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Pelléas and Greta on Climate Change Santa Fe
The Crosby Theater
07/15/2023 - & July 19, 28, August 3, 9, 18, 2023
Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande
Huw Montague Rendall (Pelléas), Samantha Hankey (Mélisande), Zachary Nelson (Golaud), Raymond Aceto*/Ben Brady (Arkel), Susan Graham*/Emma Rose Sorenson (Geneviève), Kai Edgar (Yniold), Ben Brady*/Sam Dhobhany (Physician), Brandon Bell (Shepherd)
The Santa Fe Opera Chorus, Susanne Sheston (Chorus Master), The Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, Harry Bicket (Conductor)
Netia Jones (Director, Costume and Projection Designer), D.M. Wood (Lighting Designer)
K. Edgar (© Curtis Brown for SFO)
The third opus of Santa Fe Opera (SFO) 2023 season opened last night with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, following two resounding successes: Tosca, and The Flying Dutchman. The last time Debussy’s opera was performed by this company was in 1972.
Based on Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande (1893), Debussy’s eponymous opera premiered in Paris in 1902 at the Opéra‑Comique. Despite several attempts at writing operas, Pelléas et Mélisande remains the only completed lyrical work by the French composer. The libretto faithfully follows Maeterlinck’s play, thus making Debussy’s glorious composition the Everest of operatic Symbolism.
Director Netia Jones, who presented in 2021 a superb Midsummer Night’s Dream, returns to Santa Fe for a dark, somehow abstruse Pelléas et Mélisande. In a non‑traditional approach to this opera, Jones bases her staging on the idea that Maeterlinck wrote this piece during an extraordinary period of great changes: the Industrial Revolution and its consequences on the planet. According to Jones, “in the play, it is obvious that the planet has gone wrong: descriptions of decay, lack of fresh water and fresh air abound, which brings Pelléas et Mélisande right up to our time,” and to the current awareness (or lack thereof) of climate change issues. Jones uses look‑alikes played by actors who mimic the singers. The idea is to force characters, and the audience, to reflect. What better place than the Santa Fe Opera House, this magnificent vessel built in the middle of a sumptuous nature, to evoke climate change issues? However, this interesting idea is drenched with cryptic, recondite details, as if this director was trying to indulge herself.
The casting captures the strange atmosphere of this one‑of‑a‑kind opera. Huw Montague Rendall is a vulnerable and luminous Pelléas. The role is written for a baryton Martin, and Huw Montague Rendall seems to relish the high tessitura. Notes never lose color, and enunciation of French is near‑perfect. Samantha Hankey is a maddening, ambiguous Mélisande, sometimes girlish, and far more than a wilting medieval heroine. Zachary Nelson portrays a biting Golaud as a non‑villainous character. Raymond Aceto as King Arkel is firm and dark, while Susan Graham is a strongly characterful Geneviève. Boy treble Kai Edgar as Yniold shows the same aplomb and distinction as he did in Tosca as the shepherd boy. Clearly, what is missing on the stage is the indispensable crystal clear enunciation of French and accuracy of sounds, except for Huw Montague Rendall, whose pronunciation is irreproachable, and French singing style quasi‑perfect. For the rest of the cast, they chip in to produce a sound that remains a mere attempt. Regretfully, they fail in enunciation, pronunciation, and style. In the fourth and fifth acts, baritone Zachary Nelson convinces with style, but his French is sometimes unintelligible.
The orchestral tapestry under Harry Bicket is sharply idiomatic and atmospheric, especially during the magnificent interludes between scenes. The orchestra is polished and deeply committed to the French style, thus doing justice to the iconic status of this composition.
At curtain calls, this Pelléas et Mélisande is graciously received.
Christian Dalzon
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