Slow, sepulchral and strenuously symbolic, Debussy’s 1902 masterpiece has never exactly been the people’s choice in grand opera. For one thing, it draws out a very simple plot – infatuated prince frolics with wife of half-brother, who kills him – for three very sombre hours.

But if you see Pelléas et Mélisande only once, see this production. Stanislas Nordey’s staging, imported by the Royal Opera from Salzburg, has its pretentious moments. Yet in the main roles it also has three performers who sing wonderfully – colouring Debussy’s deceptively simple, one-note-per-syllable lines with consummate subtlety – and act with startling integrity.

Startling is the right word, too. Far from being the usual weepy victim of the brutish Golaud, the mesmerising Angelika Kirchschlager portrays Mélisande as an independent spirit, strong and manipulative, who is well aware of her disruptive effect on this desiccated dynasty. You get the feeling that she has done this before (after all, how did she acquire the crown that she chucks away when Golaud discovers her?).

And this sense of watching an eternally recurring, archetypal tragedy of adultery and revenge, rather than a drama rooted in a specific locale, is emphasised by the stage designs. Kirchschlager wears a blood-red dress while the royal family are dressed, or rather trapped, in absurd, white clown pantaloons. As she starts to cast her spell, so her red gradually infects the sombre blocks of Emmanuel Clolus’s set, which open like medieval triptychs.

In turn, their contents – dozens of reproductions of Golaud’s letter, or Mélisande herself pinned on the wall amid 38 other identical red dresses – also suggest that we are watching patterns of events that have been, and will be, played out again and again. Indeed, the headless, white-clad mannequins who spookily clutter the stage at the end could be all the luckless Pelléases who ever lived.

The cast’s brilliant acting reinforces this notion of people trapped in a preordained catastrophe. At first there is no eye contact, let alone physical contact, between them. It’s as if they are propelled by external force rather than inner urges.

Even in the famous balcony scene, as he wraps himself in Mélisande’s hair, Simon Keenlyside’s outstanding Pelléas seems more intent on unlocking his own psyche – striking a series of narcissistic ballet poses – than in making love to another person. Keenlyside’s singing is astonishing. In a part often taken by tenors, his baritone soars with glorious clarity and power.

Gerald Finlay’s Golaud is no less majestically sung, especially when his self-control snaps and he flings Mélisande around by her fateful tresses. The minor parts are admirably taken by Robert Lloyd (a sinister Arkel in black glasses), Catherine Wyn-Rogers and, especially, by the assured young treble George Longworth as Golaud’s traumatised son.

The icing on the cake is Simon Rattle’s conducting. Shimmeringly luminous, suggestive yet understated, and constantly ebbing and flowing, the orchestral sound-world he conjures seems to distil the essence of this hauntingly beautiful yet elusive opera.

The Guardian
Monday May 14, 2007

No one could accuse the Royal Opera's production by Stanislas Nordey, first seen at the Salzburg Easter festival last year, of taking that literalist route, though. Nordey and his designers (Emmanuel Clolus did the sets, Raoul Fernandez the costumes) have come up with a symbolist production of what is arguably the greatest masterpiece of the French symbolist movement. It may be too chilly and detached for some tastes, but it is elegantly beautiful and dramatically consistent. With a cast of this quality, together with Simon Rattle's outstanding conducting and the gorgeous orchestral playing he obtains from the ROH orchestra, it makes a gripping theatrical experience.

There are few specifics in Nordey's production, which begins and ends with Mélisande alone on a bare stage. She wears a red evening gown, while all the members of the dysfunctional family she so mysteriously enters are dressed in white satin, with sequinned tunics and pantaloons, like Elvis in Las Vegas. For three acts, the set consists of giant screens that open as display cabinets to reveal symbolic objects: handwritten letters, bloodstained pillows, identical red dresses. These are replaced after the interval by flats stained blood-red, the only colour other than black and white the production allows.

Such economy leaves the drama and emotion entirely in the hands of the protagonists and the conductor. Rattle plays his part fully; he gives a gorgeously rendered account of the score, detailed and dramatically acute. A succession of perfectly placed chords, a winding woodwind line or a single potent phrase regularly fills in the meaning the text has left unspoken, and the singers are supported wonderfully.

Simon Keenlyside's boyish Pelléas, growing poignantly to self-awareness in the fourth act, and Gerald Finley's wracked, grizzled Golaud are both outstanding. Angelika Kirchschlager's Mélisande is wonderfully sung, though not quite dramatically right - too sophisticated, too knowable, in an opera in which nothing can be taken at face value.

The rest of the cast are superb, too: George Longworth's wonderfully self-possessed Yniold; Robert Lloyd's grave Arkel, the only moral force in an amoral world; Catherine Wyn-Rogers's Geneviève, caught in the midst of this domestic hell. Pelléas et Mélisande's stature as one of the greatest of all operas is never in doubt.

14/05/2007

The Independent
15 May 2007

Except, of course, that mine were wide open, trying to ascertain what exactly was going wrong. The problem seemed to lie with Nordey's reliance on his designers and his failure to integrate his work with theirs. There were times during the interminable opening acts when there seemed to be two shows going on: one a kind of Turner Prize exhibit; the other (in terms of blocking) a rather routine touring-opera production. It was only in that extraordinary scene where Golaud, in his agony and impotence, uses his son Yniold (the remarkable George Longworth) to spy on Pelléas and Mélisande that everybody seemed to get a grip.

It's hard to fail with that scene, but even there, Nordey almost defused the mounting tension, the unbearable threat of parental abuse, by physically separating father and son at the heart of it. How chilling, though, for us to see, for once, what the boy is seeing. The set designer Emmanuel Clolus offers a gravity-defying image of Pelléas and Mélisande floated, as it were, halfway up a white wall, just simply sitting, some distance apart, and gazing into each other's eyes. The contrast between the chastity of that image and the ravages of Golaud's jealousy could hardly be greater. So, at least one dramatic point scored.

Up until that moment, however, the stage narrative was entirely driven by Clolus opening up a series of huge "Chinese boxes" and illuminating something emblematic to the scene in question: a wall of Pelléas's letters to Golaud in one; Mélisande's white flowers in another; the lovers' names spelled out in Braille to underline Arkel's failing sight; bloodstained pillows pertaining to Golaud's hunting accident; and, inevitably, Mélisande in the tower, like a butterfly in a display case, countless replicas of her red dress arrayed on either side.

A variation of that image re-occurs at the close of the piece, with a nightmarish image of Raoul Fernandez's generic costuming of all the inhabitants of Allemonde - a hideously unflattering pantaloon suit, Star Trek meets Cirque du Soleil.

But this was a Pelléas et Mélisande that was too much about appearances and too little about soul. I did not for a moment believe in Angelika Kirchschlager as a creature who "could give God lessons in innocence". Lovely singer, but neither vulnerable nor touching enough, and too much of this world. Simon Keenlyside was another matter, singing beautifully, ardently, magnificently in the sublimation of his final meeting with Mélisande. Finley was splendid, too, but for me there was too little distinction, physically and vocally, between him and his half-brother Pelléas.

Robert Lloyd exuded wisdom and gravitas and compassion as Arkel, the King of Allemonde. Of all the characters in the piece, it is he who finally unlocks the humanity in Debussy's enigmatic score. Rattle, whose wonderfully transparent realisation was a constant source of intrigue, dug deep into Arkel's despair, his orchestra welling up unforgettably with the line, "If I were God, I would take pity on the hearts of men." If only.

Bloomberg
May 14 2007

Musically, the performances are ravishing. The score can easily become a mezzo-forte pastel-colored gloop: Conductor Simon Rattle avoids this with subtle pointing of orchestral details and sure grasp of dramatic momentum. His use of rasping, hard-edged bassoons to suggest Golaud's intractability is striking.

Nordey's version got bad reviews at last year's Salzburg Easter Festival. Perhaps the good burghers of Austria wanted to see real castles and forests instead of symbolic light-boxes. Perhaps it suffered because one of the principal singers pulled out because of illness.

Nordey sets the story on a bare, darkened stage. Emmanuel Clolus's set is made up of huge gray boxes which open to reveal differently textured walls of light, sometimes suggesting a castle garden, sometimes a dungeon. The acting of the singers inhabits a world somewhere between hieratic gesture and spontaneity, part stylized, part naturalistic. For the most part it's a wonderful response to the score, though occasionally the symbolism still needs more concrete dramatic realization. When Melisande lets down her long hair from a tower so that Pelleas can touch it, the scene begins promisingly. We see the heroine pinned high up against one of the light-walls, like a butterfly in a case, with Pelleas below her.

Nordey doesn't give Kirchschlager the 20-foot tresses the libretto requires and suggests the lovers' connection by means of swirling lights. It's not a bad solution exactly, but it still doesn't match the luminous ecstasy of the music. Another problem lies with Raoul Fernandez's painfully over- obvious costumes. The people of Allemonde (that's everyone in the opera except Melisande) all wear white one-piece suits made up of embroidered Renaissance doublets and foam-puffed trousers. It's meant to suggest their stiff formality. It actually looks like a bizarre cross between the movie "Shakespeare in Love'' and BBC television children's series "The Teletubbies.''

Notwithstanding the above, this is a production with mystery and magic. If only all Austrian cast-offs could be as entertaining.

Evening Standard
14.05.2007

There’s nothing quite like Pelléas et Mélisande. In many ways, it’s a huge symphony, because so much of the action happens in the music rather than on stage. Yet it is more than a symphony because it deals specifically with a story bursting with symbolism, linking to deeper and more complex ideas. The textures and colours are intoxicating, and the dream-like ambiguity tantalises. Yet, it’s precisely because there’s so much in this music that interpretation is so essential. Indeed, if there’s a single basic criterion for judging merit, it’s how well the interpretation elucidates the work. All interpretations stem from how the soul of the work is understood, and how it’s realised in performance. With like Pelléas et Mélisande, the mystery is elusive, so an unusual degree of sensitivity can come into play.

As sheer music, this was wonderful. The music seemed like a living being, its moods rapidly turning and changing. At turns it was radiant, at other moments darkly brooding. This matters because the action in the libretto unfolds slowly. The music progresses the narrative. Because it’s impressionistic, it hovers on the edge of meaning as well as tonality. Simon Rattle has performed a lot more Debussy than recordings alone would suggest. His approach here shows an intuitive grasp of the composer’s idiom, and of what makes it still fresh and modern. This was playing of great refinement, clearly and lucidly detailed, yet passionately felt and emotionally resonant. Indeed, it was musicianship that made this production.

The narrative revolves around Mélisande, so this production’s attempt to explore her character was brave and admirable. She’s usually depicted as bland, child-like and wan, a blank against whom the other characters react. Yet, Golaud encounters her deep in the forest. What’s a girl with extremely long hair doing there? Why is she so afraid that she’d rather kill herself than reveal who she is? Ancient folk myths make much of dense forests as places of hidden menace, of witchcraft and mystery. In our post-Freudian times, we use the terminology of the unconscious. Somehow Mélisande connects with the wild animal Golaud thinks he’s hunted down. Is she another incarnation of Die Hexe Lorelei? Shocking as it may seem, this interpretation of Mélisande’s character is therefore perfectly valid. Indeed, the culmination of the whole opera, in her death scene, suddenly becomes more pregnant (a Freudian slip on my part) with significance. It also deftly links the themes of sexuality, succession and decay that run throughout the narrative.

The staging in this production starts off very well indeed. The forest is depicted by massive, impenetrable grey blocks. Golaud’s castle, in contrast, is unnaturally bright and luminous. All the household – even Geneviève – wear sparkling white uniforms. They conform, they’re not wild creatures of the forest. Superficially, this might contradict the idea of the castle as a place of gloom, but again there’s justification in the text, which makes much of the relentless heat, which is also oppressive. It’s an important foil to the music, with its depiction of water, in the fountain, in the watering of the garden, the sea, and especially the abandoned fountain whose waters once healed the blind. At the stroke of noon, Golaud’s ring falls into its depths, and Golaud falls and is wounded.

The images occur again and again in the music, so there’s no missing them. The superb playing saves the production, as the staging doesn’t develop meaningfully after the First Act, or pick up on other levels in the drama. For example, when Mélisande leans over the pond, Pélleas is terrified that she’ll fall in herself. The music wells up (another Freudian slip) alarmingly, creating a sense of extreme tension and menace. Moreover, it highlights the short phrase in which Pelléas mentions that Golaud first found Mélisande by a spring, too. This confirms the idea that Mélisande isn’t as innocent as she seems. It could have been made quite horrifying. Instead, Kirchschlager just has to bend over the edge of the stage, her short hair barely disturbed. The sense of menace evaporates. Similarly, the scene in which Mélisande leans out of the tower, letting her hair fall down, also fits the idea of Mélisande as temptress, for Freud has taught us that hair, too, is often symbolic. Admittedly, there are technical difficulties in "showing" so much hair, but it’s a lost opportunity. It’s ironic then, that this interpretation of Mélisande’s personality, so well expressed in the text and in the music, fails to impart its full power in this rather spartan production. It’s a brilliant, and very well justified concept, which makes it all the more unfortunate that it couldn’t have been shown more effectively in visual terms.

It is in the final Act that the portrayal works best, because it draws together and makes logical sense of several themes. Mélisande is dying, ostensibly after childbirth. The red backcloth matches the scarlet of her dress. It is as if the whole scene were a bloodbath, another telling reference connecting hunting, to Pelléas’s murder and to Golaud’s injury. Instead of lying passively in bed, Kirchschlager sits, upright and tense in a chair in the front of the stage. It’s a way of expressing the fact that she’s chosen, once again, "not" to speak or explain herself, and seems to choose death, which she’s mentioned several times in the past. Indeed, even Golaud knows that she really died long before, when he took her from the forest and killed Pelléas. That is why Debussy made such a point of the infant’s silence. It doesn’t even "cry" in the music. It’s supposed to be impassive, like Mélisande herself, who doesn’t explain and doesn’t yield. As Arkel sings, "il faut qu’il vive, à sa place". What will be her relationship with Yniold, one wonders, particularly as Golaud himself thinks Pelléas and Mélisande kissed "like brother and sister". The story does not end.

The singing, needless to say with this cast, was excellent. Keenlyside is a natural stage animal, much better in roles where he can "become" character than in Lieder. That's why he was so effective in the Trisha Brown realisation of Winterreise. Because he's sung Pelléas so often, he expressed a lot more about the role than this production on its own terms would suggest. For example, he managed to convey the strange mix of naivety and sexual awakening, so important in the narrative. His voice is richer now in its lower register. Soon, he’ll be a Golaud not a Pelléas. Angelika Kirchschlager's Mélisande of course had much more colour and depth than the usual "white" vocal style the role usually gets, which I rather liked, because it fitted well with the music around the character. Finley's Golaud, too, was nicely rounded, making the role far more interesting than if he were portrayed as a simple brutish oaf. Again, his characterisation fits in well with his volte-face in the last Act, where he suddenly shows self-knowledge and begs Mélisande’s forgiveness. Maybe the waters of the spring symbolically cured his "blindness", even if they didn’t work for Arkel. Keenlyside, Finley and Robert Lloyd, as Arkel, also make a well-balanced ensemble, and their voices work well with Kirchschlager’s and Wyn Rogers’. Good casting isn’t pick and mix, because it’s meant to co-ordinate artistically.

Friends of mine heard this same cast with Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic in Germany recently, (though Finley was indisposed and temporarily replaced). Good as the Royal Opera House orchestra is, it can’t really outshine the Berliners at their best. It was, however, a semi-staged production, whereas the original, at Salzburg, was the full staged production we have in London. In a sense, they might have got a better deal experiencing it without the staging, because they relied on their imaginations and long-standing familiarity with the opera. On the other hand, though, even without sets and costumes, it was created around the same unusual and surprisingly valid revaluation of the roles and their relationship. Close your eyes, then, and listen: it comes through as music.

THE OPERA CRITIC
16 May 2007

Debussy's operatic setting of Pelléas et Mélisande (a story that also attracted Fauré, Schoenberg and Sibelius) is regarded as something of a challenge - for performers, producers and listeners. Over five acts and 150 minutes or so of music, Debussy's ability to sustain a mostly slow pace is astonishing - through multifarious dynamic contrasts, subtle changes of colour and shifting harmonies that constantly divert the ear and paint pictures. Furthermore we find out all we need to know about the characters and their circumstances through the orchestra. When emotions become heated or violent, or when the oppressive atmosphere is gladdened by a chink of light or a breeze, this is meticulously sounded in the orchestra through brighter textures, quicker tempos or the use of fortissimo.

The orchestra and the conductor are crucial to the success of Debussy's version of Pelléas et Mélisande. In the current production hosted by The Royal Opera (a co-production with the Salzburg Easter Festival) Sir Simon Rattle is a deeply sympathetic and perceptive interpreter of Debussy's discriminating yet revealing music. At this first night the inaugural sound to be heard, when the lights had lowered and Rattle was about to conduct, was the ringing of a mobile phone. Fortunately this stopped before the first music was heard. A beautiful, veiled sound emanated from the pit. We see the lone figure of Mélisande. She becomes very nervous of Golaud, who is also lost in the woods, as he enquires of her. Bit by bit they become closer. They marry and return to Golaud's family castle, a lonely and inhospitable place occupied by Geneviève (mother to Golaud and Pelléas), Arkel (the king), Yniold (Golaud's son) - and, of course, Pelléas himself. He is Golaud's half-brother, someone that Mélisande is unsure of, but their relationship grows, partly through innocence and naivety. Golaud has his bloody revenge at the end of Act IV when he stabs Pelléas to death - the violence all the more shocking for the restraint shown elsewhere.

Debussy's opera is a study of the human condition, of relationships and feelings. A difficult work to stage, though, given there is little action beyond the revealing of the characters, their surroundings and their emotions. Under the direction of Stanislas Nordey, the production team has not tried to inflate anything nefarious to add 'entertainment'. Lighting is deliberately gloomy, save when extra brightness matches the text, and the stage is dominated by moveable gigantic tombstone-like designs that open up like trophy cabinets to display various collections of pertinent artifacts. In Act IV the stage is lit blood-red, a portent for the murder of Pelléas with which the act climaxes. An insular, hermetic world is well suggested. It is difficult to know what could be added. Similar effects could be achieved by other means and one can imagine different costumes for the castle inhabitants other than satin-white and bejeweled uniforms that seem more suitable for space travel than an earthly kingdom.

Debussy's opera is more for the imagination and senses; for musical expression is alone sufficient to get inside the characters and their particular world. A recording of the work, or a concert performance, is ideal. (The gramophone has been attracted to this opera over the decades; abridged recordings started appearing in the 1920s and 1930s until Roger Désormière made a complete version in 1941. Then conductors such as Abbado, Ansermet, Boulez, Carewe, Cluytens, Haitink and Karajan have made the work easily available to record collectors.) Staging it, this Royal Opera House one anyway, can detract through being static and with little to watch, yet it also underlines the nature of the work. A fine dividing line then between complementing Debussy's intentions and swamping them. And, of course, seeing the singers in character and through their gestures and interaction does add another piece to the jigsaw.

The cast assembled by The Royal Opera is excellent. Each singer is in fine vocal form and each gives a vivid portrayal of their respective characters, believable as such (especially in allegorical terms). Special mention must be made of the youngest and oldest of the cast. George Longworth as Yniold (Golaud's son) is very confident of voice and movement, while Robert Lloyd (the king) brings a musical wisdom that is also apt for this role. This is an ensemble opera and this cast works well together. The foundation is the orchestra. The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House plays wonderfully well under Sir Simon Rattle who loves and respects this opera; he does not apply colours and sound, rather he illuminates from within Debussy's subtle variegation of texture and harmony, retaining elusiveness while making explicit the composer's wonderfully imagined musical and emotion-revealing processes.

The very final chord, ending the still-death-haunted and uncertain last act and the opera as a whole, suggests the question of 'where next?'. The answer is to Covent Garden. Pelléas et Mélisande is a perplexing and enigmatic work, in many ways a masterpiece, certainly on purely musical achievements, but asks questions of opera itself and how best to stage it. The recorded broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Saturday 9 June (at 6.30 p.m.) will present the opera as a feast for the mind. But the full staging is another way of unlocking the secrets. For the most part the first-night audience seemed to be compelled by the slow-burn beauty of Debussy's score and the splendid singing and acting. I'm not sure about the cart-wheeling lighting that presumably illustrates Mélisande unfurling her long hair (not seen as such) - another example of something being 'too much for the eyes' - but her appearance in the tower is well handled.

In short, given the relative rarity of the opera and the care lavished on it here, then there is much that makes this a must-see (and -hear) production.

MusicalCriticism.com
16 May 2007

Opera was at a crossroads when Debussy started to write Pélleas et Mélisande. The composer had to create a new aesthetic in the post-Wagnerian period, one which both resolved the crisis of traditional French grand opera, with its closed aria, duet and finale forms, and overcame the dominance of Wagner’s music-drama. His solution was highly sophisticated and involved, in particular, a return to the declamatory singing style of Monteverdi while infusing it with modern octatonic and whole tone harmonies and sounds from non-Western music (particularly the gamelan). Although he retained the use of the Leitmotif from Wagner, Debussy played down the influence of his visit to Bayreuth on Pélleas, and rightly so. He placed less emphasis on cadences, used sparing orchestral forces where Wagner would have used large ones, and, most especially, employed structural silences as a means of punctuation. For me, the most Wagnerian aspect of the piece is dramatic rather than musical: when Golaud enters to disturb the passionate embraces of Pélleas and Mélisande in Act IV, Scene IV (pictured above), the action resembles the advent of King Mark during Tristan and Isolde’s love duet, the other famous operatic depiction of coitus interruptus.

Perhaps Debussy’s masterstroke was to write an opera based on a play which was both modern (it was written during the same year that he started composition on the opera) and historical (it has an unspecific medieval setting, leaving the music open to free expression). Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pélleas et Mélisande caused a furore when it was unveiled in 1893, partly because of the long structural silences between each of its thirteen scenes; they inspired Debussy’s use of silence in his composition but confused audiences. The appeal of the play for Debussy was its Symbolist style, where visual symbols signify unseen emotions. Paradoxically, Maeterlinck thought that plays should represent the unrepresentable; Debussy wanted to bring this ideal to opera by expressing in music elements that which could not be expressed in words. In the case of Pélleas, this meant expressing the pull of Destiny and Fate on the course of the drama.

On the level of revealing the opera’s symbolism, Stanislas Nordey’s new production of Pélleas et Mélisande for the Royal Opera succeeds in what it sets out to do. During the first three acts, huge boxes resembling books open outwards to reveal interiors dominated by a single icon repeated all over the walls that embodies the main idea for that scene. For instance, letters cover the walls for a scene where a letter has motivated the drama, or blood-stained pillows adorn them when this is the key image in the text. It is a relatively effective visual actualisation of the Verdian technique of parola scenica, where nineteenth-century opera composers would emphasise a single word or phrase in the vocal line to sum up an entire aria or scene.

But otherwise, the production is a disaster and a travesty. Most of the time it felt like the performance was going on at the front of the stage in spite of the bizarre sets towards the back. It seems remarkable that in an opera whose score is so full of colour, designer Emmanuel Clolus has managed to provide such dull settings, most of which are dominated by white or occasionally red. Whilst it would be ridiculous to demand that a literal staging of the opera would be appropriate, especially given the composer’s desire for the music to play such an active role in dramatic expression, the libretto is frequently so specific about the characters’ experiences that the singers needed physical manifestations of buildings and aspects of nature in order to relate the story with any conviction; instead, they were left to act and sing at the front of the stage with nothing to react to, a bit like a concert performance.

Raoul Fernandez’s costumes continue the idea of the ‘story book’ settings, so that nearly all the singers are allotted oversized white body-length costumes ending with massive pantaloons; this homogenises all the characters and is bizarre in the case of Geneviève, Golaud and Pélleas’ mother (who should obviously not be dressed as a man). The exception is Mélisande, who wears a red dress all the way through, to symbolise that she is an outsider to the rest of the family. The effect of everyone wearing the same costume is ridiculous on the whole, and to cap it all, the final scene is spoiled by the presence of twenty of the white costumes dotted about the stage like mannequins and the arrival of twenty stagehands to drag them off, just as Mélisande has died to the most poignant music imaginable.

The serious disappointment of the production is considerably lessened by a nearly exemplary musical performance. The Royal Opera could not have fielded a more perfect cast for these performances. Angelika Kirchschlager is a delicate but passionate Mélisande; Gerald Finley an outstanding Golaud, portraying the character’s bewilderment at the unfolding events; and Simon Keenlyside both heroic and lyrical as Pélleas, his impeccable French reminding us too of his exceptional linguistic skills. Arkel is the perfect role for Robert Lloyd at this stage of his career: Debussy wanted the character to represent autumnal tenderness and Lloyd delivered this with his customary intelligence. Catherine Wyn-Rogers (Geneviève) overcame her demeaning costume thanks to her strong projection and careful declamation of the text; it was good to have Jette Parker Young Artist Robert Gleadow back on the stage after an absence of some months, as the shepherd and doctor; and boy chorister George Longworth almost stole the show as Golaud’s son Yniold.

Occasionally, more pace from Simon Rattle in the pit might have helped to overcome the impossible tediousness of the production, but otherwise this was the most sensitively and imaginatively conducted production of the current Covent Garden season. To bring such beauty out of the orchestra whilst allowing the singers to be heard easily is no mean feat, and Rattle’s careful attention both to Debussy’s word-setting and the more existential elements of the score was a wonder to behold.

BBC Radio 3 will broadcast the opera on 9 June at 6.30pm. It’s probably the most effective way of getting the best out of this run of performances.

First the good news. The orchestra of the Royal Opera play Debussy's hauntingly mesmeric score under the inspired baton of Sir Simon Rattle with precision and languidity, and in the process conjures up an orchestral palette as vibrant as it is kaleidoscopic.

Because of its subtlety and consistent understatement, Pelléas is a very difficult opera to bring off in the theatre, yet Rattle indelibly makes his mark on every bar, and for that we should be grateful, otherwise this evening would have sunk into ignominy for the Royal Opera.

The production, if you can call it that, was imported from last year's Salzburg Festival where it received a critical drubbing. It's not hard to see why, as this was more of a non-production of Pelléas and Mélisande. Indeed it had all the trappings of a concert performance by any other name. I would like to be able to explain the whole melee in great detail but the whole staging left me flummoxed – and if you have all the protagonists dressed in the same 'clown' outfits from start to finish (apart from Melisande who sports a red evening dress) surrounded by dreary conceptual 'scenery' then Pelléas and Mélisande turns into what seems like a very, very long and turgid evening in the opera house.

Stanislas Nordey's production managed to sap the lifeblood out of this wonderful work and present each scene as a tableau of navel-gazing philosophising where all emotions become internalised - and in doing this turned all the singers into mere ciphers.

In the famous scene where Melisande stands at her bedroom window and lets her hair down, she stands in the scenery (Emmanuel Clolus) surrounded by dozens of dresses, identical to the one she is wearing. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

And why Pelleas, Golaud, Arkel, Genevieve and Yniold all wear the same Pierrot/clown outfit is beyond me.

Enough – as far as I'm concerned, this wasn't an opera production at all. Time and time again I hankered after Richard Jones' gut-wrenching Opera North/ENO staging or Peter Stein's epoch-making production for the Welsh National Opera, as I sat through this mindless farrago at the Royal Opera.

In the circumstances it was nigh impossible for any of the singers to project any sense of character across the footlights, so they are to be lauded for their considerable efforts.

The finest singing of the evening came from Gerald Finley as Golaud, who managed to put across all the inner torment and jealousy of the character by voice alone, which was no mean feat. Angelika Kirchschlager sang sensuously as Melisande but Simon Keenlyside sounded out of sorts as Pelleas – but then can you blame him? Young George Longworth was the best Yniold I've ever seen, and there was reliable support from the veteran bass Robert Lloyd as Arkel. The audience cheered the singers and conductor to the rafters, and booed the production team. A discerning audience if ever I heard one.

May 18 2007

Debussy’s opera returns to Covent Garden in a staging co-produced with the Salzburg Easter Festival. Emmanuel Clolus’s sets present a sequence of boxes that open to reveal the visual motif for each scene. In Raoul Fernandez’s costumes the residents of Allemonde wear silvery decorated tops with puffed-up sleeves that look like leftovers from a West End pantomime. The characters face the audience more than each other and the characterisations and connections between them lack definition.

Sir Simon Rattle is in the pit and under him, this most delicate of operas has colour and atmosphere though not enough momentum. The result is Debussy-lite.

Pelleas depends more than most operas on a youthful pair of lovers at the centre and Philippe Berthome’s lighting does not flatter Covent Garden’s couple in this respect. But Simon Keenlyside’s Pelleas is sung with imagination and insight, while his acting is the finest on the stage. Angelika Kirchschlager’s Melisande comes over as hard whereas the character must register as vulnerable if the piece is to work.

There’s a strong Golaud from Gerald Finley, his incomprehension impressively etched in his stance and line. Robert Lloyd’s Arkel has gravitas if not enough voice and while Catherine Wyn-Rogers delivers a purposeful letter scene her costume looks particularly silly. George Longworth is marvellous as the child Yniold. But overall it is a muted interpretation of the symbolist masterpiece, let down by weak visuals and surprisingly, by the conductor.