"Pelleas et Melisande : Pelly, De Billy / Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dessay, Degout, etc (2009 Stereo)(2DVD)"

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: Pelleas et Melisande
Drame Lyrique in 5 acts (1902)
Libretto: Maurice Maeterlinck
Sung in French

Natalie Dessay
Stephane Degout
Laurent Naouri
Philip Ens
Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Tim Mirfin
Beate Ritter
Arnold Schoenberg Chor
Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra / Bertrand De Billy, conductor

Directed by Laurent Pelly
New Production of Theater an der Wien

Premiere at Theater an der Wien /Das Neue Operhaus - January 13, 2009
Filmed by ORF

“There’s more to life than top notes,” Natalie Dessayhas said. She has, of course, made her reputation with the florid, stratospheric heroines of Romantic French and Italian opera, but in this new DVD from Vienna she portrays a heroine who presents few opportunities for vocal display, but many for subtle characterisation - Debussy’s Melisande. Dessay had sung the role just once before, in concert in Edinburgh in 2005. Pelleas et Melisande is full of ambiguity and its vocal lines closely reflect Maurice Maeterlink’s often enigmatic text. A few unaccompanied, ballad-like phrases are the closest Melisande gets to an aria. For this production, premiered in January 2009 at the Theater an der Wien, Dessay’s French and French-Canadian colleagues included stage director Laurent Pelly - celebrated for riotous comedy (notably La fille de regiment with Dessay, also a Virgin Classics DVD - and his preferred designer, Chantal Thomas; Dessay’s real-life husband, bass-baritone Laurent Naouri as her jealous stage husband, Golaud; the lyric baritone Stephane Degout as her Pelleas, and the contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux as his and Golaud’s mother, Genevieve. The high-calibre Gallic line-up was completed by conductor Bertrand de Billy. ( EMI )