For a quintessentially French opera, there are surprisingly few recordings of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande with a French orchestra. There are notable francophone exceptions beyond France’s borders – the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Ernest Ansermet – Decca, 5/52), Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Charles Dutoit – Decca, 3/91) and Orchestre National de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo (Armin Jordan – Warner, 12/91) – but the most recent French recording was Bernard Haitink’s wondrous account with the Orchestre National de France back in 2001 (Naïve, 4/02), sadly no longer available. That makes this new account from the Opéra National de Bordeaux conducted by Pierre Dumoussaud doubly welcome.

The recording emerged from the ashes of the pandemic. Last autumn’s second lockdown caused the cancellation of the revival of Philippe Béziat and Florent Siaud’s 2016 production in Bordeaux. After long weeks of rehearsals, and given that they were allowed to work without an audience, the Opéra approached Alpha to make an audio recording instead.

Not for Dumoussaud the hazy, Impressionist blur conductors often paint. There’s a real sense of tension and mystery but without the veil of mysticism that some conductors drape over Debussy’s shadowy score. Dumoussaud’s is also one of the swiftest accounts – Simon Rattle’s weighty LSO Live recording takes 17 minutes longer – with vivid orchestral playing. The orchestral interludes teem with detail and expression, with solo instruments given their full due; the harp is properly present in the scene by the fountain. Double basses and lower woodwinds really bite on Golaud’s first appearance in Act 2, the oboe is exquisite, the French horns buttery. This is a really distinguished orchestral rendition.

The three central singers all made their role debuts in the 2016 performances (under Marc Minkowski) so all are securely inside the drama, much more so than in Rattle’s curiously cast recording. Swiss-Belgian lyric soprano Chiara Skerath is an affecting Mélisande, bright-eyed and luminous. She depicts her initial fragility, but her character grows in strength, passionate in embracing Pelléas despite Golaud’s approach. She is beguiling in the scene at the start of Act 3 where she lets down her hair (‘Mes longs cheveux descendent jusqu’au seuil de la tour’). This Mélisande is no innocent.

Pelléas is usually cast as a high baritone – a baryton Martin – but Dumoussaud here opts for a tenor, Stanislas de Barbeyrac, who is outstanding. His singing is finely nuanced, ardent, beautifully sung. Revisiting Rattle’s set as comparative listening, I’m still perplexed by Christian Gerhaher’s odd delivery, as if singing Berg. Here, the young French tenor is far preferable, totally believable as the headstrong, reckless lover.

As Golaud, Alexandre Duhamel’s baritone is quite dark in colour, vocally closer to his grandfather Arkel (the sonorous Jérôme Varnier) than his half brother. His Golaud is pricked into anger very quickly when he notices Mélisande’s ring is missing. Janina Baechle is a warm, sympathetic Geneviève, Maëlig Querré a convincing Yniold, not always the case when the role is sung by a soprano as opposed to a treble.

Alpha’s recording is exceptionally fine. Annoyingly, the booklet pasted into the digipak CD holder makes navigating the libretto cumbersome.

Ironically, Dumoussaud recorded the opera again during lockdown, this time a filmed production for streaming with the Opéra de Rouen Normandie and an arguably even finer cast which, if it ever makes it to DVD, could be a knockout. And François-Xavier Roth has just performed it with Les Siècles (also with de Barbeyrac as Pelléas), a recording of which is due out at the end of January. I wonder if there’s a French equivalent to London buses …