INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler's Wells

Pelléas et Mélisande

Reviews

Evening Standard

Debussy’s elusive masterpiece

By Nick Kimberley

‘…Much of the appeal lies in the orchestration but for this Independent Opera production, composer Stephen McNeff has rescored the piece for chamber orchestra…. with conductor Dominic Wheeler achieving a fine balance between tension and restraint...’

‘…Madeleine Boyd’s multi-level set transforms it (the Lilian Baylis Studio) into a claustrophobic space that brings you face to face with Debussy’s hapless characters. Boyd and director Alessandro Talevi have removed the cod-medievalism, relocating the action to the time of its composition…’

‘…the repressed hysteria that Freud located in the bourgeois family rips right through the tightly knit fabric of respectability. Each of the young singers is wholly inside their role…’

‘…Thanks to the sheer force of their performances, Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy’s Pelléas and Andrew Foster-Williams’s Golaud seem the focal points but Ingrid Perruche makes Mélisande a convincing silent movie vamp. There are no weak links. Many more glamorous productions achieve half as much with twice the resources…’