Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera I’ve seen more often in concert version than staged – and I wonder if it was not better this way. Of course, this is a libretto adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck’s play and therefore conceived for the stage, but I have the impression that the blanks left by the text’s elusiveness are better filled by the tempo of straight theatre than by that of opera. I don’t have an answer for that – Eric Ruf’s new staging for the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées surely did not proved my suspicion wrong.
Yes, this opera is supposed to have a shadowy atmosphere, but there is so much color in the music and it is a bit frustrating to sense the existence of forests, towers, caves, beaches in the music and having to watch an uninspiring (also uninspired) single set (a dam or something like that) that moves noisily and – differently from what the director expected – does not create an atmosphere of repressed emotions. And I’d blame the Personenregie for that. Yes, P et M requires a certain stillness (as much as Tristan und Isolde) but you have to perceive a certain tension – erotic in particular – in that stillness. Otherwise, these characters look just bored. In the important scene in which Mélisande looses her wedding ring, the director makes both her and Pelléas move around with their arms open as if they were trying not to fall on the slippery grounds. After 20 seconds, it just looked silly and distracting. Mélisande’s costumes were to big for her and she slouched so much when she walked that it was difficult to understand the fascination she exerted on every man on stage. Pelléas lacked any introspection and had an almost alpha-male confidence, while Golaud displayed a miserable, boorish attitude from his first appearance that made one hardly realize when he is finally being downright abusive. I wonder if anyone found any new insight in this joyless production.
Fortunately, the musical side of the performance had enough compensation for the theatrical dreariness. Conductor François-Xavier Roth and his orchestra Les Siècles have the mission of finding the right color for every work by researching the instruments used by the conductor at the time of each piece’s creation. So here we have Érard harps, older style flutes with smaller bore etc with the purpose of creating a subtler and more varied tonal palette. As a matter of fact, the orchestral sound was this evenings’s greatest asset. The way woodwind and strings would blend during the whole performance created atmosphere with immediacy, and even if the sound picture was dense it was never overwhelming in terms of volume. Actually, those used to Karajan’s or Rattle’s recordings may have found it lacking impact in scenes such as the end of act 4.
Unable to sing because of a sudden illness, Patricia Petibon acted – in an almost zombiesque way – the role of Mélisande, while Vannina Santoni sang the part for her from one side of the stage. Ms. Santoni has a light Mozartian soprano with lovely floated mezza voce and crystalline diction. She is a sensitive, musicianly singer and deserves praise for her beautiful performance. I personally prefer a mezzo-ish, sexier tonal quality for the role, but Ms. Vanoni is probably the voice Debussy expected to hear in it. Her pairing to the robust-toned Stanislas de Barbeyrac offered an interesting contrast. One always expects something Mozartian of a tenor Pelléas, but Mr. de Barbeyrac sounded darker than some baritones in it and handled the part with almost Puccinian slancio (yet not Puccinian power). As a result, he seemed less in love with love than every singer I have ever heard in the role, but rather hot-headed and testosterone high. I don’t know if this is the approach I’d like to hear as a rule, but it was refreshing to hear it sung differently.
Simon Keenlyside’s white-heat Golaud might have worked better some years ago. As it is, his voice now has a touch of rust that made his singing almost uniformly rough. Here the example of José Van Dam – who kept the role until late in his career – would have been helpful, for this Belgian bass baritone was able to create a chiaroscuro of warm tonal quality and smooth phrasing when we first hear Golaud that made for a more three-dimensional character. In any case, Mr Keenlyside deserves praise for his commitment and also very clear French.
In the role of Géneviève, Lucille Richardot sang with lightness of tone and homogeneity rare in a contralto these days. Jean Teitgen has the right gentleness of tone for Arkel and Claire Briot was an unusually rich-toned and characterful Yniold.
I HEAR VOICES 
– Unlike you, most the dozen or so performances I’ve seen of Pelléas were all staged, usually in enticingly naturalistic-impressionistic-atmospheric productions, most of them somewhat juxtaposed to Maeterlinck’s post-impressionistic, anti-naturalistic style. Only two (Met 1988 & Komische Oper 2017) came off as blatant and did not seduce. As you say “the blanks left by the text’s elusiveness” indicate that a concert performance would focus our attention more to the music itself – I find the play itself quite tiresome, dated and much too subtle. But productions that do not separate Debussy’s music from the visual elements I found were quite successful, at least for me. It always seemed as if Debussy’s music promotes the very element that Maeterlinck tries to destroy. Whatever. It has remained one of my favorite operas throughout my lifetime and it is still in the standard rep after all these years, so the juxtaposition has served it well.
– Thanks for the review. Sounds like a beautifully played performance. Roth has never disappointed me in any of his broadcasts I have heard.
I see I probably didn’t choose my words well when I wrote the review: yes, I agree with you that the play is old fashioned in style and therefore hard to stage without Debussy’s music. What I meant is that all stagings I’ve seen (with one or two exceptions) – most of them in video – do very little to show anything about who Pelléas, Mélisande and Golaud are, although many of them are beautiful to watch and successful in conveying the work’s atmosphere. That is why I wondered if actors rather than singers would better equipped for that. But that’s a question rather than an answer.
Perhaps a performance entirely sung offstage with only actors onstage?
With a silent Petibon on stage, that was a bit the case last night, but I believe it would be important to hear how actors would say the text. It has many ambiguities and suggestions that need a little bit help to achieve its full meaning. In the operatic context, I believe a director has to address each little turn of dialogue to make it work. It’s not an easy task at all.
Petibon and Keenlyside are still at it? I saw Keenlyside’s debut in this role, having also seen his Pelleas in another life. He was good then, but the voice, after at least one serious vocal crisis, is all hard edges at this point seemingly.
The Petibon miming sounds like…an experience.
If you think about it, the cancellation of last year’s Salome is probably the only reason she is still at it, whatever “it” means…
Ugh I can’t believe someone thought it was a good idea to cast her as Salome. That’s insane. She sounds small as Alcina and thin toned for Melisande. What an odd world we live in. I don’t even hate her, sometimes she’s not un-interesting. But good god. I can’t accuse her of self sabotage because she’s gotten work for years, but there’s a singer who really took a nice voice and good artistry and just made the most bizarre interpretive and vocal choices. And it’s not even the rep choices that are necessarily the problem, that’s what’s so odd.
I don’t dislike her either – she’s clearly talented and, among many and many and MANY ideas, some are very good and even work in her voice. I remember one of her cds in which she recorded one of Giunia’s arias from Mozart’s Lucio Silla (“Fra i pensier”) and, when I finished listening to it, I thought she was really able to make the best of it. It’s a difficult aria – the last bars are totally over the top, the Italian text a bit hard to pronounce. I compared hers to every other recordings – and hers is, for me, the best. At other times, you just wish someone had told her it would be better if she kept it simple. Anyway, it is better for everyone that the Salome did not happen, I guess.