Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (2) – Pelléas et Mélisande, 9 July 2024

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Images: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2024 © Jean-Louis Fernandez

  

Pelléas – Huw Montague Rendall
Mélisande – Chiara Skerath
Golaud – Laurent Naouri
Arkel – Vincent Le Texier
Geneviève – Lucille Richardot
Yniold – Emma Fekete
Doctor, Shepherd – Thomas Dear
Actors – Sarah Northgraves, Kamila Kamińska, Olivia N'Ganga

Chorus of the Lyon Opera (chorus master: Benedict Kearns)

Orchestra of the Lyon Opera

Susanna Mälkki (conductor)

  

Opera, or the Undoing of Women is a celebrated treatment of the genre by the French philosopher Cathérine Clément. Clément’s book has rightly come in for a good deal of criticism, not least since it signally fails to treat opera as a musical genre, looking solely at plots and ignoring the liberation the female voice in particular can embody. I heartily recommend Carolyn Abbate’s review, entitled ‘Opera, or the Envoicing of Women’ (not, as my autocorrection has just insisted, ‘the Invoicing’, though some might nod wearily at that too). That said, no one could seriously deny the treatment of female characters in most repertoire works is to our mind problematical. Katie Mitchell certainly would not; that indeed, is the starting point for her landmark production of Pelléas et Mélisande, first seen here in Aix in 2016, and on which I am now catching up.

What Mitchell does might well, in 2024, seem an obvious and necessary thing to do, yet it is difficult to think of a previous case (just as with, say, Joachim Herz in the Ring or Wieland Wagner in Parsifal).That it seems obvious must in large part to be ascribed to her work and that of other feminist directors. Ultimately, the idea is to present the work from Mélisande’s standpoint, rather than have her – as one might argue the work does – as a blank canvas on which men and, more broadly, patriarchy paint their fantasies. The means of doing so is to present the drama as Mélisande’s dream. An opening dumb show has her, on her wedding day, take a pregnancy test – some people, for reasons unclear, found this amusing – which, one presumes, gives from a concurrent relationship a positive result. Quite a predicament, and thus the dream-drama is set in motion, Pelléas representing the father, Golaud the husband. The castle extends from the bedroom in which the action has begun, and to which it often returns. Sometimes there is one Mélisande; sometimes, seeing herself in the way one sometimes can in dreams, there are two. 

Golaud is a serial abuser; not only does Mélisande sees herself raped, but the girl (in this production) Yniold too. Pelléas is a nervous wreck and mummy’s boy yet retains his allure, ultimately satisfying Mélisande in a way Golaud never could, in highly erotic scenes that ensure one level of musical meaning hits home as rarely before, whilst a charismatic, creepy Arkel ultimately rules the roost. There is even a prize won for non-irritating, non-gratuitous use of mobile telephones, Golaud sending Yniold to Mélisande’s room to report on the lovers and continuing to bark commands via that medium. The castle’s claustrophobia is highly realistic, as is the rest of the drama, but visual Symbolism will live to fight another day and Debussy’s score remains.

Susanna Mälkki and the accomplished Lyon orchestra generally had it unfold at what gives the excellent impression of being its ‘own’ pace, however chimerical that ideal may be in practice. (It takes a good deal of work to sound ‘natural’.) Inspiration from Wagner, Tristan and Parsifal in particular, was strong, dramatically pointed without overwhelming. There was, though, plenty of room for other stars in this musical constellation, French forebears not the least of them. Whether this were conscious or otherwise, letting the score do ‘its’ work, does not really matter. Debussy remained questioning, ambiguous, yet never merely vague; this was drama, not mere ‘atmosphere’, especially in combination with Mitchell’s staging.   

Chiara Skerath rose to Mitchell’s challenges and more, offering a multi-faceted Mélisande as finely sung as it was acted. She and her alter ego were not on stage the whole time, but one could have been forgiven for thinking, still more feeling, that they were. Huw Montague Rendall’s damaged yet alluring Pelléas was, in some ways, the most striking of all, beautifully, elegantly sung, yet with a halting scenic awkwardness that only at the height of passion could be put to one side. Laurent Naouri’s brutal Golaud and Vincent Le Texier subtler, yet in some ways darker still, Arkel, cunningly calculating far ahead of the rest, were similarly memorable in and faithful to their roles. Ironically, even here, one could not but hear Mélisande’s standpoint via their voices. That is not intrinsically a bad thing, of course, since opera performance is an ensemble effort. All involved played their part, not least the stage hands at work revealing and concealing different parts of the world Mélisande’s unconscious had created. We now (usually) have intimacy coordinators, but that development is very recent; here, Ita O’Brien was credited. Given the level of intimacy, her contribution will have been greatly valued by all. 

For what we saw and heard made us think and rethink on the spot. Even seeing the word ‘comédiennes’ in the programme gave pause for thought. In English, we have at last begun to move on from ‘actors’ and ‘actresses’ save in historical usage, but that development is also recent and I recall thinking it read oddly on my first encounter; French is meanwhile, given its lack of a neutral gender, beginning to pursue a project of ‘feminisation’, encouraging parity in the use of female forms. Who is ‘further on’? Are there important questions when horrifying abuse rages unacknowledged? Answers may or may not be clear, but Pelléas will never quite be the same again.

Festival d'Aix-en-Provence (4) - Philippe Boesmans, Pinocchio, 14 July 2017

Images: Festival d'Aix-en-Provence 2017 © Patrick Berger / artcompress
Father: Vincent Le Texier

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Director of the Troupe, First Crook, Second Murderer, Circus Director – Stéphane Degout

Father, Third Murderer, Schoolmaster – Vincent Le Texier
Puppet – Chloé Briot
Second Crook, Cabaret Director, Judge, First Murderer, Donkey Salesman – Yann Beuron
Cabaret Singer, Bad Pupil – Julie Boulianne
Fairy – Marie-Eve Munger
Troupe Musicians – Fabrizio Cassol (saxophone, improvisation coordination), Philippe
Thuriot (accordion), Tcha Limberger (violin tzigane)
 

Joël Pommerat (director)

Éric Soyer (set designs, lighting)
Isabelle Deffin (costumes)
Renaud Rubiano (video)

Klangforum Wien

Emilio Pomarico (conductor)

 

As the third of my four Aix operas this year, I saw the Festival’s new commission: Pinocchio, with music by Philippe Boesmans, to a libretto by Joël Pommerat, after his own play (itself, of course, in some sense ‘after’ Carlo Collodi). I wish I could be more enthusiastic about what I heard, but I was very much left with a feeling of something that had fallen between (at least) two stools. Is this a ‘children’s opera’, whatever that might be? There were certainly some children in the audience, although not that many: perhaps hardly surprisingly, for a performance that started at 8 p.m. and finished at 10.40. (There were, though, two performances out of the six that started earlier, at 5 p.m., on Sundays.) I could not help but think that if it were ‘for’ children, it might usefully have been about half the length. Indeed, pacing seems a bit odd more generally: lingering somewhat earlier on, perhaps with room for a cut or two.

 

Is it, then, a work about childhood, or some other form of work ‘for’ adults, using a children’s story as its basis? Again, I am not sure. For Boesman’s musical language and the use to which he put it seem determined to accommodate: somewhat at odds, I think, with what struck me as a rather more interesting libretto and indeed staging by Pommerat. Perhaps we should leave arguments concerning whether children need assistance into the world of opera by tonality until another day; for me, that is actually part of the problem, making post-tonal music – more than a hundred years on! – something to grow into, even to fear. So-called popular culture, more usually mass culture (quite a different, exploitative thing) has a great deal to answer for – in every respect, as any good, or even bad, Adornian would tell you. I was a little surprised, in any case, not only by the frankly tonal language employed throughout, but also by the almost childish – or should that be childlike? – simplicity of the score. A few motifs of reminiscence will certainly help anyone gain his or her bearings; a few references to other operas might appeal to people who like that sort of thing; a few more ‘with it’ moments may or may not grant a degree of ‘street’ relevance. (I suspect you can guess what I think.) However, whereas Pommerat’s libretto and the (literal) darkness of his production seem very keen lightly to explore the darker side of the fable, to open up philosophical questions concerning existence, a lack of justice in the world and so on, the score almost sounds as if it were intended for a children’s television programme. Nothing wrong with that, you might say, and perhaps not, but there seems neither to be genuine, productive conflict between different impulses and possibilities, nor the true collaboration of which the Festival’s outgoing director, Bernard Foccroulle, speaks in the programme: more a bit of a mismatch.

Director of the Troupe: Stéphane Degout

In performative terms, it all looked and sounded tremendous. No one could accuse the Festival of having done anything other than wholeheartedly supported the project. The Puppet, as he is always called, looked anything but cuddly, instead almost horror-movie fodder. Chloé Briot’s spirted performance stood much more in a line of offering fruitful dramatic conflict. Stéphane Degout proved a towering presence onstage, not least in the largely spoken narrative role of the Director of the Troupe. It seemed a bit of a waste of his talents, though, to have him devote so much of his time to speaking, and when singing, to lavish such vocal beauty and verbal acuity on so musically facile a part. Vincent Le Texier's seemingly wise, certainly compassionate Father impressed too. Marie-Eve Munger stood out in the high-lying part of the Fairy, whose lack of straightforwardness (on Pommerat’s part) certainly intrigued. Klangforum Wien under Emilio Pomarico offered truly luxurious orchestral support; I cannot imagine they have often, if ever, played anything quite like this. Again, though, it did seem to me somewhat to squander the talents of one of the finest new music ensembles in the world. Last month, Répons in Vienna; this month, well, this.

Fairy (Marie-Eve Munger)

It is certainly not that I am against ambiguity concerning audience, or broader appeal; far from it. This, however, gives the impression – or at least did so to me – that, perhaps like Pinocchio himself, it does not know quite what it wants to be. Or perhaps the problem lies with me, and I do not know what I want things to be. At any rate, whilst I was happy enough to have seen the opera, I cannot imagine wanting to do so again; for me, at least, the Festival’s offerings of The Rake’s Progress and Carmen proved infinitely more dramatically satisfying. Now, one Cavalli opera, Erismena, to go…