Stravinsky • Debussy
Stravinsky: Petrushka (1947 version); Debussy: Jeux; Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Orchestre de Paris/Klaus Mäkelä
Decca 4870146 64 mins
Few ballet scores manage to encapsulate such a varied and arresting range of emotions as Petrushka. But the sharp juxtapositions in Stravinsky’s 1947 version of the score, between the vibrant and colourful external world of the Shrovetide fair and the cruel and disturbing internal love triangle of the puppets, also pose a huge challenge for interpreters, the relative success of a performance depending to a great extent on an ability to respond to each twist and turn in the scenario with razor-sharp precision and incisive imagination.
Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris certainly pass the test with flying colours when it comes to delineating the more disturbing elements of the music. Their interpretation of the second tableau, with Bertrand Chamayou delivering a miraculously vivid account of the virtuosic piano part, is spellbinding, as is their depiction of Petrushka’s demise and ghostly reappearance at the end of the work.
Mäkelä is less effective in projecting charm in the various allusions to fairground music, and seductiveness in the Ballerina’s waltz in the third tableau. I also miss that bustling excitement and expectancy of the crowds at the work’s opening and at the start of the fourth tableau.
Yet despite these caveats, there’s much to enjoy here, particularly given the outstanding orchestral playing and sumptuous engineering. I was particularly impressed with the gorgeous timbres of Mäkelä’s wonderfully evocative account of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, and the performance of the incredibly subtle and emotionally elusive Jeux is engaging and dramatically convincing. Erik Levi
