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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 |
War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco 9, 11, 14, 20, 23, 29 November, 3 December 1997 |
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Conductor |
Donald Runnicles |
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Director |
Colin Graham |
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Production |
Sets and costumes : Thierry Bosquet |
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Performers |
Pelléas : Simon Keenlyside Mélisande : Frederica von Stade Golaud : Willard White Arkel : Robert Lloyd Geneviève : Nadine Denize Yniold : Michael Denos Chorus and Orchestra of the San Francisco Opera |
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Notes |
This was SK’s debut as Pelléas Following the performance on the the 29 November, Frederica von Stade was presented on stage with the San Francisco Opera Medal, the highest accolade awarded by the company |
What the critics say
Stephanie von Buchau, January 31, 1998
At San Francisco Opera, Frederica von Stade's Mélisande is now a quarter of a century old, yet she retains a youthful top and a mysterious middle voice.
Thierry Bosquet's dappled Pelléas et Mélisande sets (Nov. 9) bordered on Disney kitsch, but Thomas J. Munn's lighting helped make them mysterious. Nothing startling happened in Colin Graham's staging until Golaud knocked Arkel over in a moment of anger. In what may be the finest work he has done here, music director Runnicles had his orchestra shimmering and simmering precisely, without slighting any of Debussy's impassioned outbursts and flexible rhythmic spine.
Frederica von Stade's Mélisande is now a quarter of a century old, yet she retains a youthful top and a mysterious middle voice, and she looked appropriately willowy and fey. In his first Pelléas, boyishly handsome Simon Keenlyside coped like a lieder singer until his moderate baritone was betrayed by the top notes in the love duet. Robert Lloyd was the sympathetic Arkel, Nadine Denize the harried Geneviève and Michael Denos the not always audible Yniold. Willard White's harsh interpretation, apparently left over from a Peter Sellars production in which he impersonated an O. J. Simpson-type character, created a totally unappealing Golaud.
Opera, March 1998 (Andrew Clark)
Eighteen years absent from the repertoire, Pelléas et Mélisande returned on November 9. The second and final genuinely new production of the season often achieved the luminosity due this unique, profound and profoundly influential masterpiece. Thierry Bosquet’s designs, heavy on scrims and neo-medieval decor and coloured mostly grey, fit the formula of general director Lofti Mansouri’s tenure – literal, pretty, inoffensive and unimaginative. Thomas J. Munn worked his usual wonders with the lighting. Colin Graham produced in a convincingly literal manner, infusing the eponymous characters’ meetings with a palpable erotic charge and sustaining the wonted sonnambulistic mood. A few miscalculations: Mélisande appeared to let down from the tower not her golden tresses but wet nylon stockings; in his rage, Goldaud hurled Arkel to the floor; the casting of a boy soprano as Yniold necessitated some jarring amplification.
Though Frederica von Stade began the forest scene cautiously, she invested “Mes longs cheveux” with the exquisitely projected French, the idiomatic phrasing and the radiant sensuality one encounters in her recitals. The production marked Simon Keenlyside’s first Pelléas; a genuine baritone, rather than baryton-martin, he struggled with the tenorish outpouring of the couple’s final meeting; in other respects, he delivered the part with buoyant youthfulness and uncommon ardour. Robert Lloyd’s even bass, impeccable French and slight nasality of projection added up to an authoritative Arkel. Willard White imported the concept of Golaud that served him in Peter Sellar’s Amsterdam-Los Angeles modern-dress production, where it convinced more. The bass-baritone remained a gruff presence without plumbing the anguish and despair at the end. Initially, the company’s music director, Donald Runnicles, sustained a leaden pace and muddied orchestral details; after the sole intermission, the claritiy of the registration was breathtaking and the tension almost palpable....
An extract from Opéra Nr. 222, March 1998, translated below by Jane Garratt
Chez les hommes, signalons d’abord, en prise de rôle, l’excellent Pelléas de Simon Keenlyside : jeunet, amoureux, idéaliste (c’est la présence – amoureuse – de Mélisande qui l’initiera), sain de voix, franc de tessiture, souple et généreux, il sait de bout en bout éviter ces préciosités esthétiques, vocales et dramatiques, de mille Pelléas passés pour accentuer alors le réalisme, la passion (amère et dévorante... la musique se fait d’ailleurs grosse et proliférante, voire torrentielle) et revenir tout simplement à l’éternelle histoire de tout art, boy meets girl... Pelléas et Mélisande, von Stade et Keenlyside : un couple sensuel, d’une effrayante lucidité....
...En conclusion : un véritable régal, l’un des points forts de la saison.
... Among the men, lets call attention to Simon Keenlyside’s excellent Pelleas, his debut in this role: very young, in love, idealist (it is Melisande’s – amorous – presence that will initiate him), with a healthy voice and a frank tessitura, cuddly and good natured, he knows from the beginning to the end how to avoid the aesthetic, vocal and dramatic preciosities of thousands of past Pelleas to emphasize realism and passion (bitter and consuming... incidentally, the music gets tempestuous and proliferating, even torrential) and to come back simply to the eternal story of all art, boy meets girl... Pelleas and Melisande, von Stade and Keenlyside: a sensual couple of terrible lucidity...
... Finally: a real pleasure, one of the highlights of the season.