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Fiona Maddocks's rating
, Passion boxed in
By
Fiona Maddocks
14 May 2007
A scattering of catcalls greeted the production team at the final curtain of the Royal Opera's new Pelléas et Mélisande, directed by Stanislas Nordey and already seen in Salzburg. Not an avalanche. It wasn't that kind of crowd.
The cheers, for conductor Simon Rattle and a star cast, were temperate, but plentiful and heartfelt. For this was an evening in which musical standards ruled, even if the tedium of the production did its devilish and level best to hijack our minds and flatten our imagination.
That such superb musical forces should be let down in this way was a disappointment. Since its premiere in Paris in 1902, Debussy's Symbolist masterpiece, set to Maeterlinck's play, has had to struggle against misunderstanding, the biggest being that this fast-moving, impassioned work is somehow static, pallid and incomprehensible.
Nordey's staging, a set of boxes that opened, closed, revolved ad infinitum, will have confirmed that prejudice. Do we need to see trees or water or hair - the three potent images of the piece - to be satisfied, dramatically? No. The only imperative is that, literally or symbolically, we apprehend these elements. Designer Emmanuel Clolus's muddled abstractions were coercive in the worst sense, allowing no freedom of response and leaving the singers stranded.
Simon Keenlyside's Pelléas had a haunting, sparky energy, while Angelika Kirchschlager opted for an unsettling, self-contained Mélisande. Gerald Finley's Golaud glittered with hurt and anger, and George Longworth as the child Yniold was impeccable. All fine actors, they had to move now hieratically, now naturalistically, until the effort to follow proved distracting.
Worse still the Golaud-Pelléas family were got up in bejewelled white boiler suits like roly-poly Rococo plumbers. Mélisande, in contrast, wore a red dress, to show that she was an outsider in this dysfunctional family. Certainly, if we were not able to grasp so basic an element of the plot without this colour coding, we might as well not bother.
Fortunately, Rattle loves this luminous score and knows it inside out. Debussy always told his first interpreters to play softer, ever softer. The ROH players conjured some whispered pianissimos but also let rip, as in the menacing castle vaults scene when a panic-stricken Pelléas rushes out to the fresh air, prompting an outburst of scintillating brilliance in the orchestra. Such moments were high-points of a frustrating evening.
• Until 23 May. Information: 020 7304 4000.
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Reader views (4)
Don't you believe a word of it. The show is much better visually than you might think from the press. Far better a production that stimulates and provokes and leaves the performers space than any ghastly hands on groping - "ne me touchez pas" - and chrysanthemums anywhere. Quite right, you don't need to see M's hair etc. The slightly surreal flavour is absolutely apposite to the piece. I liked Kirchschalger's refusal to play M as a sex-kitten and to make her a very complex animal. And every single singer is simply vocally OUTSTANDING.
- Rufus Stone, London, 15/05/2007 13:37
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An evening of seriously beautiful music and voice totally hijacked by the MOST HIDEOUS COSTUMES EVER SEEN. Your eye was constantly distracted by great singers struggling with jewelled white neoprene jumpsuits with giant shoulders and even more giant backsides. They looked ridiculous and it made it very difficult to take the characters seriously in such a delicate and rarified piece.
Shameful, shoot the costume designer for he ruined this evening for me.
- Simon James, London, 15/05/2007 08:40
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In my many years as an opera goer, I have always welcomed adventurous opera stagings, but tonight even a traditional wagnerian extravaganza would have been preferable to the cumbersome, mind-numbing sets that nearly managed to sink the whole production. A real pity, because music and singing were outstanding. The score was magnifically and subtly handled by Simon Rattle and the whole cast produced immaculate singing, with beautiful legato phrasing. The cast did their best to move on the stage, but they had nowhere to go and if directed, they were forced to strike unnatural poses, including arm signaling and strange lunges during a love duet. Worse of all, they had to wear the most ridiculous glittering white costumes, inspired by a mix of white clown and Liberace (except for Ms Kirchschlager who was set apart by the use of red satin). A very mixed experience and it is truly unfortunate that such musical perfection should be coupled with such inane stage direction.
- Paola Piglia-Veronese, London, 15/05/2007 01:42
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A musically sensational evening, with Simon Rattle at his most inspired, was seriously let down by a production low on inspiration and subtlety. Yet fine singing from Finley, Kirchschlager and Keenlyside and the almost unbelievably gorgeous playing of the ROH orchestra managed to overcome the wanness of the staging. Close your eyes and all comes right.
- Dominic Mchugh, London, 14/05/2007 16:08
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