NOTES
Direction, sets, costumes and lighting: Romeo Castellucci
Musical director: Maxime Pascal
Dramaturgy: Christian Longchamp
Artistic collaboration: Giulia Giammona
Video: Pier Paolo Zimmermann
3D modelling: Filippo Zimmermann
Pelléas: Bernard Richter
Mélisande: Sara Blanch
Golaud: Simon Keenlyside
Geneviève: Marie-Nicole Lemieux
Arkel: John Relyea
Plastikart Studio: design and production of an automated ‘flag-waver’ machine
11 m x 3.5 m.
The opera that Claude Debussy drew from Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama is one of the highest achievements of musical theatre of all time. The La Scala stage recalls productions of absolute importance: from Victor de Sabata’s conducting in 1948 and 1953, to Herbert von Karajan’s in 1962, and the historic production by Antoine Vitez with Claudio Abbado on the podium in 1986, while Georges Prêtre conducted the 1973, 1977 and 2005 editions. Within such a prestigious interpretive history comes the return of Maxime Pascal’s fresh interpretive intelligence, one of today’s most engaging French conductors, who has conducted major contemporary titles at La Scala, and the La Scala debut of Romeo Castellucci, a leading Italian director regularly invited to major European theatres and festivals, whose conception of a sacred and visionary theatre, deeply rooted in art history, promises a precious encounter with the symbolism of Debussy’s opera.