Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande / M. Ewing · Le Roux · van Dam · Courtis · Ludwig · Wiener Phil. · Abbado

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande / M. Ewing · Le Roux · van Dam · Courtis · Ludwig · Wiener Phil. · Abbado

Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande / M. Ewing · Le Roux · van Dam · Courtis · Ludwig · Wiener Phil. · Abbado
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CD Details

Edition: Music CD
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 1992-11-10
Music Label: Dg Imports
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Pelleas et Melisande: Je ne pourrai plus sortir de cette foret - Claude Debussy
  2. Pelleas et Melisande: Pourquoi pleures-tu? - Claude Debussy
  3. Pelleas et Melisande: Je suis perdu aussi - Claude Debussy
  4. Pelleas et Melisande: Voici ce qu'il ecrit son frere Pelleas - Claude Debussy
  5. Pelleas et Melisande: Qu'en dites-vous? - Claude Debussy
  6. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - Claude Debussy
  7. Pelleas et Melisande: Il fait sombre dans les jardins - Claude Debussy
  8. Pelleas et Melisande: Hoe! Hisse Hoe! - Claude Debussy
  9. Pelleas et Melisande: Vous ne savez pas ou je vous ai menee? - Claude Debussy
  10. Pelleas et Melisande: C'est au bord d'une fontaine - Claude Debussy
  11. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - Claude Debussy
  12. Pelleas et Melisande: Ah! Ah! Tout va bien - Claude Debussy
  13. Pelleas et Melisande: Voyons, donne-moi ta main - Claude Debussy
  14. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - Claude Debussy
  15. Pelleas et Melisande: Oui, c'est ici, nous y sommes - Claude Debussy
  16. Pelleas et Melisande: Mes longs cheveux descendent jusqu'au seuil de la tour - Claude Debussy
  17. Pelleas et Melisande: Je les tiens dans les mains - Claude Debussy
  18. Pelleas et Melisande: Que faites-vous ici? - Claude Debussy
  19. Pelleas et Melisande: Prenez garde; par ici, par ici - Claude Debussy
Music CD 2
  1. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - Ah! Je respire enfin! - C. Debussy
  2. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - C. Debussy
  3. Pelleas et Melisande: Viens, nous allons nous asseoir ici, Yniold - C. Debussy
  4. Pelleas et Melisande: Qu'ils s'embrassent, petit pere? - C. Debussy
  5. Pelleas et Melisande: Ou vas-tu ? - C. Debussy
  6. Pelleas et Melisande: Maintenant que le pere de Pelleas est sauve - C. Debussy
  7. Pelleas et Melisande: Pelleas part ce soir - C. Debussy
  8. Pelleas et Melisande: Ne mettez pas ainsi votre main a la gorge - C. Debussy
  9. Pelleas et Melisande: Interlude - C. Debussy
  10. Pelleas et Melisande: Oh! Cette pierre est lourde - C. Debussy
  11. Pelleas et Melisande: C'est le dernier soir - C. Debussy
  12. Pelleas et Melisande: Nous sommes venus ici il y a bien longtemps - C. Debussy
  13. Pelleas et Melisande: On dirait que ta voix a passe sur la mer au printemps - C. Debussy
  14. Pelleas et Melisande: Quel est ce bruit? - C. Debussy
  15. Pelleas et Melisande: Ce n'est pas de cette petite blessure qu'elle peut mourir - C. Debussy
  16. Pelleas et Melisande: Attention; je crois qu'elle s'eveille - C. Debussy
  17. Pelleas et Melisande: Melisande, as-tu pitie de moi comme j'ai pitie de toi ? - C. Debussy
  18. Pelleas et Melisande: Non, non, nous n'avons pas ete coupables - C. Debussy
  19. Pelleas et Melisande: Qu'avez-vous fait ? - C. Debussy
  20. Pelleas et Melisande: Qu'y a-t-il ? - C. Debussy
  21. Pelleas et Melisande: Attention... attention. Il faut parler a voix basse, maintenant - C. Debussy

Music reviews of Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande / M. Ewing · Le Roux · van Dam · Courtis · Ludwig · Wiener Phil. · Abbado

Music Review: TOO DEEP FOR TEARS
Rating: 5 Stars

Debussy's great Pelleas et Melisande is not really a music-drama, much less an opera, in any familiar sense. It is more a book sung rather than read. The text is prose - quite simple prose at that - and so far as I know it is lifted straight from Maeterlinck's play. The music is as continuous as Wagner without relying on Wagner's special device of Leitmotiv, sc musical phrases with specific associations. The vocal idiom is a kind of constant recitative, and it is innocent of anything we would normally call melody from start to finish. That, on my view of the work, is how it must be - when singing a prose text tunes would be out of place. Again, I can think of no opera or music-drama that makes its effect so completely in sound alone, indeed that is how I prefer it. There may be no tunes, but there is infinite `atmosphere' to this music. It does not even `illustrate' its text, it fuses with it to form a single indivisible unity. It is toweringly great music in my opinion, but it has no existence apart from the narrative of which it has become a part.

Maeterlinck belongs to the school of French writers normally called `symbolist', and indeed there is symbolism enough in his story to keep the literary criticism industry going for centuries. The story captured the attention of other great composers too. It drew from Sibelius some attractive but lightweight incidental music, and Schoenberg was moved, alas, to depict it in a tone-poem of excruciating length and turgidity. Debussy was born, it seems, to give this deep and disturbing story its true and worthy musical representation. It is a depthlessly sad story, but on one level it is a very realistic one. The behaviour of Golaud and Pelleas is very recognisable indeed, and if the old king Arkel is as much a kind of Greek chorus in his comments as a kind of Nestor, the child Yniold is a very familiar type of French child. Melisande herself is the figure of mystery and contradictions. We never even find out where she came from - she was found crying in a forest like Coleridge's Geraldine, the victim apparently of unspecified wrongs done by unnamed wrongdoers. She is not a witch like Geraldine, but she precipitates the tragedy and she is a liar. She lies to Pelleas about the behaviour of Golaud when he found her (he was an impeccable gentleman), she lies to Golaud about the loss of her wedding-ring, and when she tells Pelleas that she only lies to Golaud that is itself a lie. However not only Golaud but Arkel too think of her as childlike, and indeed the developing passion in her relationship with Pelleas seems to come mainly from his side. Her death itself may have been the result of giving birth, although nobody suggests that, rather than a tragic event like the death of Desdemona. This is not a Shakespearean tragedy in any way, nor even a Greek-style one. The frequent references to fate are something else entirely here - this is just what can happen to people in certain situations.

Such is the power of the music that I prefer it all without stage action. Debussy creates a world of his own, and the performers here rise to it superbly. The trumpets surely sounded on the other side for Abbado and the Vienna Philharmonic for their superb realisation of this wonderful score, steering clear of hyperbole but without artificial coldness or restraint either. The singers seem to me without exception excellent. I am not myself a singer in any meaningful sense of the word, but I would guess that in technical terms Debussy's vocal writing is much less difficult than Wagner's to say nothing of Verdi's. Be that as it may, it calls for artistry and sensitivity of an exceptional order, and I hope I never have to revise my early impression that it is all something near flawless. The recording, from 1991, is just right to my ears too, and even the liner notes are outstandingly good. Maeterlinck's French is very simple, and I only glanced at the translation now and again. So far as I noticed, it was generally good, except that I spotted one howler - `le pont' on a ship is not the bridge but the deck. Would a sailing-ship have a bridge anyway? I also thought it rather a pity to downgrade Maeterlinck's vivid and memorable `l'haleine de la mort' to the dull and conventional `the shadow of death'.

How much general appeal this great work will ever have is something I have no means of knowing. I have not even attempted in a short review to touch on the matter of the symbolism that lies at its heart. If you are new to it, all I would say is that to have any hope of understanding it you must follow the text with undeviating attention, and it is in no way difficult to follow. It is not a thing to tug at your heart-strings in an ordinary sense, but it is as deep as the fountain in the park or the pools in the cave, and after hearing an account as fine as this one is it should take you some time to become the person you were before, if indeed you ever do.
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Description of Debussy - Pelléas et Mélisande / M. Ewing · Le Roux · van Dam · Courtis · Ludwig · Wiener Phil. · Abbado

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On paper, this recording is not necessarily promising. Neither Claudio Abbado nor the Vienna Philharmonic is noted for Debussy, and the enigmatic sense of restraint required by the role of Mélisande would not seem right for the hyperdramatic Maria Ewing. Nonetheless, this is among the best modern recordings available. The mysterious story of two lovers with questionable pasts drawn to each other with equal parts telepathy and sexuality is interpreted by Abbado with great confidence and rhythmic animation. Ewing channels her dramatic sense into a performance of great intensity and specificity, but in keeping with the opera's dreamy atmosphere. Other singers are old hands at their roles, with François Le Roux as Pelléas and Jose van Dam as Golaud. And in a bit of luxurious casting, Christa Ludwig sings the brief role of Genevieve with the French language bringing out a softness in her voice that's welcome to anyone who has spent decades hearing her sing in German. --David Patrick Stearns

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