Symbolism: a loose-knit aesthetic movement undertaken, primarily in France, by a variety of venturesome artists in the late 19th century, their rejection of overly elaborated depictions of human behaviour replaced by more intuitive expressions of heightened psychological immediacy.
The tangible world was seen as a lesser reality from the Symbolist point of view. The mystifying empire of the mind with its moody, constantly shifting landmarks and precipitous ranges of sensation offered far richer and ultimately more rewarding fields of cross-branded investigation.
Post-Impressionists, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh, turned inner eyes outward, painting with powerful directness and vibrancy born of a shared, almost religious need to create. Beyond the Channel, late Pre-Raphaelites Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti filled their canvases with pure human emotion framed by archetypal legend and myth.
A number of influential playwrights of the age, Paul Claudel in France, Maurice Maeterlinck in Belgium and Swedish dramatist August Strindberg among them ventured deep into the wilds of theatrical expressionism.
But it was in the glistening, almost evanescent realm of French poetry that Symbolism exerted its mightiest gravitational pull. Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, all conjured a world of extraordinarily resonant imagery and urgent implication, meticulously layered assemblages of shimmering metaphors in the style of literary spiritual mentor Charles Baudelaire, evoking entire panoramas of atmosphere and meaning.
It was into this exclusive, transformative domain of Symbolist idealism that Claude Debussy, his lustrous symphonic setting of Mallarmé’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune his calling card, would be irresistibly, irrevocably, inevitably drawn.
With its long-awaited company premiere of the composer’s dream-like, eternally enigmatic Pelléas et Mélisande unveiled on stage at Koerner Hall last week, Opera Atelier soared. Bravely venturing far beyond their accustomed Baroque terrain, stage director Marshall Pynkoski and choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg’s exuberant exploration of simmering erotic impulse and violent opposition flew straight to the centre of inspiration.
First performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in the Spring of 1902, libretto by Debussy extracted essentially verbatim from Symbolist colleague Maurice Maeterlinck’s feverish 5-act drama, Pelléas et Mélisande simultaneously confounded and mesmerized audiences of the day.
And there ends the sum total of any and all certainty, past and present, surrounding the artistic parameters of the piece.
Who is Mélisande — Ne me touchez pas! Ne me touchez pas! — terrified refugee from some unidentified horror, that so enchants and beguiles the royal residents of an ancient decaying kingdom? Does she even exist as a tangible presence? And what are we to make of the unwanted broken crown she has cast into a glassy forest pond?
Speculation triggers imagination, potentially far more horrific than any concealed backstory. A heavy air of anxiety and apprehension overhangs everything. The shadow of death falls everywhere.
Prince Golaud, half-brother to Pelléas, has lost his wife when first we meet him in the opening moments of Act I. Pelléas’ father lies gravely ill, sequestered in a remote chamber of grandfather, King Arkel’s castle, a hostile, malignant place — très vieux et très sombre… très froid et très profond.
The spectre of famine grips the land.
Mélisande: C’est ici, que je ne peux plus vivre. Je sens que je ne vivrais plus longtemps.
The lethal sense of inscrutability in play here is as pervasive as the absence of formal storytelling. Pynksoki tirelessly exploited every opportunity to explore it on stage, flinging his cast body and soul into the tremulous chaos, characters darting from the shadows, retreating into oblivion like frightened animals.
Nature, environmental and/or human, offers neither peace nor refuge. Wilderness, physical and/or mental, becomes the foe.
Set in the kingdom of Allemonde, a bluntly suggestive, blatantly allegorical land, its geography perilous and unforgiving — tangled forests standing ready to ensnare lost souls; bottomless pools awaiting a careless slip — Pelléas et Mélisande flashes lightning-like scene to scene.
Nous aurons une tempête cette nuit: il y en a toutes les nuits depuis quelque temps.
Enlisting the aid of an immense ocular-shaped projection screen, resident Opera Atelier set designer Gerard Gauci summoned a dazzling stream of vivid visual metaphors, painterly aids to narrative georeferencing. An ominous forest. A submerged golden crown. A sailing ship floundering in a gale. A vaguely sinister moon glimpsed from the mouth of a yawning cave. A wall of trees suppressing sunlight, the image reproduced in multiple wraparound form partially encircling the broad Koerner Hall stage. An utterly stunning series of pictorial effects, unquestionably some of Gauci’s best scenic design work to date in a virtually interminable list of memorable credits.
Diaphanous and ethereal, concluding on a shocking, raw note of violence, Pelléas et Mélisande blazed new trails to the frontiers of Modernism. Arnold Schoenberg would compose an ambitious orchestral tone poem by the same name, nudging Maeterlinck’s highly abstracted theatrical fantasy deeper into the 20th century.
Debussy upholds the drama in his own strikingly unique way, crafting music of finely wrought subtlety and power, his soundscape infinitely less than bounded by traditional notions of harmonic structure, coaxing his gleaming, translucent score forward, mingling and merging colours and, very occasionally, motifs.
Older operatic forms, however, are not entirely abandoned. The tragédies en musique of the French High Baroque, with their emphasis on clarity of expression and rhythmic patterns of common speech are very much alive in Pelléas.
Rearranged and revised by assistant conductor Christopher Bagan for a reduced 14-player ensemble, courtesy Tafelmusik, Debussy’s original epic historic score emerged neatly repackaged. Excerpts imported from Charpentier and Rameau punctuated both Act I and II openings, extended dance sequences in Acts III and V accompanied by a stately Passacaille and gentle Sarabande, both by Charpentier alone.
Conductor David Fallis led with great sensitivity and refinement, Artists of Atelier Ballet, joined by soloist Eric César De Mello Da Silva as Eros, lovingly extending the lingering sense of living in the dreamworld of Debussy’s genius.
Singing the role of Pelléas, tenor Antonin Rondepierre gifted the evening with a glowing display of finely filigreed artistry. There was a purity to Rondepierre’s Pelléas, an authentic classical response to Debussy’s demands for guilessness and humanity while still maintaining a sense of urgency lit with passion. His character’s anguished, C’est le dernier soir, expressed by the singer with immense commitment, proved particularly affecting.
Soprano Meghan Lindsay appeared as Mélisande, her character a sharp dramatic focal point for unremitting collective emotional pressure. Precariously balanced on the edge of cognition and madness, battling to maintain some semblance, however fleeting, of psychic equilibrium, Lindsay’s damaged princess tore at the heart, her voice effortlessly swinging from fear and desperation to the dangerous heights of euphoria. Her rendition of Mélisande’s enchanting semi a cappella air, Mes longs cheveux descendent, one of the few aria-flavoured solos in an opera built almost entirely on speech-inflected recitative, was exquisitely beautiful.
Baritone Douglas Williams was Golaud. A fine, towering rendering of Maeterlinck/Debussy’s tormented anatagonist sung with great power and poignancy. A strikingly handsome, unfailingly charismatic performer possessed of formidable actorly skills, Williams quickly assumed command of the character. His portrayal of the deeply conflicted, paranoid prince utterly overwhelmed — forceful, frenzied, heartbreaking in unguarded moments, vulnerability and pathos half-hidden behind the eyes.
Philippe Sly appeared as Arkel, an unexpectedly vigorous, youthful old king, the lure of his gorgeous, rich bass-baritone arguably more than sufficient to willingly suspend opera going disbelief.
Soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee was a caring, attentive Geneviève, mother to Golaud and Pelléas both. Fellow soprano Cynthia Akemi Smithers sang a playful, acutely innocent Yniold. Baritone Parker Clements was the Doctor, a comprimario role yielding yet more mystery at the close of the evening’s proceedings.
An astonishing experience. A bold Pelléas et Mélisande of dauntless dimensions.