INDEPENDENT OPERA at Sadler's Wells

Pelléas et Mélisande

Reviews

Observer

There’s hardly room to swing a metaphor…

By Guy Dammann

‘…Bewilderment was certainly the order of the day on finding that the enterprising Independent Opera planned to stage Debussy's opera in the minute Lilian Baylis Studio. The mystery dissolved, partially, on learning of the new orchestration by composer Stephen McNeff, which calls for a mere 35 instruments as opposed to nearly 100 in the original. Madeleine Boyd's ingeniously compact staging also responds to director Alessandro Talevi's efforts to undercut the emotional obscurity of the drama with an enhanced intimacy…’

‘… For while Debussy's impressionistic score gives every moment its distinctive colour and texture, the reduced palette of McNeff's orchestra somehow manages to convey these contrasts just as distinctly. That said, the orchestra needed to be at the top of its game and the well-rehearsed chamber orchestra, lithe and minutely responsive under the fluent and intelligent conducting of Dominic Wheeler, certainly was that…’

‘… some excellent singing, notably by Thorbjørn Gulbrandsøy's listless Pelléas and Andrew Foster-Williams's surprisingly sympathetic Golaud, helped to focus the mind…’