© Photograph by Rob Bogaerts, downloaded from Wikipedia.

Morton Feldman’s “Neither”, in Salzburg.

Neither, the only opera composed by the American composer Morton Feldman, is to have one of its very few performances this Friday, 13 August. The event will take place in the Collegiate Church in Salzburg, as part of the programme of the Salzburgerfestspiele in the year of its 100th edition. The opera, for soprano soloist and chamber orchestra, was composed by Feldman in collaboration with the Irish writer Samuel Beckett for the Rome Opera, where it premiered on 13 May 1977. Both artists despised opera as a genre, which is why many experts consider this work an “anti-opera”. On this very special occasion, the soprano will be Sarah Aristidou and the orchestra, the Minguett Quartett, conducted by Ilan Volkov. Given the short duration of Neither (fifty minutes), the programme is completed with String Quartet and Orchestra from 1973, in which the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra will join in.