Pelléas et Mélisande

Debussy’s only completed opera began life in 1892. Browsing at a Paris market stall, the composer bought a copy of the play Pelléas et Mélisande by the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck. Reading through it, he noted down some musical ideas relating to the characters; these became the basis of the work that was premiered at Paris’ Opéra-Comique theatre in 1902. The story takes place in or near the castle from which Golaud rules the mythical kingdom of Allemonde. Others in the family are Golaud’s younger half-brother Pelléas, their twice-widowed mother, Geneviève, and their aged grandfather, Arkel. Finding the young Mélisande wandering alone in a forest, Golaud takes her home and marries her, despite never learning anything about her past. Pelléas and Mélisande form a growing attachment, arousing Golaud’s uncontrollable jealousy; catching them together as they at last confess their love and kiss, he kills Pelléas and wounds Mélisande, who then dies, having given birth to a daughter. Debussy’s five-act operatic score is a masterpiece of understated yet absorbing drama and atmospheric sensibility, mirroring the story’s mysterious world in an orchestral score of subtle, half-toned shades and colours. Meanwhile, none of the characters in Pelléas et Mélisande ever sings anything resembling a conventional aria; instead they confine themselves to a kind of speech-like recitative. This radical approach proved at first controversial, then increasingly successful. By 1913 the Opéra-Comique had performed Pelléas et Mélisande 100 times, and today it has a firm place in the repertory of the world’s opera houses.