INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler's Wells

Pelléas et Mélisande

Reviews

Guardian

Pelléas et Mélisande

By Erica Jeal

‘…Alessandro Talevi's new production for Independent Opera brings the faraway world of Pelléas et Mélisande up close… For an opera usually involving an orchestra that could fill an aircraft hangar, this is quite an achievement…’

‘…And it works, largely thanks to the quirky imagination of Talevi and designer Madeleine Boyd. Everything has the feel of 1902, when the opera was written… The old princess Geneviève rolls on elegantly despite having a chest of drawers worked into her bustle - chief Dalek to King Arkel's wizened, wheelchair-bound Davros…’

‘…answers to the hanging questions in Maeterlinck's Symbolist story remain as elusive as ever… the real spur for Golaud's sexual jealousy, creepily suggested in Andrew Foster-Williams's resonantly sung performance, is not his wife but his fresh-faced half-brother…’

‘…Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy sings Pelléas with passion… Ingrid Perruche brings a piquant soprano to Mélisande; and another French speaker, Frédéric Bourreau, is a smooth, refined Arkel…’

‘…That the work can be played in Sadler's Wells' little Baylis Studio is thanks to Stephen McNeff's skilful new version, which cuts the orchestra down to 35… the score sounds like what Debussy might have written for this theatre…’

‘…So it is all the more disappointing that, while Independent Opera's singer scholarships will continue, this will be its last staged production…’