Prom 5: Debussy Pélleas et Mélisande - 17.07.18

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

18:30
Royal Albert Hall

Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande

Christina Gansch Mélisande
John Chest Pelléas
Christopher Purves Golaud
Brindley Sherratt Arkel
Karen Cargill Genevieve
Chloé Briot Yniold
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robin Ticciati conductor

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is an operatic fairy tale played out in the shadowy half-light of the mysterious kingdom of Allemonde. Love, desire, power and violence permeate this luminous score - arguably one of the greatest of the 20th century.
This semi-staged performance of Glyndebourne's new production, marking the centenary of the composer's death, is conducted by the company's Music Director Robin Ticciati, with Christopher Purves as the obsessive Golaud and former Kathleen Ferrier Award-winner Christina Gansch as his beloved Mélisande.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

An inevitable, but welcome contribution to the 2018 Debussy commemoration.

[Lat-Literal]

I am pleased that they are discussing in the interval both song and the one note style - splendid example from Maggie Teyte etc - because for all of the dialogue in this composition I am hearing chanson. It's even in the parts where words disappear into emotional musical utterance. The roots to Ferre perhaps more than those to Brel but it does also extend to Brel with the Belgian/French overlap, here with Maeterlinck. There are various forms of chanson. Realite begins in the mid 1880s whereas jaunty singers and accordionists took off decades later.

P and M even with its elaborate symbolism and "fairies" in the forest is only close to the first which is as counter-intuitive as it would be if it were close to the second - there's not a lot of real gutter life here - but it does make sense in terms of the basic nature of Maeterlinck's words and the timing of origins. It takes the innovative fragments of the music itself to take it into the trees and the toadstools below them. From my perspective, it isn't the most attractive piece by Debussy by a long way but it is impossible to criticise its audacious invention.

My instinct is that operas are best seen and heard rather than merely heard when most things in life involving people are best merely heard. So I don't get the part-staging as I listen to it on the radio, especially as it is supposedly a staging of Glyndebourne in RAH which is a staging of a stage. They are wrong about M. She isn't 21st C woman but a 21st C everyone.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am pleased that they are discussing in the interval both song and the one note style - splendid example from Maggie Teyte etc - because for all of the dialogue in this composition I am hearing chanson. It's even in the parts where words disappear into emotional musical utterance. The roots to Ferre perhaps more than those to Brel but it does also extend to Brel with the Belgian/French overlap, here with Maeterlinck. There are various forms of chanson. Realite begins in the mid 1880s whereas jaunty singers and accordionists took off decades later.

P and M even with its elaborate symbolism and "fairies" in the forest is only close to the first which is as counter-intuitive as it would be if it were close to the second - there's not a lot of real gutter life here - but it does make sense in terms of the basic nature of Maeterlinck's words and the timing of its origins. It takes the innovative fragments of the music itself to take it into the trees and the toadstools below them. From my perspective, it isn't the most attractive piece by Debussy by a long way but it is impossible to criticise its invention. My instinct is that operas are best seen and heard rather than merely heard when most things in life involving people are best merely heard. So I don't get the part-staging as I listen to it on the radio, especially as it is supposedly a staging of Glyndebourne in RAH which is a staging of a stage. They are wrong about M. She isn't 21st Century woman but 21st century everyone.

For myself music is primarily a listening experience; added to which opera involves too strong a call on my capacity for disbelief suspension. What you have written seems very insightful, insofar as writers on P&M have commented that Debussy' conscious intention was to pay tribute to Wagner, whose T&I and Parsifal he loved, while emphasising that as a French speaker he could in no way compose a Wagnerian opera, and had to find another way. Brel's and Aznavour's singing often had that off-the-beat flexibility with words and language flavour that evokes recitative, one of the earliest operatic devices.

[Lat-Literal]

For myself music is primarily a listening experience; added to which opera involves too strong a call on my capacity for disbelief suspension. What you have written seems very insightful, insofar as writers on P&M have commented that Debussy' conscious intention was to pay tribute to Wagner, whose T&I and Parsifal he loved, while emphasising that as a French speaker he could in no way compose a Wagnerian opera, and had to find another way. Brel's and Aznavour's singing often had that off-the-beat flexibility with words and language flavour that evokes recitative, one of the earliest operatic devices.

Thank you very much S_A - and that's from someone who from my recall is very keen on Debussy - so I feel complimented. I do agree. It is both "Wagner" and defiantly not Wagner just as - and this, I am sorry, will lower the tone - Echo and the Bunnymen were "hippies" and defiantly not hippies. Having viewed the Petula thing on BBC4 recently which built on my immense keenness on Ferre (Simone did Brel so wonderfully but Ferre in my opinion is the direct comparison with her), I am going to have to explore Charles Aznavour as he is far from being just "She". In my next episode, I hope to build a case for Lee Hazlewood having been the American Aznavour but it will need some working on and as usual I've digressed awfully.

[Darkbloom]

I've loved this opera for many years, but the longer I live with it the more elusive it seems. When I have seen it live I usually end up closing my eyes, the music alone is more than enough for me. And a stage production - however imaginative and enigmatic - can't help feeling crude by comparison with the ambiguities of the work itself.

[Richard Barrett]

as a French speaker he could in no way compose a Wagnerian opera, and had to find another way. Brel's and Aznavour's singing often had that off-the-beat flexibility with words and language flavour that evokes recitative, one of the earliest operatic devices.

Also, the French language is much less strongly accentuated than German (or most other European languages), allowing a composer to get through a large number of syllables in a short time (given the fact that in Pelléas he sets a stage play more or less unabridged) and to accentuate them more or less at will with great flexibility, which are things Debussy's word-setting indeed has in common with the chansonniers.

[Goon525]

I've loved this opera for many years, but the longer I live with it the more elusive it seems. When I have seen it live I usually end up closing my eyes, the music alone is more than enough for me. And a stage production - however imaginative and enigmatic - can't help feeling crude by comparison with the ambiguities of the work itself.

Having seen this production at Glyndebourne last week, I can confirm that shutting one's eyes and listening was the best way of dealing with it. Wonderfully well played and sung, but the blasted director...

[bluestateprommer]

Not sure exactly why the lack of discussion on this Prom (mixed reviews of the Glyndebourne production, the work itself), but that's a shame, because this is a very good performance of Pelléas et Mélisande from iPlayer, granted that I'm not mega-familiar with the opera. Whatever the reviews of the actual production (and to the credit of Martin Handley and Ian Skelly, they mentioned up-front the mixed reviews), the cast is generally on strong form, and particularly the LPO, with the orchestra in a way being the real stars of this Prom. I've seen some of the mixed reviews even extending to the singers. Perhaps Christopher Purves slightly overdoes the bad-guy bullying aspects of Golaud, though of course he sings well. Christina Gansch sounds very fresh-voiced as Mélisande (and the picture of her on stage at the RAH shows her as an appealing fresh face as well), and John Chest does a fine job as Pelléas. I confess that I'm far from the biggest fan of Robin Ticciati, from what little I've heard of him via iPlayer (have never seen him live), but he guides the LPO extremely well here and has them sounding great; credit where credit is due.