Opera Review: Something Almost Being Said

The Met revives Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Fixer-upper opportunity: Isabel Leonard and Paul Appleby in Pélleas et Mélisande.
Photo by Karen Almond © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Claude Debussy only wrote one opera. Pélleas et Mélisande (based on a symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck) succeeds by destroying many of the conventions of the genre to which it belongs. On Tuesday night, the Met unveiled its revival of Pélleas, another acid test for its new music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin and a younger generation of singers wandering through the hazy, maze-y woods of the mythical kingdom of Allemonde. Here, those woods are represented in a production by Jonathan Miller: a series of big chilly rooms in a manor house, using the Met turntable to cope with the shifting settings and moods.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Pélleas et Melisande

Is it a fairy tale, or a nightmare of domestic violence?
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Melisande at her well. Photo by Marty Sohl © 2019 The Metropolitan Opera.

Lovers of French impressionist music and post-Wagnerian drama should run, not walk to this one.  This is one of the essential revivals of the winter. Pélleas is one of the greatest French works of the 20th century and a true test of the mettle of music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Concert Review: The Pointillist Procedure

Pianist Ian Hobson continues his Debussy and Ravel series at SubCulture.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The pianist Ian Hobson is giving a six recital series at SubCulture this season.
Photo from the artist's website, courtesy Hemsing Associates.

The pianist and academic Ian Hobson may not be as well known as the flashy virtuosos who pack the schedule of major concert venues. However, sometimes the best recitals are those that are on a more intimate scale. On Wednesday night, Mr. Hobson, a veteran soloist and conductor and recording artist who also teaches music at Florida State came back to New York for the third of six recitals this season at SubCulture. Tucked downstairs on Bleecker Street, this funky downtown performance space is currently in a struggle to reclaim its spot at the front of the cutting edge of Gotham performance venues.

Debussy on the Beach

Cover of the original score of La Mer.

Thanks to the power of Google, I just found some YouTube footage of my favorite recording of Claude-Achille Debussy's La Mer.

This is a gorgeous cycle of what the composer called Symphonic Sketches, depicting the ocean in various stages of wind, rain, play, and sunlight. The footage is of the San Francisco Bay Area. The band is the Cleveland Orchestra, under the expert direction of Pierre Boulez.

La Mer premiered in 1905 in Paris. Although it was not well-received at the first performance, the cycle of tone poems eventually became one of Debussy's most popular showpieces. It is notable for the constant, shifting textures in the strings and wind, and the bright surge of brass and timpani that calls out the climax of the first movement.

So here's the three movements:






Part I: From Dawn til Noon on the Sea






Part II: Dance of the Waves





Part III: Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea

This 1995 recording won a whole mess of awards in a period when Pierre Boulez was starting to re-make a lot of his great recordings for Deutsche Grammophon. The Cleveland Orchestra are in excellent form here, and they respond well to Maestro Boulez' leadership.

For some reason, Debussy's impressionistic music always sounds right to me when conducted by Boulez--his precise style and crisp inflections sharpen the aural edges of each work, making the music clearer and to my ears, more enjoyable.

The disc also includes an ethereal reading of Nocturnes (sort of a sequel to La Mer) and a performance of the complex ballet score Jeux. I've had it in my collection (in one form or another) since my grad school days, and I can't recommend it strongly enough.