Pelléas et Mélisande review – Longborough’s staging is accomplished and atmospheric

Longborough festival opera, Moreton-in-Marsh
Anthony Negus is attentive to the subtleties of Debussy’s translucent score, and, matched by Jenny Ogilvie’s darkly mysterious production, this makes for one of the most successful shows Longborough festival has ever mounted

Anthony Negus’s conducting of Wagner has long been the chief musical glory of the Longborough festival. Now he has turned his attention to Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, an opera on which he assisted Pierre Boulez at the Welsh National Opera more than 30 years ago. The results are no less unmissable and authoritative as his Wagner.

From the dark chords of the opening bars, Negus conjures a fluently idiomatic reading of the translucent score. The pacing is beautifully controlled and Negus is always attentive to Debussy’s many tone colour changes and subtle dynamic contrasts. He draws some ravishing woodwind playing from the Longborough orchestra.

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