Just in: Munich cancels Pelleas streaming after ‘extremely negative’ reactions

Just in: Munich cancels Pelleas streaming after ‘extremely negative’ reactions

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norman lebrecht

June 30, 2015

Bavarian State Opera has cancelled the July 4 live streaming of Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande ‘for technical reasons’. Instead it will show Arabella with Anja Harteros in the title role on July 11.

Early Pelleas reviews have been mostly hostile. One critic reported that the audience considered Christiane Pohle’s production to be ‘the flop of the season’. Other critics found it static and depressing.

Those sound like good ‘technical grounds’

Wonder whether Covent Garden will pull the plug likewise on its much-booed William Tell.

pelleas munich

Comments

  • Simon S. says:

    Norman, the Deutschlandfunk critic does not call the production “the flop of the season”. The passage in question translates as follows: “Judging by the reactions of the audience, this production was undoubtedly the flop of the season.” His own judgement, however, is rather ambivalent. He isn’t really excited, but he doesn’t doom it to hell either.

  • Theodore McGuiver says:

    We can see how well the set could combine with Debussy’s unequalled, luxuriant and evocative music.

  • Cynical Observer says:

    The website flagged the change before the 1st night, so it is more likely that they realised Ms Harteros was more of a draw than a production of Pelleas that in the event was ‘rather ambivalent’

  • Pierre Couture says:

    I just saw the second performance of Guillaume Tell last night; contrary to the opinions of the management, it was certainly slightly “sanitysed” – without any nudity and with no “rape scene” – and received a tremendous applause, without boos. It was also filmed in preparation of the telecast to world cinemas on Sunday.

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