Opéra de Rouen Normandie (live stream), 26/01/2021

 Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande

Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon

Orchestre de l'Opéra de Rouen Normandie

Pierre Dumoussaud

Originally mounted in 2017 for the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris, and seen since in at least one other regional French theatre, this production, staged by Éric Ruf, director of the Comédie Française, was, despite its curious setting, a considerably more conventional affair than the other-worldly experience of Geneva last week.  What it was, above all (and somewhat critical, for a TV audience), is very dark.  Certainly to inundate the stage with light in Pelléas isn't particularly appropriate; Pelléas is all about the shadows, the unspoken, unseen.  However, there's a fine line to be trodden between the obscure, and the indistinguishable, and on film, at least, this production crosses that line in the wrong direction.  Only Christian Lacroix's costumes, with the glitter of sequins and metallic embroidery you expect from him, and the rather splendid shade of Mélisande's hair, somewhere between Venetian blond and pure copper, provided points of light to make the characters visible in the overriding gloom.

The setting at first looked like a deserted fishing port, with a great net hovering over the stage, but the castle itself was some sort of silo, rather like those great gas holders that were once so much a part of our industrial, urban landscape.  The rear could rise or fall, so its openings appeared higher up or lower down as required.  A shallow pool of still water occupied the centre of the stage area, sometimes partially covered over.  The one scene where I really found beauty in this staging was the last scene of Act 4, where the net returned, and seemed like moonlit clouds, over the open pool.

Huw Montague Rendall (Pelléas, right)
Act 4.iii, Pelléas et Mélisande
Opéra de Rouen Normandie, 2021 (screenshot)

For some reason I could not fathom, Mélisande's bed, in the last act, was placed in this body of water, obliging Arkel and Golaud to wear galoshes to approach her.  On the other hand the galoshes were not entirely inappropriate, because under the embroidered coats, the men often had a look of fishermen, the right kind of jerseys or pea-coats, the beanie hats.  The women, on the other hand, wore long dresses, a little Edwardian but fairly timeless.  Mélisande first appears in a ragged wedding dress, but her subsequent dresses brought an old Welsh legend to my mind, that of the flower-made Blodeuwedd, also the pivot of a deadly love-triangle.  However, I think that's just a coincidence, and not something I would expect this French design team to have taken into consideration.

Visuals aside, the direction of the actors was simple and straightforward, clear and without ambiguity other than that, already significant, provided by the text.  Three extras haunted the set, like the Fates, a young woman, a mature woman and an elderly woman, surveying the action with chilling dispassion, not to say disapproval.  Adèle Charvet's Mélisande was a wide-eyed, lost soul, largely passive, reacting rather than acting.  Her Act 3 arioso, often coming across as a kind of siren call to Pelléas, was just a song, without any deeper resonances.  Charvet is a mezzo, but with a clear, fresh timbre suited to Mélisande's music which she delivered well, but I would like to see her in a production that required a greater degree of involvement.  The passivity worked well enough faced with Golaud's ever-spiralling jealousy, but opposite the naive ardour of Huw Montague Rendall's Pelléas she seemed a bit too distant.  Montague Rendall, on the other hand, was just about ideal in the part, with a bright, vital baritone that negotiated the highest notes of the role comfortably, a suitably appealing physique for the role, and above all, absolutely impeccable French, both pronunciation and diction, rare for an English-language singer.

Adèle Charvet (Mélisande), Huw Montague Rendall (Pelléas)
Pelléas et Mélisande, Act 3.i
Opéra de Rouen, 2021 (screenshot)

Like Charvet and Montague Rendall, Nicolas Courjal was taking up his role for the first time.  It's actually one reason the company gave for proceeding with these performances, albeit without an audience, to allow these young artists to materialise the hours of work they have all put in to learning these important roles.  Like the others in this production, his Golaud was fairly straightforward, an uncommunicative man unable to resist Mélisande's mysterious appeal, but increasingly frustrated with his own inability to understand her, and mutely resentful that that very fact is pushing her into the arms of a more open, expressive man.  He has a good, even baritone voice, sufficiently dark for there to be a clear vocal difference between Golaud and Pelléas, and in the all-important scene with Yniold, he displayed a fine range of expression.  

Jean Teitgen was a good, paternal Arkel, but I found Lucile Richardot a rather cold Geneviève, vocally as well as dramatically, and while Anne-Sophie Petit, though appealing as Yniold, was a little under-powered at times.  The whole was bound together by fine playing from the Rouen Opera orchestra under Pierre Dumoussaud, with Act 4 particularly strong, feverishly anxious playing in the opening, and a truly wrenching interlude.  As a whole, this performance didn't have the extraordinary beauty, or the fantastical, other-worldly context of the Geneva production, but musically it was certainly on a par, with an exceptional Pelléas in Huw Montague Rendall.