Palais Theatre
October 11, 2018

Victorian Opera once again leads audiences along a challenging path less travelled with Claude Debussy’s only opera, a revolutionary work that’s rarely performed on these shores. With a fine cast led by three Australians making names for themselves overseas, Richard Mills conducting a youthful orchestra with his usual poetic insight, and thoughtful direction and design, it’s a richly rewarding journey.

Siobhan Stagg, Angus Wood, and Samuel Dundas. Photo © Jeff Busby

Based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 play with a libretto by the composer, Pelléas et Mélisande premiered in Paris in 1902. Its mysterious story, presented as a series of tableaux, is full of open-ended questions, particularly about who Mélisande is. Found in the woods by the king’s grandson, Golaud, she refuses to reveal anything about herself. Nevertheless, they marry, but when Golaud’s half-brother Pelléas appears, he and Mélisande fall in love. Her increasingly suspicious and jealous husband forces his young son by another marriage, Yniold, to spy on the pair, adding to the opera’s sense of unease.

These family relationships would be unclear without the program synopsis, especially as there are several absent figures: deceased spouses and a dying...