Pelléas et Mélisande review – luminous semi-staging but Debussy’s elusive opera keeps its secrets

The Aldeburgh festival opened this year with a semi-staged concert performance of Claude Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande on June 14, 2026, at Snape Maltings in Suffolk. The production, directed by Rory Kinnear and conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, aimed to interpret the elusive themes of Maeterlinck's symbolist play. The staging was minimal, featuring only industrial pendant lights and a single stool, with the orchestra positioned on stage alongside the singers. Costumes, designed by Vicki Mortimer, were understated: dark suits for the male royals, a tattered white gown for Mélisande, and drab boiler suits for the silent extras who also performed brief offstage choral parts. The orchestra itself was integrated into the performance space, with characters moving among the instrumentalists as if they represented the surrounding forest.