dublin with support from the Arts Council and in partnership with RTÉ and the National Concert Hall