Pelléas et Mélisande

A young woman in her wedding dress, a handkerchief stained with blood, a bedroom in which she is fast asleep – and which, a moment later, is neither entirely the same nor entirely different. This Melisande is not the umpteenth variation on the fin-de-siècle femme fatale, a deadly enigma for the men around her: here the traditional perspective is reversed to give us her point of view, putting her instead at the centre of her waking dream, peopled with terrors and desires. The staging, of a surprising beauty and virtuosity, follows its surreal logic, continually shifting the setting of the action and treading a tightrope between social behaviour and symbolism, between fantasy and realism. In 2016, Katie Mitchell’s visionary, committed production cast a spell on the Festival audience; it returns this year with a largely different cast: apart from Laurent Naouri, the charismatic Huw Montague Rendall and Julia Bullock in the title roles with the orchestra of the Opéra de Lyon under the direction of Susanna Mälkki.