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A Flawed Pelléas Toronto
Koerner Hall
04/15/2026 - & April 16*, 17, 18, 2026
Claude Debussy : Pelléas et Mélisande (arr. Christopher Bagan)
Antonin Rondepierre (Pelléas), Meghan Lindsay (Mélisande), Douglas Williams (Golaud), Measha Brueggergosman‑Lee (Geneviève), Philippe Sly (Arkel), Cynthia Akemi Smithers (Yniold), Parker Clements (Doctor), Atelier Ballet
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, David Fallis (Conductor)
Marshall Pynkoski (Director), Jeannette Lajeunesse-Zingg (Choreographer), Gerard Gauci (Set Designer), Michael Gianfrancesco (Costume Designer), Kimberly Purtell (Lighting Designer)
M. Lindsay, D. Williams (© Bruce Zinger)
One hundred and twenty-five years after its 1902 première, Pelléas et Mélisande remains avant‑garde, at least dramatically. Debussy’s œuvre is familiar to many thanks to such seminal orchestral works as La Mer and piano works such as Suite bergamasque, neither of which are a challenge for the contemporary listener. However, the libretto for Pelléas, a variant of Dante’s Francesca da Rimini love triangle, is more aesthetic than realistic. Director Marshall Pynkoski notes the opera was created at the beginning of the twentieth century when Freud’s ideas were the rage, and that one shouldn’t see the opera in rational linear terms. This is partially true, though symbolism (rather than Freudian psychology) is the most intelligent path to understanding Debussy’s opera.
Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 play Pelléas et Mélisande fascinated musicians of the epoch. Both Fauré (in 1898) and Sibelius (in 1905) wrote incidental music for it. Even Schoenberg wrote a tone poem (1905) on the theme. Fascinated by the symbolist play, Debussy created an opera, his only complete work for the stage. Considered a pinnacle of twentieth century opera, Pelléas affords marvelous opportunities for the stage director. I’ve seen scores of stagings by Marshall Pynkoski and I’m often struck by his aesthetics and his innovative approach. His commedia dell’arte staging of Don Giovanni some thirty years ago remains one of the most brilliant stagings of that masterpiece I’ve ever seen.
However, the present production failed to move me. Firstly, Opera Atelier’s aesthetic of blending opera and dance doesn’t suit this decidedly symbolist opera. Secondly, Christopher Bagan’s reduction of Debussy’s score from eighty to a mere fourteen musicians (on period instruments) to fit Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier’s house orchestra, was musically inadequate. Debussy’s score is one of opera’s greatest, and, despite Tafelmusik’s musicianship and David Fallis’s excellent direction, the rich texture of the original score is essential to the work. Severely reduced, it’s impossible to convey the score’s subtleties, so essential are they to set the mood and to imbue the protagonists with the required emotional depth. Finally, Opera Atelier’s fusion of opera and dance fell flat for Pelléas. Set to music by seventeenth and eighteenth century French composers such as Rameau, Charpentier and Corrette, these interludes felt intrusive. Moreover, the constant disruption of Debussy’s dreamy music negatively affected one’s immersion in the drama. Prominent among the dancers was a strikingly winged Eros, interpreted by Eric da Silva, conveying a mythological (and sexual) interpretation of the driving force of the attraction between the two protagonists, rather a banal vision in this symbolist work. This is particularly incongruous with the innocent nature of the attraction and, unlike Tristan und Isolde, the absence of any allusion to a sexual encounter in either music or libretto.
Given Koerner Hall’s modest stage, one couldn’t expect elaborate sets. Nonetheless, Gerard Gauci’s were fetching, augmented by Kimberly Purtell’s astute use of lighting and Erik Thor’s appealing video projections. The latter featured striking images with brilliant colours that expressed the mood of every scene. While an admirable attempt to navigate the limitations of the venue’s stage, it wasn’t sufficient enough to set the mood, whether in the opening scene, when Golaud encounters a crying Mélisande lost in the forest, or Pelléas and Mélisande’s scene in the cave. Water is an essential element of the opera, and one can sense it in Debussy’s music. After all, it was he who composed “La Cathédrale engloutie”, “Ondine” and La Mer. Despite its omnipresence, whether at the pond where Golaud finds Mélisande, the fountain where Mélisande drops her wedding ring, or in the cave by the sea where she and Pelléas look for it (even while knowing it wasn’t dropped there), water was absent from this production. Alas, at no time could one mistake Arkel’s kingdom Allemonde in this production for a mystical place.
Fortunately the singers were vastly superior to the production. The most outstanding was American baritone Douglas Williams, who perfectly expressed the torment of Golaud. Thanks to his stage presence and acting abilities, he was able to convey a complex man, fragile despite his dominance. Admired last season in Opera Atelier’s English language production of The Magic Flute, where he was a remarkable and charismatic Pagageno, he was also a charismatic and highly seductive Don Giovanni in Opera Atelier’s 2019 production. Williams is a linguistically talented man, for his diction in the present production was equal to his excellent elocution in the aforementioned works.
Most often sung by a high baritone, French tenor Antonin Rondepierre was an affecting Pelléas, thanks to his charisma and his beautiful interpretation of the co-protagonist. Though I prefer a baritone in the role, Rondepierre, who most often sings baroque tenor roles, lent a different and welcome colour to the role. Thanks to his bright voice, youthful looks and onstage agility, Rondepierre winningly portrayed Golaud’s younger brother. He also conveyed an innocent quality in Pelléas, one that I welcome, but that does not jive with director Pynkoski’s erotic vision of the love triangle.
Given the choice of a tenor rather than a baritone Pelléas, the choice of the excellent Meghan Lindsay was somewhat surprising. An impressive Donna Anna and Pamina in the aforementioned production of Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute, Lindsay’s soprano is, I dare say, rather hefty for the role. Nonetheless, she impressed with her capacity to deliver this very different role, one that’s more parlando than vocally exuberant. Given her luscious voice and regal physique, she did not convey the femme enfant prototype of Mélisande, a favourite view of many directors. It is also a predictable one, given that Scottish soprano Mary Garden (1874‑1967) initiated the role. Again, this different view of Mélisande was intriguing and interesting, but somewhat incongruous with Rondepierre’s boyish Pelléas.
Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee was a majestic Geneviève, a role almost always sung by a mezzo, which is fine, given Brueggergosman‑Lee’s vocal range and versatility. Though her diction was excellent, she failed to convince in her reading of Golaud’s letter.
Recently admired as the namesake in Le nozze di Figaro in Munich, Canadian baritone Philippe Sly has such a magnificent stage presence that he made the rather secondary role of the semi‑blind old Arkel more important than usual. Endowed with a beautifully virile timbre, outstanding diction and formidable acting skills, we were lucky to have Sly in the role. He perceptively conveyed the old man’s understanding and compassion. Interestingly, he also seemed to lust for Mélisande in this production, an unusual innovation that is in keeping with Pynkovski’s Freudian view of the opera.
Though I am usually stimulated by iconoclastic ideas, I fear an “early music” Pelléas et Mélisande is not a viable venture. Opera Atelier’s signature formula of fusing dance with opera is a winning combination in baroque opera, but alas does not work for Debussy’s masterpiece. An assemblage of first‑rate singers impressed with their refined singing and convincing interpretations, but sadly this sinking ship could not be salvaged. It remains an interesting but ultimately unsuccessful experiment.
Ossama el Naggar
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