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Pelléas et Mélisande
Salzburg 2006
A review by Petra Habeth
I was able to see the production twice - the dress rehearsal (without Act 5 as I had to leave early) and the performance from 17 April. I also heard the live-broadcast from the opening night on April 8, with libretto-translation.
I once saw the first part of this opera in Munich, was bored to death and left during the intermission. So I was quite curious if the Salzburg cast (definitely better in every part) could change my impressions about the opera.
At first I was only fascinated by the stage - I think Pelléas would be much better situated in a small opera house on a small stage, and the Salzburg Festival Hall and stage are everything other than small!!!!!!!! But in my opinion they solved the stage "problem" quite well.
The staging takes place in the following way:
There are big cuboids on stage which are turned around marking the changing of scenes. The middle one opens and everytime it does so there is another "picture" in it, more or less the main symbol of the scene which takes place:
Act 1.
Scene 1. In the wood. The cubes are closed creating a "grey" wood - very dark.
From scene 2 onward the cubes are open to reveal:
Scene 2. "hunderttimes" the letter Golaud wrote to Pelléas
Scene 3. White flowers (Margarites) in the scene on the tower looking at the
Sea.
Act 2.
Scene 1. The names of Pelléas and Mélisande repeated in a kind of embossed printing (in the scene at the pond where she loses her ring)
Scene 2. Lots of little white pillows each with a blood-spot (when Goloud tells about his accident with the horse)
Scene 3. Three figures of men lying and sleeping (when Pelléas + Mélisande
find them in the cave)
Act 3.
Scene 1. Mélisande’s red dress repeated with one little "balcony" where the real
Mélisande stands (the balcony scene of course). Here the light-direction was overwhelming. Mèlisande’s hair is long but not long enough to be "touched" by Pelléas, and when he asks her to let him touch her hair the side-walls get "light-waves" as if there is hair flowing downwards on Pelléas AND the audience too.
Scene 2.+3. A huge screen, flash-lit from behind, with the French words written on it: “Sentez-vous l’odeur de mort qui monte?” (“Can you smell the stench of death?”). When Golaud + Pelléas go into that cave, they really "enter" the cuboid and the next scene is in front of it.
Scene 4. Two seats at the wall with Mélisande and Pelléas sitting in front of each other (when Yniold is ordered to look inside the room). They are really two waxworks ... but you have to look twice to see it...
Intermission:
Act 4: Now there are red cuboids in front of each other. A fourth one is brought in with Yniold and just crosses the stage from left to right, making it possible for Mélisande to vanish behind it - quite good idea - then the front one goes away to reveal Pelléas, the next one to reveal Mélisande and the last one to show Goloud in front of the whole stage filled with red drapery. And here the "light-waves" hair is repeated on the wall.
Act 5. White again, with a lot of white costumes (the ones that all except Mélisande wear) standing around. In the middle on the ramp there is a chair with Mélisande sitting on it. The chair is situated in a light-rectangle, almost without shadow. The stage is at first quite well lit. The maids which come in at the end are dressed like Mélisande, but white not red - and when she dies the body of Mélisande sitting on the chair just turns dark (I don't know how they were able to do that with the light - great) – just the outline of the body in a light-rectangle - impressive!
The only props were a letter (Act 1, scene 1), some flowers in Mèlisandes hands (Act 1, scene 3), the ring (which was lost in the orchestra pit as a substitute for the missing pond), the sword (Act 4) to murder Pellèas (which was NOT seen in Act 3 when they just sung about it), and the baby.
To start with the end, Robert Lloyd as Arkel with the baby in his arms moved me to tears - this last scene with the figure of Mèlisande turning dark and Arkel mourning with the baby in his arms was the MOST impressive for me!
All persons except Mèlisande were dressed in white costumes – a mixture between a Pierrot and a “Michelin-man” as I read to my amusement in a review – which was first amusing, later just annoying. I understand and support the idea of having more or less all in the same costume (the tops were differently decorated) but why the nasty harem pants?????
Well, I think that's enough about the staging ... and as it is an opera we should talk about the music .... and here is my problem: Pelléas and Mélisande is said to be the French version of Tristan and Isolde. As a friend of mine said, and I wholeheartedly agree “thank God, we are Germans and have R. Wagner!”.
I have to admit that I once learned French but the only phrase I still know and use is “je ne comprends rien”, I never really liked the language and having read Simon Keenlyside's comment "Perhaps it’s about understanding French; if you understand it, you can’t not understand Pélleas. To understand it is to love it." (Interview for Mundo Clasico Febr 2004). I think he is right. As I have now heard it three times in close sequence and as I KNEW then most of the text by heart I was able to enjoy it, I was definitely NOT BORED but the music just plashes around me and there is nothing to remember FOR ME! It will definitely NOT become one of my favourite operas and although Simon Keenlyside *loves* that opera I have to admit that I am looking forward to hear and see him as Wolfram in July or as Posa in December!!!!
The singers were ALL - as far as I can judge!!! - marvelous, both Golauds were very good: José.van Dam in the dress rehearsal and the opening night was impressive BUT looked more like Pelléas' father then his brother - so Laurent Naouri was really the elder brother, the "taller" brother as we say in German, with grey temples. Angelika Kirchschlager was not so innocent a Mélisande as she is depicted in the text, in my opinion she knows very well what she’s doing , esp. the scene where she “loses” her ring, she does not even try to catch it. I think she just does not (or is not able) to consider what could result out of her doing, a kind of “calculated naivity”. And I did not believe her saying in the last scene that she “loved Pelléas”, I don’t think that she knows what “loving” means, she did not even love herself, in my opinion.
Pelléas is from the first scene totally fascinated by her. When they are together on stage he never lets her out of his sight. When they run around in the pond-scene, Golaud is right with his words “quels enfants” but at the time when he says them, a glance at his brother should have told him different … for me it is always overwhelming how much expression, feelings, emotions Simon Keenlyside is able to convey through glances or gestures to his audience – I think in that he is at the moment unequalled.
Not to forget that young (unnamed) member of the Tölzer Knabenchor, just unbelievable in singing AND acting! Sir Simon Rattle was - for my opinion - in some moments too loud with the orchestra (again: as far as I can judge!)
I am glad that I have seen and heard Simon Keenlyside in his beloved Pelléas-role and two-times to get a deeper impression *but* this opera will not lure me to (expensive) London for May 2007. Next time Simon Keenlyside will be singing Golaud, this I definitely want to see and hear!
PetraHabeth, April 2006