Admin

Organization

Singer

Bass

Brindley Sherratt

Arkel

Baritone

Jacques Imbrailo

Pelleas

Bass-baritone

Kyle Ketelsen

Golaud

Charles Dekeyser

Doctor

Soprano

Corinne Winters

Melisande

Mezzo-soprano

Yvonne Naef

Genevieve

Conductor

Alain Altinoglu

Stage director

Dmitri Tcherniakov

Set designer

Costume designer

Elena Zaitseva

Lighting designer

Gleb Filshtinsky

Chorus master

Jürg Hämmerli

Dramaturge

Beate Breidenbach

Video designer

Tieni Burkhalter

Opernhaus Zürich

Others

Chor der Oper Zürich

Orchestra

Philharmonia Zürich

Zusatzchor der Oper Zürich

SoprAlti der Oper Zurich

French

Pelléas et Mélisande -  (Pelléas and Mélisande)

Zurich

Switzerland

Opernhaus

Pelléas et Mélisande by C. Debussy, from Oper Zürich, performed at Zurich Opera House, 2016. Directed by Dimitry Tcherniakov, conductor Alain Altinoglu, starring Jacques Imbrailo, Corinne Winters, Kyle Ketelsen, Brindley Sherratt, Yvonne Naef, Damien Göritz, Charles Dekeyser, Father of Pelléas. Performed in French and Subtitled in English, French, German and Spanish.

Alain Altinoglu conducts the Philharmonia Zürich, Zusatzchor Opernhaus Zürich and SoprAlti der Oper Zürich in a performance of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, an opera in five acts to the French libretto from Maurice Maeterlinck's play. It was premiered at the in Paris by the Opéra-Comique in 1902. The plot concerns a love triangle; Prince Golaud finds Mélisande, a mysterious young woman. After marrying her he brings her back to the castle of his grandfather, King Arkel, where Mélisande becomes attached to Golaud’s younger half-brother Pelléas. Main soloists are Brindley Sherratt (Arkel), Jacques Imbrailo (Pelléas), Kyle Ketelsen (Golaud) and Corinne Winters (Mélisande). Directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov and recorded at the Opernhaus Zürich in 2016.

Iconoclast Dmitri Tcherniakov, four-time winner of Russia’s prestigious Golden Mask award, is one of the most exciting directors working today, adroitly recontextualizing canonical works and inciting audiences to engage with familiar material in unfamiliar ways. A year before his 2017 staging of Carmen reframed the action as a roleplaying exercise for a man suffering from sexual dysfunction, he tackled Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, “the masterpiece of French symbolism” (Grove Music), from a different psychological angle.

In this strikingly modern 2016 production from the Zurich Opera House, Tcherniakov transposes the opera’s intrigue from forest and castle to living room and psychiatric office. The love story of the original work remains riveting, but Tcherniakov brings an unexpected psychological element to his mise en scène, with Prince Golaud as a psychiatrist and Mélisande as a young woman suffering from PTSD. You’ve never seen Pelléas like this!

Composed after Maeterlinck’s eponymous play, Debussy’s opera tells the tragic story of a love triangle: two noble half brothers, Golaud and Pelléas, and the enigmatic Mélisande, who comes into their lives unexpectedly after a tremendous and undisclosed personal calamity. In his new Zurich production Dmitri Tcherniakov chose to leave the fairy kingdom behind and focus on the complex issues around the heroine’s post-traumatic syndrome. Golaud is cast as a hands-on psychotherapist, who studies widescreen video clips to study patients’ cognitive behaviours… Corinne Winters is Mélisande, Jacques Imbrailo sings Pelléas, Kyle Ketelsen is Golaud, and the Philharmonia Zürich is directed with great insight and integrity by Alain Altinoglu.

This new Pelléas et Mélisande from the Opernhaus Zürich should be remembered as one of Dmitri Tcherniakov’s most innovative production. Forget the fountains, the caverns, the forest, the castles and the towers : here, the density of Maurice Maeterlinck’s and Claude Debussy’s symbolism becomes the starting point of an analytical journey into the human mind : it is now the psychoanalyst, ‘‘doctor’’ Golaud, who has to uncover the secrets of Melisande, an unfortunate and traumatized creature he brings home, and whose silence and puzzling attitude eventually bring him on the verge of insanity.

Photos