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AVA's 'Pelléas' prevails on piano

You'd think this town would finally be ready for Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. That infamous Philadelphia Orchestra concert version of the opera - it started with a well-populated Academy of Music and ended nearly empty - was long ago in 1986.

Baritone Zachary Nelson as Golaud, and tenor John Viscardi as Pelléas and soprano Chloe Moore as Mélisande, in the Academy of Vocal Arts' production of Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the Helen Corning Warden Theater.
Baritone Zachary Nelson as Golaud, and tenor John Viscardi as Pelléas and soprano Chloe Moore as Mélisande, in the Academy of Vocal Arts' production of Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" at the Helen Corning Warden Theater.Read morePAUL SIROCHMAN

You'd think this town would finally be ready for Debussy's

Pelléas et Mélisande.

That infamous Philadelphia Orchestra concert version of the opera - it started with a well-populated Academy of Music and ended nearly empty - was long ago in 1986.

But with far fewer tickets to sell, the Academy of Vocal Arts opened a five-performance run on Saturday with something seldom seen in its tiny Helen Corning Warden Theater - empty seats. Not a lot, but some. And this production is close to the real thing, not the shortened Impressions of Pelleas seen occasionally at the Curtis Institute. True, the accompaniment was piano rather than orchestra, and AVA's productions are always low-budget. But in the case of this production, with bare-bones storybook sets that did the job, and soundly directed by K. James McDowell, minuses morphed into pluses.

Though unceasingly beautiful, the opera is a paragon of French symbolism, and thus isn't made of well-fitting pieces. While the title characters are the usual star-crossed lovers, they have few high notes, nobody is sure if their relationship was consummated, and the dying Mélisande seems mildly surprised to learn she gave birth before waking up on her deathbed. Everyone seems to know exactly when he or she will die. Almost every scene has loose ends. Audiences aren't offended so much as baffled and bored.

That wasn't about to happen at AVA. In the first scene, when Mélisande is discovered weeping in the woods, Chloe Moore played her as aggressively wounded - and perhaps foreseeing the traumas of her destiny. Fine idea - had the singing not been more appropriate to Tosca. Zachary Nelson's Golaud, who discovers her and eventually becomes her violently jealous husband, had more dramatic justification for his stentorian vocalizing.

As his half-brother Pélleas, tenor John Viscardi relaxed into the piece earlier than the others, and embodied a kind of acting that wasn't about projecting his character's events as much as living them. Among secondary characters, Margaret Mezzacappa (she's everywhere these days) struck the right tone as the mother, Genevieve, though Patrick Guetti, as Arkel the king, plowed through his role with little detail.

Musical and theatrical elements came together after intermission, when Pélleas and Mélisande have their last meeting, knowing they'll be killed if discovered kissing but doing so anyway - with a heart-in-mouth effect that more readily happens in a small theater with a piano instead of an orchestra.

And was the orchestra missed? Yes, in the first few scenes when the opera is being particularly mysterious. But this piano reduction was made by Debussy and thus shows what aspects of the score were his priorities. It's more than a convenience, but, as played by Luke Housner, it was its own artistic statement. The opera might be tough going for the uninitiated without the composer's orchestration as a lure. But then, this opera never was mainstream. You either have the Pélleas gene - or not.

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