The Santa Fe Opera has attracted me to its unique desert setting numerous times over the past quarter century, but I was motivated to go this year with my first glance at the list of operas it had planned. Not that there was any particular one I was dying to see; rather, it was the mix of five works that looked interesting. There was only one warhorse, Tosca (which, in the end, I opted out of), while the other four constituted nationally diverse operas of various degrees of popularity, all well respected artistically. Among them was a quasi-rarity, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and, after last year’s Tristan, another Wagner opera, Der fliegende Holländer, a notable selection given the company’s long neglect of the composer.
Most striking was the absence of any new work. The most recent of the five, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, premiered in 1902, with Dvořák’s Rusalka close behind (1901). In and of itself, this turn to the past is not something to be proud of, but SFO has a long history of presenting new operas that other companies won’t touch. Now, however, when we are awash in new operas, many on politically correct subjects, I saw in this programming a sign that SFO, under Robert K. Meya’s able leadership since 2018, believes in serious opera at a time when many outfits, still struggling post-pandemic, seem to have lost sight of the core mission to present the highest quality opera of which they are capable.
It takes courage to put on Pelléas et Mélisande, which is hardly a crowd pleaser, but SFO had the arresting idea of entrusting the conducting of this icon of musical Impressionism to the company’s music director, Harry Bicket, a conductor known primarily as a Baroque specialist, although his work in Santa Fe has been varied. (Last year he conducted Carmen.) Despite the hazy aura inherent to Impressionist music, it sounds best when performed with order and clarity, and Bicket did not disappoint. However, the production and direction by Netia Jones, an Englishwoman who also designed the sets, costumes, and projections, proved difficult to parse.
Why were the stage movements of the principals replicated by silent doubles? Why was a large terrarium with a grassy floor on stage for the entire opera, until it became the bed in which Mélisande died? And what were we to make of the production’s numerous and wide-ranging projections? I was no closer to having an answer to these questions at the end of the night than I was when they first came to mind. Don’t look to the program book for an answer. An informative article by James M. Keller about each opera performed this season and its context is included, but there are no pieces by any of the directors explaining what attracted him or her to the opera in question and why. Such explanations are increasingly necessary as directors seek to make points that go beyond the libretto, as does Jones here. Pelléas, whose text is a condensed version of a play by Maurice Maeterlinck, is about a love triangle between Golaud, a prince in an ancient kingdom; Mélisande, the beautiful, mysterious girl he meets in a forest and who becomes his wife; and Pelléas, Golaud’s half-brother, who falls in love with Mélisande (and she with him).
At one point I thought that the doubles might be acting out the principals’ unexpressed thoughts, an idea that proved incorrect. As luck would have it, in the absence of a program note, SFO posted online a three-minute explanatory video by Jones. She explains that the doubles represent mirror images of the principals, and that the opera itself “forces us to self-reflection.” The terrarium clearly says something about biological experimentation, a point confirmed when Mélisande tells Pelléas that her hands are full while carrying two large lab jars where the libretto otherwise specifies flowers. Jones says she wanted to explore “our relationship with the planet and with nature and what this means for us as humankind.” She mentions that the opera has references to “decay,” which is true, but most are unrelated to nature. And as for the projections, most suggest flowers or other plant life, but instead of letting these images function purely decoratively, Jones includes among the projections pages from a biology treatise, implying that the flowers—which look murkier than they should have—too have a message to convey. Like many modern productions, this Pelléas too often distracts the viewer with arcane details rather than deepening our understanding of the music and drama.
Musically, all was well, or nearly so. Bicket cultivated crisp instrumental articulation and rhythmic pulse in a well-organized reading, ensuring that the splendid interludes unfold eloquently. The cast was unusually able. Huw Montague Rendall sings and acts as if born to portray Pelléas. His voice fits ideally a role that straddles tenor and baritone ranges, and it has a natural timbre that, allied with an instinctive expressivity, underscored the character’s boyish emotional makeup. Samantha Hankey, recently a splendid Octavian at the Met, has the makings of a fine Mélisande, but her portrayal needed more fragility and less volume, although it cannot be denied that her forthright singing at the start of the tower scene was impressive. Zachary Nelson was a vocally compelling Golaud, vividly conveying the character’s growing anguish and subsequent remorse. Susan Graham sang with motherly affection as Geneviève, and Raymond Aceto made a gruff Arkel. But why was the family patriarch costumed to look like a Middle Eastern crime boss?