For anyone who thinks of opera as a semaphore activity with sweeping gestures, heaving chests and high anxiety, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande can be an underwhelming evening. It’s a delicate, diaphanously smoke-and-mirrors sort of opera with a narrative – of a decaying royal household undermined by a mysterious woman who turns brother against brother – that unfolds by implication and suggestion rather than emphatic statements.
The new Garsington production by Sir Michael Boyd proceeds with due care on a set of such exquisite fantasy – suggestive of an opulent but crumbling theatre foyer – that it could grace a Harry Potter film. But it’s not quite enough. Debussy’s opera needs to be delivered like a precious object, with an almost ritual intensity and closed-in focus. Boyd’s approach is simply low key. And what happens in the pit, under conductor Jac van Steen, is much the same: accomplished but unfocused.
