Pelleas et Melisande

Published Monday 14 May 2007 at 11:35 by George Hall

Debussy’s opera returns to Covent Garden in a staging co-produced with the Salzburg Easter Festival. Emmanuel Clolus’s sets present a sequence of boxes that open to reveal the visual motif for each scene. In Raoul Fernandez’s costumes the residents of Allemonde wear silvery decorated tops with puffed-up sleeves that look like leftovers from a West End pantomime. The characters face the audience more than each other and the characterisations and connections between them lack definition.

Sir Simon Rattle is in the pit and under him, this most delicate of operas has colour and atmosphere though not enough momentum. The result is Debussy-lite.

Pelleas depends more than most operas on a youthful pair of lovers at the centre and Philippe Berthome’s lighting does not flatter Covent Garden’s couple in this respect. But Simon Keenlyside’s Pelleas is sung with imagination and insight, while his acting is the finest on the stage. Angelika Kirchschlager’s Melisande comes over as hard whereas the character must register as vulnerable if the piece is to work.

There’s a strong Golaud from Gerald Finley, his incomprehension impressively etched in his stance and line. Robert Lloyd’s Arkel has gravitas if not enough voice and while Catherine Wyn-Rogers delivers a purposeful letter scene her costume looks particularly silly. George Longworth is marvellous as the child Yniold. But overall it is a muted interpretation of the symbolist masterpiece, let down by weak visuals and surprisingly, by the conductor.