Review: (Toronto) Pelléas et Mélisande

(photo by Darryl Block)

Debussy’s Singing Painting
by Ramya Jegatheesan
@ramyajimages

Pelléas et Mélisande is the story of two brothers who love a mysterious woman found in the forest. It is a love triangle, a tragedy, and Debussy’s only completed opera.

For this production, Against the Grain takes us outside into the lovely garden enclave of the Canadian Opera Company’s Front Street East office and rehearsal space. This beautiful courtyard with its iron gates secrets the audience and cast away from the noise and bustle of the city though occasionally we can still hear the whirring of a helicopter overhead.

There is something magical, unusual, and perfect about watching this opera outside where you can hear birdsong, where nightfall embraces both the stage and audience, and there is no need to simulate the sun, trees, or wind. I cannot imagine seeing it indoors now, or even with an orchestra.

First-Person: Director Joel Ivany takes us inside Against The Grain's Pélleas et Mélisande

The Human Machine of Inside/Outside Opera
by Joel Ivany
@joelivany

To do this piece the way we are doing it, well… it couldn’t be done with just any cast.
We are fortunate to have an incredibly strong cast, comprising some of Canada’s leading singers.
Our cast members have worked with The Canadian Opera Company, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Metropolitan Opera, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, De Nederlandse Opera and the Opéra National du Rhin, Strasbourg (among others).

Why are they working with our little group? What’s the catch?

I’ve wanted to work with Étienne Dupuis ever since I heard about him. He was singing with Miriam Khalil in La Bohème at Edmonton Opera. I then had the chance to see him on stage and hear him when he sang Escamillo at Pacific Opera Victoria. He’s an incredibly generous, fun and kind person. He also has a high baritone voice, which is required for the role of Pelléas. We asked Étienne if he was interested in the role, and he replied honestly that he didn’t know the role, but was looking for the opportunity to learn it. We are so fortunate that he said yes. Rehearsals have shown that he’s fluid and has a booming sound to match with the most stunning high notes. The role of Pelléas is written in the treble clef (a clef traditionally attributed to tenors, not baritones and basses, who sing in the bass clef).

First-Person: Soprano Miriam Khalil inside Against the Grain's Pélleas et Mélisande

The New Role, The New Score, And all of it Outside
by Miriam Khalil
@SongbirdKhalil

I’m excited to be making my role debut of Mélisande in Debussy’s incredible opera Pelléas et Mélisande. Learning Mélisande was like navigating through a complicated maze. The deeper into the maze, the more mesmerized and dizzy I became. At first I thought that it was the music causing this entwining but eventually I realized that not only is the music as elusive as water, but so is her character. She is pure and ever changing, innocent but also very complicated. She knows things that she shouldn’t. She has lived both one life and also one hundred lives. She makes decisions that she knows will lead to her undoing and can’t stop herself from making them because ultimately those same decisions are what will bring her closer to Pelléas. 

Playing Mélisande is difficult in a sense because it has to come from a most honest and transparent place. It is the only way that it will feel right and as a result, I’m finding that it will never feel safe or easy. In certain scenes Mélisande seems to not even be in the same conversation as the people she is speaking with. She answers questions that have not been asked and changes the subject when the questions are too intimate or revealing. She never answers who she is or where she came from. We only know how she truly feels when she finally professes her love to Pelléas at the end.  It’s a turn away from her constant silence and sadness, which follows her throughout the opera.  She finally finds joy in Pelléas , someone who is nothing like her but in actuality, he is the mirror to her soul.  Without knowing it, his words and melodies spill out all that she is feeling. He speaks words and emotion which mirror what she feels in her darkest places which she has kept secret through her silence.

First-Person: Baritone Étienne Dupuis inside Against the Grain's Pélleas et Mélisande

On the Joys of a Broken Foot
by Étienne Dupuis
@EtienneLovesYa

I met Miriam Khalil a few years back, when we were singing together in a production of La Bohème as Marcello and Musetta.  She told me about her husband Joel Ivany and Against the Grain Theatre, and that they were doing a production of La Bohème…in a bar!  I loved the idea!  Still do!  I love even more the idea of going 'against the grain' with opera. Opera nowadays is bound by traditions so tightly that it's getting harder and harder to remove the dust and the rust clinging to it. The only problem is,  AtG was doing this Bohème in English, using Joel's own translation. I sing the role of Marcello in Italian all the time, and learning it in English would have been too risky...so I turned the role down.