Orca Does Not Speak in Pidgin or Libreoffice Apps in 5.5 Beta dated 11-March

Hi,

I did a full install of the subject beta, and am trying to use the
applications as provided in the disk image and repositories. When I
launch any of the libreoffice aplications, orca speaks while the app is
loading. Once the app's window has focus, orca is silent, until I
either close the app or switch to another. Same behavior in pidgin,
though the sign-in notifications for pidgin are spoken, accompanied by
the log-in event sound. At first, I thought it had to do with my not
having a '.purple' directory, so, I placed the one I had been using with
Trisquel 5.0, where all works fine.

Should I build a later version of orca from sources? Load the offending
apps from some other repository? Both? Something else?

Thanks,

Dave