Dallas Opera’s fine cast gives “Pelleas and Melisande” a strong Texas debut
Dallas Opera presented the belated Texas premiere of Claude Debussy’s enigmatic opera Pelleas et Melisande Friday night.
The opera tells the dreamlike story of a love triangle involving the title characters and Pelleas’s half-brother, Golaud, set against the backdrop of Debussy’s atmospheric score. Following on the production of the company’s La Traviata, Pelleas et Melisande featured debut engagements from much of the cast as well as the conductor, directors and crew.
Dallas Opera presented Debussy’s elusive opera in a scenic design by Jetske Mijnssen marked by Edwardian-styled costumes and furniture, reflecting the year of the opera’s first premiere. The stage action took place within a large rectangular frame evoking that of a painting or a photograph, an effect that complemented the period-themed costumes and was enhanced by lighting from within the frame offstage. Each scene was presented as a tableau within a domestic environment: a dining room, a ballroom, a parlor and other similar settings.
While the theme was striking and fitfully effective, the literal visuals seemed at odds with the more mystical settings and atmosphere described in the opera’s libretto; Act II, scene 1 featured Pelleas and Melisande interacting in an artist’s studio rather than at an outdoor fountain. In Act III rather than letting her long hair down from the window of a tower to Pelleas below, director Kathleen Smith Belcher depicts Melisande teasing Pelleas with her long hair while inside her bedroom—with Golaud asleep in the bed! That said, the overall effect of the décor was mostly well suited to the almost surreal nature of the story and the emotionally repressed states of the principal characters.
Soprano Lauren Snouffer perfectly embodied the apprehensive and elusive Melisande, whose dejection following her involuntary marriage to Golaud appears tempered only by her flirtation with Pelleas. Despite Melisande’s general reticence owing to her fearful nature, Snouffer’s sparkling soprano conveyed her attraction to Pelleas and ultimately her love for him.
Edward Nelson joined the production on short notice when baritone Benjamin Appl withdrew for family reasons. The baritone captured the earnest and yet conflicted nature of Pelleas, who finds his loyalty to Golaud increasingly at odds with his growing infatuation for his brother’s mysterious new wife. Nelson’s Pelleas comes alive in the presence of Melisande, shedding the character’s reserve and Nelson’s rich baritone gave full voice to his captivation with her.
But it was Nicolas Courjal as Golaud that provided much of the dynamism of the production, bringing his resonant bass to bear on the character’s volatile, domineering and possessive nature as he is slowly consumed by jealousy over the attraction between Pelleas and Melisande and his growing fury at Melisande’s passive resistance to his control.
Sir Willard White imbued King Arkel with an authoritative bass. Mezzo-soprano Katharine Goeldner complemented White’s Arkel as Genevíeve, Arkel’s daughter and mother of Pelleas and Golaud, who shares the king’s optimism and his powerlessness.
Benjamin Bjorklund, also a recent addition to the cast, joined the players as Golaud’s young son Yniold, effectively matching the relentless interrogation of Courjal’s Golaud over the activities of Pelleas and Melisande with attempts to placate his father’s agitation and fear at Golaud’s wrath.
Rounding out the cast were baritone Brian Post as a shepherd who counsels Yniold while the latter is out on the estate grounds, and bass Ben Brady as a physician attending to Melisande following her mortal injury at the hands of Golaud.
Conductor Ludovic Morlot led the orchestra in supplying the musical backdrop for the drama, undergirding the players with appropriately dreamy and shadowy accompaniment and enhancing the unfolding action with atmospheric interludes that intensify as the conflict surrounding the love triangle grows more immediate.
Pelleas et Melisande runs through November 16. dallasopera.org
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