Programs · Episode

DEBUSSY: Pelléas et Mélisande

Program: At the Opera
Aired: Saturday, January 11, 2020 @ 6:00 pm
Hosted by Lisa Simeone

Can an opera be passionate without shrieking mad scenes, rousing marches, and crashing cadences? The answer is yes, and this emotional marvel by Debussy proves it.  At the Opera features two recordings made almost exactly 25 years apart.  One, from January of 1991, is led by Claudio Abbado, with Maria Ewing and Francois le Roux in the title roles. The other one was made live in London in January of 2016.  In that one, Magdalena Kožena and Christian Gerhaher take the lead roles, led by conductor Simon Rattle.

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When the word "operatic" is used to describe something other than opera, it's usually not something that could also be called subtle — and that's hardly surprising.

As a whole, opera itself is seldom considered subtle. It’s a large-scale entertainment, played in broad strokes with over-the-top theatrics. When it comes to staging, opera companies often pull out all the stops, fielding the largest choruses possible and exploiting every available technology to create dazzling, on-stage special effects.

And that's not to mention the emotional content of opera, which is also famous for excess, portraying extremes of passion, vengeance and pure hatred.  The list of examples goes on and on. One is the title character in Verdi's popular drama Rigoletto. 

He pays an assassin who inadvertently kills Rigoletto's own daughter, then dumps the corpse at her father's feet in a burlap sack. Then there's Puccini's Tosca. She stabs the bad guy in the neck, then watches the results with increasing satisfaction, all the while urging him to choke on his own blood. It's no wonder that at least one dictionary defines the term "operatic" as meaning "histrionic or implausible."

Surely, though, that definition sells the art form short. Opera can certainly be extreme at times — a lot of the time, really. But think about it: It's not so much the extremity of opera's emotions that moves us, but their intensity. And intense emotion doesn't need to be loud, vengeful or vitriolic. It can also be quiet, deep and profound. And that's the territory Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande explores.

Debussy based his opera on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck.  The composer praised the drama for its "dream-like atmosphere.”  He also said it had "more humanity than those so-called 'real life documents'" – perhaps taking a shot at the heart-on-sleeve "verismo" operas of composers such as Puccini.

In Pelléas, Debussy defied opera's conventions — or at least its stereotypes. The drama is murky, played out in a moody world of muted colors and subtle tension. There's very little that's extreme. But when it comes to intensity, Debussy had that covered from beginning to end. The entire opera is a sort of psychological, slow burn.

 At the Opera features Debussy’s Pelléa and Mélisande in two striking recordings, made almost exactly 25 years apart.  One, from January of 1991, is led by Claudio Abbado, with Maria Ewing and Francois le Roux in the title roles. The other one was made live in London in January of 2016.  In that one, Magdalena Kožena and Christian Gerhaher take the lead roles, led by conductor Simon Rattle.

MORE ABOUT THE OPERA:

Claudio Abbado, conductor
Vienna State Opera, Vienna State Opera Concert Chorus
CAST:  Maria Ewing (Mélisande); Francois le Roux (Pelléas); José Van Dam (Golaud); Jean-Philippe Courtis (Arkel); Christa Ludwig (Geneviéve)
(DG 435344)

Simon Rattle, conductor
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
CAST: Madalena Kožena (Mélisande); Christian Gerhaher (Pelléas); Gerard Finley (Golaud); Franz-Josef Selig (Arkel); Bernarda Fink (Geneviéve)
(LSO 0790)

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