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Pelléas et Mélisande
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Composer |
Claude Debussy |
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Librettist |
A slight alteration of Maeterlinck’s tragedy |
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Venue and Dates |
Grand Théâtre in Geneva 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, 22 February 2000 |
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Conductor |
Louis Langrée |
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Directors |
Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser |
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Performers |
Pelléas : Simon Keenlyside Mélisande : Alexia Cousin Golaud : José van Dam Arkel : Markus Hollop Geneviève : Nadine Denize Yniold : Françoise Golfier Médecin : Jean-Louis Mellet
Chorus of the Grand Théâtre in Geneva Orchestre de la Suisse Romande |
What the critics say
Opera, June 2000 (Joel Kasow)
A new production of Pelléas et Mélisande (February 12) fortunately showed the Grand Theatre at its best. The conductor, Louis Langrée, once again demonstrated that French music brings out the best in him, with a passionate reading of the score. The producers, Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, encouraged the singers to act and react, so that Alexia Cousin and Simon Keenylside in the title roles gave searing performances. Cousin is only 21 years old and off to a good start, with impressive performances recently as Blanche de la Force and Iphigénie. Though Mélisande is not an especially challenging role technically, we can hear that the voice is equal throughout the registers, while as actress she presented a flesh-and-blood creature rather than the ‘traditional’ ethereal wisp. Keenlyside once again appeared possessed, but never to the point of losing control in what is a high-lying role for a baritone, though it is good to hear the solidity at the bottom where tenor Pelléases tend to fade away. José van Dam as Golaud brought the benefit of his experience to the role but at the same time meshed with the producers’ ideas. Nadine Denize (Geneviève), Markus Hollop (Arkel) and Françoise Golfier (Yniold) rounded out a virtually all-French-speaking cast, an aspect too often neglected these days, thereby rendering the surtitles superfluous. Christian Fenouillat’s simple decor consisted of sliding panels on the floor that when completely open revealed a large basin of water that served variously as grotto, lake, fountain, though the supposedly great depth of the latter was believed when Mélisande went for a swim. The costumes and odd bits of furniture were early 20th-century, but sufficiently non-specific so that we wre not disturbed by incongruities. Interesting glosses were showing the wounded Golaud returning on horseback rather than being seen in bed from the start of Act 2, scene 2, and Yniold’s encounter with the Shepherd as a dream, with Golaud taking the Shepherd’s line.
Jean-Jacques Roth for Opéra international
Translated (below) by Ursula Turecek
...Et que dire du Pelléas de Simon Keenlyside, sinon qu’il marque le rôle de sa génération ! Le français du baryton britannique coule avec un naturel irréprochable. Ses aigus larges et dorés lui permettent les éclats du rêve et de l’absolu, bouleversants en fin de parcours, alors qu’il sait aussi, ailleurs, murmurer, psalmodier presque, retenir les séductions fauves de sa voix, en accord avec sa silhouette d’adolescent perdu, narcissique et généreux, qu’une tristesse sans fond semble ronger....
... And what else shall we say about Simon Keenlyside’s Pelléas than that he impresses the mark of his generation on it! The British baritone’s French flows with faultless naturalness. His broad and golden high notes allow him fantastic outbursts, unsettling at the end of the journey, while elsewhere he also knows how to murmur, nearly to [approach] psalmody, and withhold the fawning seductions of his voice that are in harmony with his figure of a lost adolescent, narcisistic and good natured, who seems to be eroded by a fathomless sadness .....
P. König for Opernglas, April 2000
Translated (below) by Ursula Turecek
Mit dem Begriff “Sternstunde” ist haushälterisch umzugehen. Wenn aber, wie es heute auch hin und wieder geschieht, auf allen Ebenen, die für das Gelingen einer Opernaufführung maßgeblich sind, große Künstlerinnen und Künstler zusammenkommen, wenn dazu noch ein Werk gewählt wird, das durch seine Eigenheiten, seine Qualität, seinen Zauber Ausnahmecharakter hat, dann kann es schon mal eine solche Sternstunde geben.
….Und dort der englische Jungstar Simon Keenlyside, eine der vielversprechendsten Baritonhoffnungen der Gegenwart: Dem Genfer Publikum ist er als Papageno und vor allem als Hamlet noch in bester Erinnerung, und auch den Pelléas gestaltete er wiederum, als wäre ihm die Rolle auf den Leib geschrieben worden. Mit ausgezeichneter Diktion (nur er und Markus Hollop sind nicht französischer Muttersprache!) und jederzeit perfekter Gesangslinie zeichnet er den jüngeren Halbbruder Golauds. Zwar kann er in dieser Partie eine seiner Stärken, nämlich die weit ausgeformte Kantilene, nicht ausspielen, zwar verströmt er hier kaum den edel-herben Schmelz etwa des Hamlet-Trinkliedes. Und doch ist seine Leistung derjenigen des großen Kollegen durchaus ebenbürtig und lässt auf eine weiterhin sehr viel versprechende Entwicklung dieses Sängers hoffen….
We must deal economically with the term “magic moment”. But when – as does happen at times even today – great artists meet on every level that is important for the success of an operatic performance, and when a work is chosen that has by its peculiarities, by its quality, by its magic the traits of an exception, there is the chance that there might be such a magic moment.
....And there young English star Simon Keenlyside, one of the most promising baritones of the present: The audience in Geneva still keeps the best memories of his Papageno and above all his Hamlet, and again he interpreted Pelleas too as if the role were tailored to fit him. He portrays Golaud’s younger half-brother with excellent diction (only he and Markus Hollop are not French native speakers!) and a vocal line perfect at any time. It is true that he cannot show his strenghts, namely the broad cantilena in this role, it is true that he barely gives off the noble and bitter mellowness of, say Hamlet’s drinking song. But his achievement is by all means equal to his great colleague and gives hopes for a continually most promising development of this singer......
