Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s enigmatic 1902 tale of love and jealousy, met its match this May with three Cleveland Orchestra performances at Severance Hall. Music Director Franz Welser-Möst said he had been “waiting for the right time, to have the right singers and the right creative team” to present Debussy’s only opera. The opera was staged by L.A.-based avant-garde director Yuval Sharon, who previously directed the orchestra’s 2014 production of Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Sharon brought out Pelléas’s impressionistic aspect with lots of fog and lighting effects, and dancers who moved in and out of a box at the center of the stage. The box, which could be both clear and opaque, Welser-Möst noted, “emphasized the shifting and dreamlike nature of this opera, and helped explore deeply into the psyche of the characters.”
