Mythology has a way of making its presence felt across generations and into contemporary life, whether in film, television, or music.
Mythology has a way of making its presence felt across generations and into contemporary life, whether in film, television, or music. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) found inspiration in Homer’s Odyssey, separating himself from other influential, mythologically-inclined composers of the era (chiefly Richard Wagner and his Ring tetralogy) while simultaneously tipping chapeau, in his own way, to the epoch’s sonic landscape and the endurability of Homeric storytelling. In creating Pénélope, Fauré carved a creative path that was, and remains, entirely his own.
Opera composing came relatively late to the French composer, who is arguably best-known for his art songs, chamber music, the Pavane in F-sharp Minor (1887), Op. 50, his Pelléas et Mélisande Suite, Op. 80 (1898), and his Requiem in D-minor, Op. 48 (premiered in three versions: 1890; 1893; 1900). He began Pénélope, when he was 62 years old. Composed between 1907 and 1912 in the summers away from his duties as head of the Paris Conservatoire, the work is (as it is formally noted) a “poème lyrique” in three acts. Its libretto, by playwright and actor René Fauchois, is based on the story of the return of hero Ulysses to his home of Ithaca, finding his wife Penelope and a gang of wily suitors, detailed near the end of Homer’s Odyssey.
Premiered in Monte Carlo in March 1913, the opera went on to be produced at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in May of that year; it became part of the repertoire of the Opéra-Comique in 1919 before being presented by the Opera de Paris (1943), and subsequently premiered in the U.S. (1945), Argentina (1962), the U.K. (1970), the Wexford Festival Opera (2005), and more recently Oper Frankfurt (2019). Singers Suzanne Danco, Jessye Norman and Régine Crespin were among the many who sang (and/or recorded) the title role. Gramophone‘s Lionel Salter noted (in a review of the Norman recording) that the opera is “essentially a lyrical work, though there are almost no arias as such; it employs Wagner’s leitmotif technique (although in an individual way) but is not at all Wagnerian in idiom; it is basically intimate and restrained, though there are also powerful emotional scenes…”. MusicWeb International‘s Ralph Moore (in a review of the same 1980 recording) noted sounds of not only Wagner but Bartók, “not perhaps so strange after all, as Fauré himself said he was pushing the boundaries of tonality without leaving them behind.”
The unique soundscape Fauré created for Pénélope demands an approach infused with utmost attention to detail and care; given this reality, together with the opera’s unique dramatic demands, the work has not found a regular foothold in contemporary opera programing. Music writer Jessica Duchen muses in her excellent biography of the composer (2000, Phaidon Press) that the reason might be because “it does not fulfil operatic audiences’ expectations of spectacle and rapidly paced action, or because of a general neglect of French operas of this period, with the exception of Debussy’s Pelléas.” Duchen goes on to quote pianist Edouard Risler (1873-1929), who said at the opera’s rehearsal, just prior to its Monte Carlo opening, that Fauré’s opera “will last, but it will take a long time to establish itself.”
An arguable re-establishment has been underway for a little while, what with the Frankfurt production six years ago, and more recently, a presentation as part of the Bayerische Staatsoper summer festival in Munich last month. Led by the formidable team of Andrea Breth (director) and Susanna Mälkki (conductor), the production featured mezzo-soprano Viktoria Karkacheva in the lead and tenor Brandon Jovanovich as Ulysse. As well as being a first for the company, Pénélope also marked the house debuts of Breth and Mälkki. In his review for BR Klassik, reviewer Bernard Neuhoff praised both artists, writing that the conductor led the vaunted Bayerisches Staatsorchester with “inspiration and precision” (“inspiriert und präzise). That comes as no surprise to anyone who’s been following Mälkki’s work over the last decade or so. Mälkki’s style is a fascinating mix of such precision as well as buckets of poetry, often employing wide, rhythmic gestures and open body language; for Pénélope these elements were put to careful use. There was astute attention paid to the pacing of Fauré’s score and its orchestration (her signalling to various sections was gentle but firm; her attentiveness to singers absolutely clear) – and to director Andrea Breth’s highly stylized vision. The result was a marvellously moving portrait: here was an old tale that felt remarkably fresh, with a deeply thoughtfulness applied equally to musical and theatrical realms.
Beginning her career as a cellist, Mälkki was Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic from 2016 until 2023, and is its Chief Conductor Emeritus. From 2017 to 2022 Mälkki also led the Los Angeles Philharmonic as Principal Guest Conductor She has conducted a number of other eminent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Staatskapelle Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Munich), the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. From 2006 until 2013 Mälkki was the Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, having been directly invited to the position by founder Pierre Boulez.
In the opera world, she has conducted productions at a range of acclaimed houses including Teatro alla Scala, Wiener Staatsoper, The Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra national de Paris, The Metropolitan Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, as well as the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, leading works by Stravinsky, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Beethoven, and Kaija Saariaho. The recipient of numerous awards and honours – including the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France – Mälkki is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London and a member of the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm. The 2025-2026 season sees her leading the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In opera, she will lead productions of Tristan und Isolde at the Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona) in January, and Innocence (by Kaija Saariaho) at The Met in April.
When we spoke last month at the Prinzregententheater in Munich, Mälkki was effusive in her praise of Fauré’s score, and clearly happy to have worked (or be working with) director Andrea Breth and the whole Bayerische Staatsoper team. In a quiet room with a green view over the course of roughly thirty minutes, Mälkki enthusiastically shared her thoughts on Pénélope, its place within the world of both composer and epoch, working with director Andrea Breth, and how “maps” in music can (do, must) change.
“This Incredible Drama”
What was your experience of Fauré before Pénélope?
I knew Fauré as a cellist, actually – there are arrangements of his songs for cello and piano and then also some pieces. I knew his chamber music, and I know some of the famous orchestral pieces, like the Pavane and things like this. But actually, I confess, I did not know the opera. I’m not even sure I knew of it, but when the question came from here, from the house, I was intrigued immediately, because I’ve always liked and admired Fauré. I think Fauré has a greater importance in the history of music than what he’s given credit for – he’s not a mainstream composer, but he is very important in the family tree of how music and harmony evolved, because his music is very original.
Where do you think Pénélope fits within his overall oeuvre?
It’s a late piece, which is wonderful because I think it’s much more dramatic and radical than any of the music that came before, especially in terms of how he uses the orchestra. In the chamber music you can have pretty wild harmonics, you know – it’s always very expressive – but I would never have imagined that he had this side, or that he would just unleash this incredible drama.
Some have said of this work that it’s a rip-off of Wagner and/or Debussy – but this opera really has a language all its own.
Absolutely, and it’s very theatrical if you really listen. Its singularity is something that I could sense studying and then rehearsing it. The musicians of this orchestra of course picked up the Wagner things immediately. And already in Wagner’s time and after, every composer was influenced by Wagner, even those who did not want to be. So in a sense it’s unfair to just say that Fauré had this or that sound or tried to be Wagner, because Wagner himself was such such a great influence on the entire epoch. In fact, if you listen to the music of Franz Liszt and then you listen to Wagner, you see that Wagner in turn was actually influenced by Liszt also, much more than anyone gives Liszt credit for. So it’s all always a long chain of evolution. There is a kind of compositional exuberance, or however you call it, the romantic Schoenberg and all of that – everything is there.
On the other hand, what I find “French” in the piece is that the text is driving the music and not vice-versa. So yes, he took this and that, and then he absolutely composed something of his own. It’s very original. There’s no filler. And if you actually really study it, you can see that there’s an incredible steel structure within it also; the way Fauré uses his motives in Pénélope is very original. It’s not the Wagnerian way of using motives, even if there are sounds that may remind us of him.
Text, Music, Synergy
How much work did you do with Andrea Breth in terms of paying attention to those motives and having them manifest onstage, and more broadly, about the music and theatre?
I think Andrea’s approach is well-structured and analytically thought out, but fundamentally very instinctive. I very much appreciated the fact that she wanted to be in all the music rehearsals; she came to listen to everything. She had, of course, listened to recordings, but I think I sensed that there were things in my interpretation that triggered her imagination in various directions. So the kind of vibe certain scenes took, I wouldn’t say that it took another way, but I could see that something new – or something more – came out of it. I think that makes a good opera director. We spoke about the dream-like atmosphere of the piece, and she said at one point that she’s not really interested in the text, which I thought was very surprising, but I think what she meant was nothing in it was literal to her. Whereas with singing you always have to think about the words, because the music is written, especially with a composer like Fauré, for the voice. So it’s written to be sung with words you know. Musically-speaking we always need to think of the words; we can’t ignore them.
What kind of discussions did you have leading up to rehearsals?
We met in Aix last summer and she presented some ideas – some were there already, other things changed, and I thought it was fascinating. I understood very early on that she didn’t want to do some kind of historical presentation – she jokingly said, “They’re not going to be wearing togas” – but I think any serious modern director wouldn’t do opera in togas anyway.
Unless it was meant to be ironic!
Yes, of course, but then I think her idea of this kind of museum, with the statues everywhere, is fantastic, because you have the reference of the history and all the antiquity and its culture. It’s rare that directors come to music rehearsals, but I was also present at every director’s rehearsal – because I think that those are the moments when we build the connection with the whole team. In case there is something that is difficult, then I make suggestions: “Can we do these movements two bars earlier or two bars later?” or “Maybe have this gesture with this word so that musically it works and is not contradicting the singers.” And I love that kind of work – it’s not suggesting altering things, but to make them work even better at all levels.
There was an extremely palpable connection between you all, especially when you did your bows and embraced at curtain…
I think synergy is important in opera – you have to have it. Between her work, my work and then the singers, it has to be there, otherwise it’s not believable.
Staying Alert
Conductors look at things years in advance and their relationship with the score will change: it’s one thing to study and have ideas about the piece; it’s another to go and engage with people. How did your ideas – of the theater of this especially –change, or did they?
Well, in a way, it’s all kind of built into my work task, to bring the ideas, to have a vision and to be coherent. And of course you always develop them together with the singers. But also I think, with this score, there’s about two hours of music, and there was less than one minute of that music where I had to think, “Well, what should I do with this?” – so most everything was clear to me from the start. Maybe sometimes in the process you find that something is not quite clicking, so then you adapt the tempi a little bit; you might also give more time to certain spots because of basic theatre demands.
For example, there is one moment where I actually deliberately slowed things down a lot because of one very sequence in the staging ; it just wasn’t working because of too quick a set change , so I said, “I can give you a few seconds here and there?” – and then they managed to do it just in time. But then of course I have to have the judgment as to whether or not the music allows it, but in this case, yes, it did; I knew, there’s just one line sung by somebody alone, so just before and after that we could make room for it. And it works; it’s not contradicting anything. So I think what I need to bring to the table is that I’m consistent in my musical gestures in the sense of allowing the ear and the eye to understand, and also for singers to know that they can rely on me in every situation. You have to lead the music … and of course the audience doesn’t need to be aware of any of this, but we need to think about it.
There’s a tiny moment in the score – a reference to Wagner’s Siegfried – which felt quite theatrical too…
Oh, the little quote at the end – yes, isn’t that amazing? It’s wonderful. And you have to find the gravity for those moments. It’s almost like a little chapeau to Wagner, but it also works with the story. The choice of key, the choice of the instrumentation, the tempo and the context, for those who know – we immediately recognize it. Fauré called this opera a “poème lyrique” – it’s a song play, so we have to be very alert. Ulysses and Penelope is a story everybody knows, but maybe people don’t know the details; when we think of the suitors, it’s interesting how we can hear that they have their own distinct personalities. And how Fauré’s music changes in the third act, which is when Ulysse comes back, it’s this muscular sound, a totally different thing.
What was it like to work with the singers for this?
Fauré gives great importance to the singers, and the music they sing is very distinct; Pénélope has, of course, the most dramatic stuff, Ulysse has, quite surprisingly, this very lyrical stuff, but also the hero stuff as I said, he has that dualism, and then the suitors have different kinds of music, as well as the shepherd, the nurse, and the servants. As we rehearsed it occasionally felt like we were preparing for a world premiere, because there wasn’t really a convention. But that was also something that I found wonderful, because I could then just say, “This is what I think should be.” A good score is, or a partitur, is self-explanatory – you have to see how it’s all laid out, then it’s like a map. But sometimes the map changes, or the things you notice on the map change once you’ve been on the actual terrain: “Oh, there’s that” and “I didn’t see that before.” And then you do it more and more, and those connections become clearer.
How did your own conducting change because of this experience – or is it too soon to tell?
You always learn from every production. And I think one of the beautiful things about working in opera is that you’re working with the resonance of other human beings. I’m extremely happy to have discovered this side of Fauré – it was a revelation to me – and when you get to conduct an orchestra like this, it’s unbelievable, truly. I hope that I can integrate this experience and bring it to whatever I do next.