Wednesday, June 8, 2011

OTSL's "Pelléas and Mélisande": No Opium Required

Liam Bonner in Debussy's Masterpiece
"Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, in the persons of stage director David Alden, set designer Paul Steinberg and lighting designer Adam Silverman, made all the right artistic decisions in their very American production of French composer Claude Debussy's only opera, Pelléas and Mélisande. Whether you enjoy it will depend on your reaction to Debussy's very French decision to use as the libretto Symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name....The leads in particular — buttery soprano Corinne Winters (Mélisande),
richly expressive baritones Liam Bonner (Pelléas) and Gregory Dahl (Golaud), and spectacular twelve-year-old (you read that right) soprano Michael Meo — are unflagging in their creativity and musical good sense....Debussy, an inveterate opium smoker, would have loved it." [Source] Watch a multi-media preview of the production by clicking here.