With the return of Pelléas et Mélisande, it's back to business as usual at Glyndebourne. Graham Vick's penetrating production, first seen in 1999 and revived now by Anneliese Macskimmon, provides a salutary contrast to the picture-book simplicities of Adrian Noble's new Zauberflöte. This is a sombre, thoughtful piece of work, laying bare what is most uncomfortable in this most disturbing of all operas. Its power seems enhanced this time around.
In transplanting the opera from its mythic, sub-Wagnerian world to a fin-de-siècle drawing room (wonderfully depicted in Paul Brown's sumptuous set, with a transparent floor that looks as if it was laid over a gallery-full of Redon's flower paintings), the production makes what is already an ambiguous drama into something even more complex and harder to pin down. Everything becomes metaphor and symbol, with this collection of lost souls forming the ultimate dysfunctional family - orbiting each other in endless torment and not managing an uncompromised relationship between them.
Only John Tomlinson remains from the cast of five years ago. His Golaud is softer round the edges than before: less of a bully, more a man in torment. His French seems more natural, too, though his tone and dynamic level remain unvaried.
The most notable of the newcomers is Marie Arnet, whose Mélisande has exactly the right enigmatic presence, complemented by elegant diction and tone. Her foil is Russell Braun's stiff, uptight Pelléas, lacking charm but earnestly impassioned. David Stark's Yniold, the child condemned to taking the family curse into the next generation, is secure and confident, while Christian Tréguier's Arkel makes the most of his fourth-act scene with Mélisande, the one moment of optimism in this chronicle of despair. And, as Geneviève, Nadine Denize makes her letter-reading truly involving.
But this tragedy, in which blame cannot be accurately apportioned, is played out as much in the orchestra as it is in what the characters do. The London Philharmonic play wonderfully for Louis Langée, who unfolds the scores with quiet eloquence and achieves a perfect balance between stage and pit. This is a distinguished if profoundly unsettling revival.
· In rep until July 3. Box office: 01273 813813.
