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Debussy - Pelleas et Melisande

£24.79

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Label: Harmonia Mundi

Cat No: HMM90535254

Barcode: 3149020944035

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 3

Genre: Opera

Release Date: 11th March 2022

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Works

Debussy, Claude

Pelleas et Melisande

Artists

Julien Behr (tenor)
Vannina Santoni (soprano)
Alexandre Duhamel (baritone)
Marie-Ange Todorovitch (mezzo-soprano)
Jean Teitgen (bass)
Damien Pass (bass-baritone)
Hadrien Joubert (treble)
Mathieu Gourlet (bass)
Choeur de l’Opera de Lille
Les Siecles

Conductor

Francois-Xavier Roth

Works

Debussy, Claude

Pelleas et Melisande

Artists

Conductor

Francois-Xavier Roth

About

Why has Pelléas et Mélisande taken its place as one of opera’s greatest masterpieces? Debussy deployed a unique style in this work, flexible and natural, never forcing the prosody of words and phrases.

In this new historically-informed interpretation, François-Xavier Roth has endeavoured to do justice to this music that is at once so strong and so delicate, seconded by a handpicked cast of today’s finest French singers.

Cast:
- Mélisande: Vannina Santoni (soprano)
- Pelléas: Julien Behr (tenor)
- Golaud: Alexandre Duhamel (baritone)
- Geneviève: Marie-Ange Todorovitch (mezzo-soprano)
- Arkel: Jean Teitgen (bass)
- Le Médecin: Damien Pass (bass-baritone)
- Yniold: Hadrien Joubert (treble)
- Un berger: Mathieu Gourlet (bass)

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Acte I, scène 1 - Je ne pourrai plus sortir de cette forêt (Golaud)
2

Acte I, scène 1 - Pourquoi pleures-tu ? (Golaud, Mélisande)
3

Acte I, scène 1 - Interlude
4

Acte I, scène 2 - Voici ce qu'il écrit à son frère Pelléas (Geneviève)
5

Acte I, scène 2 - Qu'en dites-vous ? (Geneviève, Arkel, Pelléas)
6

Acte I, scène 2 - Interlude
7

Acte I, scène 3 - Il fait sombre dans les jardins. (Mélisande, Geneviève, Pelléas)
8

Acte I, scène 3 - Ohé ! Hisse, ohé ! (chœur, Mélisande, Pelléas, Geneviève)
9

Acte II - Interlude
10

Acte II, scène 1 - Vous ne savez pas où je vous ai menée ? (Pelléas, Mélisande)
11

Acte II, scène 1 - C'est au bord d'une fontaine aussi qu'il vous a trouvée ? (Pelléas, Mélisande)
12

Acte II, scène 1 - Interlude
13

Acte II, scène 2 - Ah ! Ah ! Tout va bien, cela ne sera rien. (Golaud, Mélisande)
14

Acte II, scène 2 - Ne peux-tu pas te faire à la vie qu’on mène ici ? (Golaud, Mélisande)
15

Acte II, scène 2 - Interlude
16

Acte II, scène 3 - Oui, c’est ici, nous y sommes. (Pelléas, Mélisande)
17

Acte III, scène 1 - Mes longs cheveux descendent jusqu’au seuil de la tour ! (Pelléas, Mélisande)
18

Acte III, scène 1 - Oh ! Oh ! Qu'est-ce que c'est ? (Pelléas, Mélisande)
19

Acte III, scène 1 - Laisse-moi ! Laisse-moi relever la tête… (Mélisande, Pelléas, Golaud)
20

Acte III, scène 2 - Prenez garde ! Par ici, par ici. (Golaud, Pelléas)
21

Acte III, scène 3 - Ah ! Je respire enfin ! (Pelléas, Golaud)
22

Acte III, scène 4 - Viens, nous allons nous asseoir ici, Yniold. (Golaud, Yniold)
23

Acte III, scène 4 - Non, non, mon enfant (Golaud, Yniold)
24

Acte IV, scène 1 - Où vas-tu ? Il faut que je te parle ce soir. (Pelléas, Mélisande)
25

Acte IV, scène 2 - Maintenant que le père de Pelléas est sauvé (Arkel, Mélisande)
26

Acte IV, scène 2 - Pelléas part ce soir (Golaud, Arkel, Mélisande)
27

Acte IV, scène 2 - Interlude
28

Acte IV, scène 3 - Oh ! Cette pierre est lourde... (Yniold, Un Berger)
29

Acte IV, scène 4 - C’est le dernier soir, le dernier soir... (Pelléas)
30

Acte IV, scène 4 - Pelléas... (Mélisande, Pelléas)
31

Acte IV, scène 4 - On dirait que ta voix a passé sur la mer au printemps… (Pelléas, Mélisande)
32

Acte IV, scène 4 - Quel est ce bruit ? (Pelléas, Mélisande)
33

Acte V - Ce n’est pas de cette petite blessure qu’elle peut mourir. (Le Médecin, Arkel, Golaud)
34

Acte V - Ouvrez la fenêtre, ouvrez la fenêtre… (Mélisande, Arkel, Le Médecin, Golaud)
35

Acte V - Mélisande, as-tu pitié de moi ? (Golaud, Mélisande)
36

Acte V - La vérité… La vérité… (Mélisande, Golaud, Arkel)
37

Acte V - Qu’y a-t-il ? (Golaud, Le Médecin, Arkel)
38

Acte V - Vous ne savez pas ce que c’est que l’âme… (Golaud, Arkel, Le Médecin)

Europadisc Review

This must be the only recording of Debussy’s landmark Symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande to include a full list of orchestral personnel together with (for the wind and percussion) full details of the instrument manufacturers and in some cases even their serial numbers. François-Xavier Roth and his period instrument orchestra Les Siècles deliver the first ‘historically informed’ recording of this masterpiece in modern times, recapturing much of that quintessential Frenchness that features on accounts of yesteryear from the likes of Desormière, Cluytens, Ansermet and even the early-1950s Philharmonia Orchestra under Inghelbrecht.

The obvious advantage that Roth and his colleagues enjoy over such classics is the modern sound, captured in striking immediacy at the Patrick Devedjian Auditorium in Boulogne-Billancourt. The Opéra de Lille production from which this performance emanated fell victim to the Covid pandemic in spring 2021, meaning that no live audience was allowed, although it was live-streamed. But an unexpected bonus of these circumstances was the opportunity for this recording to be made with the orchestra gathered about the conductor while preserving social distancing. Even more than usual, it is an account in which the orchestra is very much a co-partner with the singers in Maeterlinck’s steadily unfolding, gloomily disturbing Symbolist drama, while never overshadowing them.

The work’s opening features the resonant sound of near-vibratoless lower strings and a trio of early-20th-century Buffet Crampon bassoons (one of them made in 1902, the year of the opera’s première). After four bars they are answered by equally characterful oboes, cor anglais and clarinets (underpinned by a gentle timpani roll), in a distinctively inflected rhythmic figure. Then, after a near-silent bar, the string chords return in the middle register on softly ringing violas and cellos (marked très expressif), joined from the third bar by a beautifully penetrating bassoon in its alto register, now answered in a higher tessitura by flutes, clarinets and all three bassoons. These are just the first thirteen bars of a two-and-a-half-hour score, but the listener is able to savour every detail (as the players evidently do), and it’s this sense of deep involvement – but never superfluous micromanagement – that characterises the performance from start to finish. (Try, too, the oppressive dankness of the Act 3 Scene 2 in the castle vaults, suggesting an atmosphere as ominous as anything in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle; and the rush of fresh air as Pelléas and Golaud emerge into the daylight of Scene 3.)

Roth (who has been conducting this work for two decades) is partnered by not only his superb instrumentalists but a cast entirely at home in the idiom. His Pelléas is the soft-grained tenor of Julien Behr, a detached, otherworldly dreamer whose performance steadily builds in passion right up until the fatal climax. His half-brother, the jealous Golaud, is sung by baritone Alexandre Duhamel, who is rapidly becoming the go-to name for this role; this is another performance that unfolds steadily as the opera progresses, starting more gently than some, but growing in intensity throughout the third and forth acts, and questioning events right to the end – the only character to offer real resistance to the fatalism and passivity that surrounds him.

That said, Vannina Santoni’s Mélisande is very much in the modern mould: forthright in temperament as has increasingly become the custom in recent recordings, but with a winningly velvety, sensuous side that reveals itself in her scenes alone with Pelléas. She’s an excellent foil to the two ill-fated half-brothers, and together these singers make a formidable leading trio. Bass Jean Teitgen is sympathetic as the elderly king Arkel, while the key part of Golaud’s son Yniold is taken to disturbing effect by treble Hadrien Joubert of the Maîtrise de Caen. It adds up to a hugely impressive cast, perhaps less obviously star-studded than some, but as a team they really inhabit the half-lit world created by Maeterlinck, Debussy, Roth and Les Siècles.

Roth’s pacing feels exemplary: he doesn’t push things too hard, but lets the drama (such as it is) unfold at a natural speed, with space for the voices and, most crucially, for the orchestral timbres to register to maximum effect. Balance, shaping and dynamics are similarly impressive throughout. Even the placing of the offstage chorus in the third scene of Act 1 seems perfectly judged. The longer intermezzos hastily composed by Debussy for the work’s première are heard in full – and with such accomplished players, why would one want to omit them?

Harmonia Mundi’s packaging is sumptuous, the three CDs housed in a compact but thick, high-quality hardback book, with libretto and translation printed at a commendably legible size, plus excellent introductory notes and interview, and several colour photographs from the production. Anyone who loves this opera will need to hear this recording for the new light it shines on Debussy’s soundworld. More than usual, the phrase ‘essential listening’ seems especially apt.

Reviews

[Alexandre Duhamel] sounds rather soft-grained towards the start here but there’s plenty of bite to the voice as his suspicions about his wife and his half-brother take seed ... Santoni can be seductive, too, particularly in Mélisande’s great Rapunzel moment, letting her hair tumble from the tower at the start of Act 3, and she blanches her tone significantly on her deathbed. ... [Julien Behr’s] Pelléas is more of a dreamer, his slender tenor often floating lines as if in a reverie, and his declaration of love for Mélisande, starting from great tenderness, grows impressively in intensity. Mark Pullinger

Gramophone March 2022

In an opera whose drama depends so much on the minutest nuances of the word-setting and the web of orchestral motifs underpinning it, the use of gut strings and turn-of-the-20th-century woodwind and brass adds an extra dimension to the expressive palette. The gains are obvious right from the opening, where the dark, slowly churning strings, playing without vibrato, conjure up the atmosphere of ambiguity and veiled menace that pervades the whole work, right through to the trickle of woodwind tears with which it ends. Andrew Clements

The Guardian

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Debussy - Pelleas et Melisande

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

Contents

Works

Artists

Conductor

Works

Artists

Conductor

About

Sound/Video

Paused

Europadisc Review

Reviews

Also Available

£13.75

£16.51

£18.35

£9.95

£15.59

Condition Information

Condition Information