INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler's Wells

Pelléas et Mélisande

Reviews

The Financial Times

Pelléas et Mélisande

By Andrew Clark

‘London is about to lose its most valuable chamber opera company: Independent Opera’s latest production is also its last…meets a glaring need in London’s cultural scene. Chamber opera attracts a different audience. It has a different repertoire. And it’s the perfect showcase for young professionals, as Independent Opera… has shown in its brilliant, all-too-brief lifespan.’

‘With Pelléas it goes out on a high. Stephen McNeff has re-orchestrated Debussy’s score for 35 players with such skill that you don’t notice the difference. The orchestra, positioned within the stage, sounds warm, vibrant and, under Dominic Wheeler, perfectly attuned to the inner life of characters who always talk one thing and, through the music, articulate another.’

‘Alessandro Talevi’s staging skips the symbolist mystique – it’s all there in the words – in favour of a psychological drama, more akin to Strindberg or Ibsen than Maeterlinck. Aided by Madeleine Boyd’s ingenious three-tier set and Matthew Haskins’ subtle lighting, he homes in on the personal relationships… Pelléas emerges as very modern and very scary.’

‘Talevi’s biggest triumph is to get his cast to act this family tragedy so realistically. Andrew Foster-Williams turns Golaud into a study of abuse. Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy is the radiant Pelléas, Ingrid Perruche a vibrant, heavily corseted Mélisande, far from the traditional waif. Caryl Hughes’ Yniold and Frédéric Bourreau’s Arkel loom equally large…’