Glyndebourne Opera House
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| Mélisande (Christiana Gansch), Pelléas (John Chest), Golaud (Christopher Purves) Images: Richard Hubert Smith |
Golaud – Christopher Purves
Mélisande – Christina Gansch
Geneviève – Karen Cargill
Arkel – Brindley Sherratt/Richard
Wiegold
Pelléas – John Chest
Yniold – Chloé Briot
Doctor – Michael Mofidian
Shepherd – Michael Wallace
Stefan Herheim (director,
lighting)
Philipp Fürhofer (designs)
Tony Simpson (lighting)
Alexander Meier-Dörzenbach
(dramaturgy)
Glyndebourne Chorus (chorus
master: Nicholas Jenkins)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Robin Ticciati (conductor)
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| Mélisande and Golaud |
What might have been? Such was
a thought that came to my mind more than once during this, the premiere of
Glyndebourne’s new Pelléas et Mélisande.
What might have been if Stefan Herheim had not changed his Konzept so late in the day? (I had actually forgotten about that
until reminded during the interval, yet had already begun to wonder whether the
production had been, especially for him, unusually rushed.) What might have
been, had this magnificent statement of intent – one of the greatest opera
directors alive – from Sebastian F. Schwarz’s intendancy not been followed by
manœuvring to ensure that something more ‘English’ would thereafter prove the
order of the day? What might have been, had this Pelléas been conducted by someone with a little more feeling for
and understanding of Debussy’s score – it would not have been difficult – than Robin
Ticciati? What, ultimately, might have been, were operatic culture in this country
not so philistine and class-ridden? The good news – our lives are at present as
full of good news as those we see in Pelléas
– is that leaving the European Union will only serve to make everything far,
far worse. C’est au tour de pauvres
petites.
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| Mélisande and Pelléas |
I was thinking, though – which is
considerably better than not. Even if I could not help but wonder what Pelléas set on a spaceship would have
been like – on the face of it, it sounds a brilliant idea – Glyndebourne’s
Organ Room, from time to time a salle
modulable yet never escapable, turned the action and responsibility
squarely upon us, the audience. (If only the worst-behaved had noticed. Some
laughed at the end. Laughed! It was not difficult to think of them as
Faragistes.) It is specific, yes, but not exclusivist. Indeed, with its heavy
wood-panelling in Philipp Fürhofer’s outstanding set design, it might almost be
the Victorianised combination room of an Oxford or Cambridge college or even
something from the Hanseatic world of Buddenbrooks.
Ancestry and tradition weigh down on it, though, as seen on the severe wall
portraits. It is about us, then, but also about how we have become who we are.
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| Geneviève (Karen Cargill), Mélisande, and Pelléas |
‘Us’ in this sense means taking
on aestheticism, asking ourselves as well as selfish fellow audience members
what we think we are doing and why. These are people engaged in fruitless,
fatal pursuits – but in this case they are also aesthetic pursuits. They try to
paint new pictures and cannot. Why not? On account of tradition, or account of
an aestheticism that has them retreat from lives, even try to turn their lives
into art? It need not be either/or; it almost certainly is not. We see through
their attempts at art, though: literally, for the paintings, if they exist at
all, are beyond the fourth wall. Is not Mélisande, after all, a blank canvas?
Men certainly tend to wish her so – as with Lulu. It is just a hobby, though,
is it not? Something for rich people to do to while away their time, perhaps
like building an opera house so that ‘your’ – the possessive is important –
wife might sing in it. Pelléas might seem different; he is, here, an artist, a
younger Debussyan dandy rather than the elderly huntsman trying to be something
he is not and certainly was not. (Are Golaud and Pelléas to be identified with
the composer? Perhaps, perhaps not. If you do not want ambiguity, this is not
the opera for you.) But is he? Is he really? Or does he just wear summer
clothes in a darkened room? Perhaps his aestheticised life is still more
dishonest; perhaps ours are too. Perhaps, peut-être. ‘Je pars peut-être demain.’
We do that to children too,
especially those of us who claim to be shocked by the very suggestion. Germaine
Greer has fallen off the rails spectacularly in recent years, but her insight
that we are all paedophiles still holds; indeed it holds more strongly than
ever, if less so for those of us unburdened by ‘family’. And so, when Yniold –
yes, I too had been mumbling that I should have preferred to hear a treble – is
unmasked as a woman all along, with locks aspiring to those of Mélisande, we
are obliged to ask ourselves questions. The violence we see, feel aestheticised
and sublimated all around us suddenly becomes, as the interval comes, something
we can no longer ignore. Those blows that never quite led anywhere come to seem
something more than ‘boring’.
By the same token, however,
should they perhaps not have become something a little sooner? When does
representing boredom become merely boring? I am not sure that Herheim, usually
a master at treading of multiple lines, does not trip, even fall, in this case.
An object lesson in that respect was Christiane Pohle’s revelatory post-Beckett staging for the Bavarian State Opera. Meaninglessness
was the thing there, not ennui as
such; the production was all the better for it. I cannot help but wonder
whether the negative reaction it received was laced with misogyny – and/or perhaps
a journalistic lack of understanding of ‘modern’ theatre. It was, at any rate,
difficult not to ask such a question in a work that focuses on abusive
behaviour and yet here, at least, attempts to avoid addressing that behaviour.
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| Golaud and Mélisande |
Later on, when it becomes more
explicit, when we see that Pelléas and Mélisande literally stage their own
death – is it actually a real death at all, or just an act – everything falls
into place. Mélisande has already – in fact she did so straight away – ease(le)d
out Geneviève. The family, closing ranks, would clearly avenge itself, so
perhaps playing at Tristan and Isolde is all that it is left. It has not been
an easy road; nor, surely, should it have been. However, just a little relief
from the claustrophobia might actually render it more powerful. As things
stand, there remains more than a little suspicion that earlier tedium is a
handy, even suggestive excuse, yet perhaps nevertheless an excuse in part.
Bloodied clowns certainly make their point; this sick Liebestod from the Theatre of the Absurd has still not left my
imagination. Yniold, now herself,
visits the Organ Room as a guest, an opera-goer. It makes the point, yes, but
might it not be better left unmade?
Tradition is, after all,
sometimes necessary, or at least helpful – as the Roman Catholic Church would
rightly tell us. It often provides an important counterweight to literalism, to
fundamentalism. Collective wisdom enables development; each one of us need not
re-invent the wheel. (Aesthetes breathe a collective sigh of relief.) As Pierre
Boulez pointed out in challenging – though not, as some have claimed, denying –
tradition, ‘a strong personality will inevitably transform it
[tradition].’ That still leaves the problem, of course, of what to do about personalities
that are not ‘strong’ or do not wish to be. ‘Ne me touchez-pas! Ne
me-touchez-pas!’ Is the conclusion here bleak or weak? Is it too easy to say
that it is what we want it to be? Doubtless. Is it what we will make of it? By
definition it more or less has to be, but is that simply to evade the question?
And is that wrong? Debussy, after all, is the unsurpassed master of musical
ambiguity.
Tradition, or at least
learning, would certainly have benefited the conducting, at best featureless,
at worst frankly jejune, we heard from Ticciati. Debussy’s genius shone
through, although more the debt to Wagner than what distinguished him from the old
Klingsor. That, however, was surely the doing of the London Philharmonic, drawing
when it could on its vast reserves of operatic and symphonic experience. Alas,
such uninspired musical direction – bleeding titbits of Wagner for people who dislike Wagner – did not help the singers either. Christopher
Purves was presented as an older Golaud and sang as such: nothing wrong with
it. His anger was wonderfully sublimated until it was not. It would have gained
greater musical context, though, as would the rest of the cast’s, had there
been – well, greater musico-dramatic context. Christina Gansch and John Chest
likewise offered good vocal performances as the doomed lovers, but something seemed
to be missing. (Should something be missing? Perhaps. Again, however, it is a
fine line.) Richard Wiegold was an undoubted hero of the evening, singing from
a box whilst an indisposed Brindley Sherratt acted out the role of Arkel below.
Karen Cargill offered rich-toned benevolence – I think – as Geneviève; as so often in this role, one wished there
were more to hear. There was much to
admire from Chloé Briot, Michael Mofidian, and Michael Wallace, although it was
difficult not to think that all concerned might have benefited from greater certainty
and clarity elsewhere.
Was it worth it, then, to have
annoyed the right people, bluff English purveyors of ‘common sense’? Of course.
They will not like Pelléas anyway; if
they think they do, it is because they have not remotely understood it and
think of it as vaguely ‘beautiful’. Is it enough to have annoyed them? Of
course not. Does this represent Herheim’s best work? No. Does
the production stand in need of revision? Very much so. Does it also need a
conductor with a little more idea what might be going on and what might be at
stake? Still more so. And yet, I have been thinking about it ever since, and
show no sign of stopping. In the meantime, hasten to see Barrie
Kosky’s Berlin production and, should it ever be revived, Pohle’s Munich staging. There are always, as we æsthetes/æstheticists will tell
you, great recordings too. Desormière or Karajan? Boulez or Abbado? Why choose?
With Boulez, you can even see Peter Stein before he lost it. ‘What,’ you might
ask, ‘is “it”,’? Such is surely part of what Herheim’s production is about –
perhaps, peut-être, still more so than he intended.
