Coming Soon, Pelléas et Mélisande from the LSO

My operatic year got off to an unforgettable start on Saturday night with the first of two Barbican performances of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande from the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of their incoming musical director Sir Simon Rattle. Dedicated to the memory of Pierre Boulez (who died on Tuesday, and who was closely associated with both the LSO and with this opera - the only one, in fact, that he ever conducted in the UK), the performance was given in a semi-staged format directed by Peter Sellars, and shares many of the hallmarks of his recent 'ritualisations' of the Bach Passions with Rattle, the Berlin Philharmonic, and several of the singers involved in the Debussy.

If Sellars' minimalist direction (all coloured strip-lighting, overt sensuality and explorations of mental illness) seems to have divided audiences, I've heard little but praise for the musical side of things, so I was pleased to learn on the way home that the performance was recorded for CD/download release on LSO Live later this year.

Christian Gerhaher, a singer incapable of turning in a performance that's anything less than riveting and eloquent, is fully equal to the high-lying tessitura of Pelléas, whilst Mélisande seems to me to be the role that Magdalena Kožená was born to sing: not only does it sit ideally for her high lyric mezzo, but it also taps into the nervy sensuality that she brings to everything she sings - if it can be distracting in other contexts, it's 100% appropriate and utterly mesmerising here. Even if (like me) you've been less than convinced by some of her recent excursions into Romantic repertoire, you really need to hear this.

For me, though, the stand-out of the evening was Gerald Finley's Golaud, monstrous and sympathetic in equal measure, supremely alive to every nuance of Maeterlinck's slippery text, and genuinely terrifying in his violent outbursts towards his pregnant wife and young son Yniold. He certainly had plenty to play off in his scenes with the latter, too: with a totally assured stage-presence and colourful treble capable of real vocal drama as well as clarity, Tolzer Knabenchor soloist Elias Madler turned in a tense, ultimately heart-breaking performance that will live with me for a very long time.

Franz-Josef Selig is an unsettling, imposing presence as Arkel and Bernarda Fink a warmly unstated Genevieve, whilst Australian bass Joshua Bloom makes telling contributions in the small roles of the Shepherd (here a sinister border-guard rather than anything Arcadian) and Doctor.

More details as soon as we have them!

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