We’re back at La Scala for this week’s Sunday Opera (8/16 3:00 p.m.) and their production of Claude Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” which is based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck with a symbolic story focusing on the doomed love of the title characters.
Melisande (Sara Blanch) is found by Golaud (Simon Keenlyside), one of two grandsons of King Arkel (John Relyea), by a spring in the forest looking at what is apparently her crown in the water. She offers no information to Golaud, but he falls in love with and marries her anyway. When Golaud brings her home, Melisande meets his brother, Pelleas (Bernard Richter), with whom she is immediately taken, but the two form a Platonic relationship which will eventually cause Golaud to become so jealous that he will kill both Pelleas and Melisande.
Water in the form of the spring and a well where Melisande loses her wedding ring plays an important symbolic role as does Melisande’s hair which is adored by Pelleas and used by Golaud to subdue her.
Genevieve, Pelleas’ and Golaud’s mother, is sung by Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and Maxime Pascal leads the La Scala Orchestra and Chorus.
We’ll continue with music of Debussy which may be familiar to you in part if not in their entirety. The Images for Orchestra features three movements with the central part of the triptych being the very popular “Iberia.” It’s performed here by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Charles Munch.
Our Debussy time together will end with the orchestral version of his La boite a joujoux (The Toy Box) which was orchestrated by Andre Caplet after Debussy’s death. This is one of the three ballets written by Debussy, and this performance features the Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui.
