PELLÉAS AND MÉLISANDE • LA SCALA MILANO
★★★★★☆
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
REVIEW: PELLÉAS AND MÉLISANDE – A VISUAL CASTELLUCCI SPECTACLE AT LA SCALA
The controversial Italian director Romeo Castellucci walks a fine line between inclusion and exclusion in his spectacular, deeply symbolist, and highly enigmatic staging of Debussy’s already rather hazy 1902 opera Pelléas et Mélisande. But what a show!
Regardless of one’s views on whether a theatrical performance can be understood in real time, one must applaud the production for its phenomenal visual impact in Castellucci’s debut at La Scala, where he transforms Debussy’s dream opera into a visual poem of light, shadow, bodies, and enigmatic tableaux. Everything seems to vibrate between the symbolic, the unsaid, and the unsettling.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Pelléas et Mélisande is in itself a complex work: the story of a young woman found in the forest with no memory, no past, no explanation. She is brought to the castle in Allemonde, where her presence slowly dissolves everything around her.
Pelléas falls in love with her, her husband Golaud becomes consumed by jealousy, and the tragedy unfolds like an unstoppable fog.
It is an opera where the plot barely moves, but where moods, hints, and undercurrents carry the drama.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Castellucci takes this dreamlike ambiguity and turns it up to the max. He works with images that do not explain, but unsettle. A forest that is not a forest. A castle dissolving into white light. Bodies moving as if trapped in another dimension of time. Symbols that slip in and out of meaning. It is a staging one simply must surrender to, and which punishes those who seek logic.
For those who let themselves be carried away, it is a hypnotic experience. Castellucci does not create scenography; he creates a fantastical, artistic universe in which one gets lost.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Musically, the performance is carried by Debussy’s gliding harmonies, which here create an almost cinematic ambience. The singers’ performances are subdued, as if they were figures in a ritual rather than characters in a drama. Bold, but not satisfying for everyone.
Nevertheless, La Scala deserves praise and respect for this daring production, for on other occasions here in what is perhaps the opera world’s finest venue, I have witnessed several rather conservative stagings, perhaps designed to appeal to a broad international audience.
The international reception has been marked by divided opinions. Several reviewers have criticized the performance for being incomprehensible or too conceptual, as if Debussy’s opera were not in itself an enigma without clear answers—an enigma that Castellucci merely builds upon.
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
The premiere audience at La Scala was divided: some booed, others cheered, but no one was indifferent. That’s how it is with Castellucci, Bieito, and several of the big names who challenge conventions.
For me, the production stands as one of the season’s most visually stunning experiences. A staging that doesn’t explain, but enchants. Five stars from GOT TO SEE THIS.
