Music by Claude Debussy
Libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck

Cleveland Orchestra
Severance Music Center
Cleveland, Ohio
May 2017

Director: Yuval Sharon
Set Designer: Mimi Lien
Video Designer: Jason H. Thompson
Choreographer: Danielle Agami
Costume Designer: Ann Closs-Farley
Conductor: Franz Welser-Möst

Debussy’s only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, is enigmatic in nearly every regard. Completely lacking in arias, with an “iridescent veil” of soft music set to the pace and cadence of the French language, it represented what Debussy conceived as a uniquely French take on opera: one that consciously rejects the Wagnerian form. Debussy’s sparse and puzzling libretto, which he adapted from a then-popular Symbolist play, charts an equally enigmatic drama: characters rarely, if ever, articulate their emotions or experiences, though much of the dramatic action takes place internally.

Sharon’s Pelléas embraces these qualities with an atmosphere rich in shadowy liminality, while a split stage forms a concrete division between the physical and emotional drama. In front and below lies the orchestra, from which the singers perform in isolation from one another on spotlit platforms. Above and behind is a large glass box designed by Mimi Lien, which is variously transparent, frosted, or filled with a loose, ephemeral mélange of fog and light. Within the box is a host of dancers, whose costumes at time mirror those of the singers: ethereal doubles whose interactions only highlight the incomprehensible existence of the protagonists themselves. In addition to the box, projections and several other technologies give the impression of a constantly shifting world surrounding the singer-actors.

Photography provided courtesy of The Cleveland Orchestra.