David Pohle News
German baroque composer
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2024-03-29
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2018-07-02 15:47:00
Pelléas et Mélisande, Glyndebourne, 30 June 2018
[…] can no longer ignore. Those blows that never quite led anywhere come to seem something more than ‘boring’. By the same token, however, should they perhaps not have become something a little sooner? When does representing boredom become merely boring? I am not sure that Herheim, usually a master at treading of multiple lines, does not trip, even fall, in this case. An object lesson in that respect was Christiane Pohle’s revelatory post-Beckett staging for the Bavarian State Opera. Meaninglessness was the thing there, not ennui as such; the production was all the better for it. I cannot help but wonder whether the negative reaction it received was laced with misogyny – and/or perhaps a journalistic lack of understanding of ‘modern’ theatre. It was, at any rate, difficult not to ask such a question in a work that focuses on abusive behaviour and yet here, […]
2017-10-16 18:05:00
Pelléas et Mélisande, Komische Oper, 15 October 2017
[…] for Mélisande, seek one. (Whether Pelléas does in the opera is a moot point; I do not think he does here. Indeed he remains in the gallery of frozen souls, not unlike a Bluebeardcollection, at the close: dead, yes, but was he, were they, always so? What on earth, or beyond, might it mean to be alive here?) Characters move simply, repetitively, if not quite so repetitively, certainly not with such meaninglessness, as in Christiane Pohle’s Munich production (roundly dismissed, I am tempted to suggest misogynistically, by ignorant journalists and audiences alike, but an unforgettable piece of post-Beckettian theatre). Parallels are drawn, easily discerned, given the essential simplicity of the pared-down action; for instance, Mélisande’s arms, her form as yet unseen, encircle – irony here, ‘Ne me touchez pas!’, doubled when it becomes clear quite how fearful she is of being touched – Pelléas at the opening of their final […]
2015-07-28 08:28:00
Munich Opera's Pelleas et Melisande: Two Contrasting Views
[…] I’ve seen some striking director-driven productions in Munich, such as Palestrina, Ariadne auf Naxos, and this season’s Arabella. Sadly, I’ve also seen some that didn’t work for exactly the reasons I mentioned above. For me, an example of a misguided production was the Martin Kusej Rusalka, and the Don Giovanni by stage director Stefan Kimmig. To that list I must now add this year’s new production of Pelleas et Melisande. The Regie is Christiane Pohle, known for her work in German Schauspiele. This represents her first foray into opera directing. I attended the third performance on July 4. By then, all the audience hostility towards the director had died down – in any case, she wasm’t there so there was no point in booing. There were just a lot of long faces in the audience. It's not overstating the case when I say this production received an almost […]
Norman Lebrecht - Slipped disc
2015-06-30 13:02:01
Just in: Munich cancels Pelleas streaming after ‘extremely negative’ reactions
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.
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