Opera Atelier opened a production of Debussy’s symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande at Koerner Hall on Wednesday evening with direction by Marshall Pynkoski and choreography by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg. Let’s start by making it clear that this is not an attempt to present the opera as it was seen or heard when it premiered in 1902 or even to try and reproduce that aesthetic with more modern technology which, I think, is what’s usually meant by “Historically Informed Performance” (HIP). The extent to which any recent Opera Atelier production is HIP is a discussion perhaps left for another day.
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