Debussy for Dummies
The 2004 Zurich production of Pelléas et Mélisande is a curious one, but then Debussy's only complete opera is a strange and enigmatic work. It's a work that is founded on ambience and ambiguity, as much in the libretto - Maurice Maeterlinck's symbolist drama brought over almost intact - as in the haunting qualities of Debussy's music, which do not underscore or emphasise specific emotions in the traditional manner as much as suggest otherworldly mood and mystery in the hidden depths that lie within it. The production design consequently also goes for a non-specific, otherworldly location within a snow-bound world that seems to work well with Debussy's floating lines, the coldness and detachment of the expressions, as well as the enclosed intimacy and oppressiveness of the subconscious passions that underlie them.
By far the strangest element of Sven-Eric Bechtolf's production however is the use of life-size dummies, looking uncannily like the characters...
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