Pelleas et Melisande

Brave and beautiful: Longborough’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed

5 July 2025 9:00 am

King Arkel, in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, is almost blind, and he rules over a kingdom of darkness. Debussy’s score…

Christina Gansch as Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande at Glyndebourne Festival

Vexing reading of a perplexing opera: Glyndebourne’s Pelléas et Mélisande reviewed

7 July 2018 9:00 am

The femme fatale was invented in France. A giddy, greedy child in her first incarnation, as the antiheroine of Abbé…

In two minds

16 January 2016 9:00 am

There are some operas, as there are some people, that it is impossible to establish a settled relationship with, and…

I doubt Goethe intended Werther’s sorrows to be as unremitting as this

24 October 2015 9:00 am

There are some things the French do better than everyone else. Cheese, military defeats and extra-marital affairs are a given,…