Barihunk duo in Zürich Pelleas et Melisande

Kyle Ketelsen, Corinne Winters and Jacques Imbrailo

Barihunks Jacques Imbrailo and Kyle Ketelsen are starring in the Zürich Opera's production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, whichRussian director Dmitri Tcherniakov has set in a contemporary living room and dining room. This marks Imbrailo's debut with the company.

Corinne Winters and Kyle Ketelsen

Tcherniakov opts to view Debussy's symbolic opera through the lens of Freudian analysis. Ketelsen's Golaud is portrayed as a psychoanalyst who has brought his patient, Mélisande, home for more intensive analysis after finding her weeping in the forest. This production makes Golaud very much the center of focus in the opera. Golaud never learns the reason for Mélisande’s melancholy, nor where she comes from, but she exerts a great fascination over him and he videotapes her therapy.


For those not familiar with the piece, the opera is tragic love triangle involving two noble half-brothers, Golaud and Pelléas, and the enigmatic Mélisande, who comes into their lives unexpectedly after a tremendous and undisclosed personal calamity. She marries Golaud, but he is soon convinced of her illicit union with his brother, and his jealous rage ends in Pélleas’ murder.  Mélisande dies after giving birth to a child.

Tickets and additional cast information is available online.