Pelléas et Mélisande, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh | Music | The Guardian Pelléas et Mélisande Share on Messenger Close Maurice Maeterlinck, who wrote the play on which Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande is based, frequently compared the world to a hospital and mankind to its patients. His bleak metaphor dominates Jossi Wieler's and Sergio Morabito's Hanover State Opera production. It proves to be an intransigent piece of music theatre that obfuscates the work's intentions. Debussy's contention is that we are all essentially mysterious creatures, unknowable to our fellow human beings. The opera's force derives from the fact that we, like Golaud, remain unclear both as to whether the relationship between Pelléas and Mélisande is actually sexual, and also as to which of the two men is the father of Mélisande's child. In transposing the work to what appears to be the psychiatric ward of a modern hospital, Wieler and Morabito have jettisoned its central mystery, replacing it with other riddles that obscure the narrative even further.

Arkel and Geneviève flap about like a pair of benevolent new age gurus and may be psychiatrists - although they're prone to smoking dope and could also be druggies. Yniold is hyperactive and throws continuous tantrums, while Pelléas is infantilised and mother-fixated. He and Mélisande are, fatally, never left alone until the Act Four love duet, at the end of which Pelléas is gunned down by Golaud, played as a sadistic psychopath, who virtually assaults Mélisande in the opening scene and may have a paedophiliac interest in Yniold. Golaud should be the opera's tragic centre, but by morally placing him beyond the compassion urged by Debussy's score, Wieler and Morabito have undermined the whole work. Musically, much of it is impressive, but the production fails to do Debussy justice. Summary of �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande�ｿｽh in 3 Minutes - Opera Synopsis First performed April 30, 1902. Libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck (in French).

A Summary of �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande�ｿｽh Act 1 In legendary times in the imaginary kingdom of Allemonde, Golaud, who is a grandson of King Arkel, decides to run away from the King, and loses his way in a forest. He happens to meet a girl crying, Melisande, by a spring. Although King Arkel has recommended Golaud marry another woman, Golaud wants to marry Melisande. He writes a letter to his half-brother, Pelleas. Golaud asks Pelleas to explain to King Arkel through his mediation. Then, Golaud and Melisande are able to come back to the castle. Act 2 One day, Pelleas invites Melisande to go to �ｿｽgThe Blind Spring.�ｿｽh But, Melisande loses her wedding ring in the spring. After she comes home, Golaud notices that she is not wearing her ring. He is furious at her. Act 3 Several days later, on a beautiful starry night, Melisande combs her beautiful long hair by the window of the tower. Pelleas sees her beautiful hair, and he is attracted to it.

Her hair hangs from the window, and Pelleas takes her hair in his hand. In addition, he holds her hair passionately. Golaud stares at them from his hiding place. Golaud appears, and he warns Pelleas. Golaud tells him that Melisande is pregnant. Act 4 Pelleas decides to set out on a wandering journey. The night before departure, he embraces Melisande by the spring. Then, Golaud appears, and he stabs Pelleas to death with a dagger. Melisande runs away, and Golaud pursues her. Act 5 Melisande has the baby, even though she has been fatally injured by Golaud. Melisande said, �ｿｽgI loved him, but I have never sinned.�ｿｽh Then, she dies while she gazes at her baby.

A Comment on �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande�ｿｽh Claude Debussy, who is a famous French composer, composed only one opera, �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande.�ｿｽh He is famous for his piano works, for example, �ｿｽgClair de lune�ｿｽh and �ｿｽgLa fille aux cheveux de lin.�ｿｽh But, when Debussy was a student in Conservatoire de Paris, he admired Richard Wagner, and he was influenced by the Wagner�ｿｽfs opera, �ｿｽgTristan und Isolde.�ｿｽh Then, Debussy parts from Wagner�ｿｽfs influence, and builds his original music technique. Entering the 20th century, Debussy composed this opera which is at the oppsite end of the scale to �ｿｽgTristan und Isolde.�ｿｽh He created a new opera world. The original of �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande�ｿｽh is Maurice Maeterlinck�ｿｽfs drama. Maeterlinck is a Belgian poet who is famous for his use of symbolism.

�ｿｽgL'Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird)�ｿｽh is a play by him. �ｿｽgPelleas et Melisande�ｿｽh is filled with implying style. Debussy composed this opera, in a metaphorical way, for example the world wrapped in a dense fog. He realized beautiful opera scenes through sensuous music expression. There are not any arias in this opera, but you won�ｿｽft be disappointed. This opera is sung in a soft French tone. The best part of this opera is, so to speak, the whole atmosphere. The scene of which Melisande�ｿｽfs hair hangs from the window is one of the most famous scenes on this opera. Gluck, C. W.

(1714-1787) Pelléas et Mélisande: a timeless legend | by Bachtrack for classical music, opera, ballet and dance event reviews Pelléas et Mélisande: a timeless legend By Laurine Mortha , 19 June 2014 Composed in 1902 to a libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck, Pelléas et Mélisande Pelléas et Mélisande is the only completed opera by Debussy. Inspired by the legend of Tristan and Isolde and the character of Rapunzel in Brothers Grimm, Pelléas et Mélisande tells of the impossible love between Pelléas and Mélisande who is married to Pelléas’ eldest brother. Robert Wilson's Pelléas et Mélisande, Opéra National de Paris © E. Mahoudeau But Debussy's opera is primarily a confusing work that challenges the audience. Deliberately at odds with the vocal and symphonic conventions of opera, Pelléas et Mélisande seeks to overturn conventions in order to return to the essence of this art.

The impressionist music of Debussy is therefore part of a quest for purity and symbolism, often including songs without melody or theme which reflect a character's soul and operate independently of the orchestral score. The style of writing of the libretto adds to the overall lack of clarity. The opera, based on the Maeterlinck play of the same name, is a symbolist work par excellence, and in its style is both Gothic and dreamy. The novella is a prose in dialogue that mixes the mundane ("I was born on a Sunday. A Sunday at noon." Mélisande Act III, "I opened the window, it's too hot in the tower." Melisande, Act III) with the fantastical ("How large are our shadows tonight!" Mélisande Act IV, "Can you feel the rising smell of death?" Melisande, Act III). However,Pelléas et Mélisande However, Pelléas et Mélisande is a work both of its time and of all time.

This opera shocked with its first performances and yet was part of a trend harking back with affection to the medieval characteristics of the late nineteenth century which tended to emphasize the influence of Celtic, Germanic and Nordic tradition within Western culture. Romantic nationalism, with emblematic representatives like Akseli Gallen-Kallela, painted illustrations for legends such as for the Kalevala, the Finnish mythology, which sought to bring up to date the medieval folklore and Arthurian legends, as did the Symbolist painters Edgard Maxence and Puvis de Chavannes. Laurent Pelly's Pelléas et Mélisande, Theater an der Wien, Natalie Dessay © Armin Bardel In music too there are references to a medieval flowering with Wagnerian opera(Tristan and Isolde, , The Ring of the Nibelungen, ...…) but also Le Roi Arthus, by Ernest Chausson, and many composers who made use of their national folk melodies such as Jean Sibelius and Bartók. Even today, the ethereal voice of Mélisande that ignores the orchestral score and the distant echo of symphonic writing touches us deeply and brings us back to the sources of operatic art.

The productions of such a rich and complex work are many and varied in their interpretation. Some remain faithful to the book and the gothic atmosphere, such as the staging of Pelléas et Mélisande by Jonathan Miller for the Met in 2010. Other productions deviate more to emphasize different aspects of Pelléas et Mélisande, such as a fascinating adaptation by minimalist Robert Wilson, co-produced in 2012 by the Paris Opera and the Salzburg Festival, which plays on the symbolism of the work. The stage is plunged in a bluish darkness. The characters neither look at, nor touch each other (sometimes in spite of the text!). And the iconic hair of Mélisande is only referred to by jest on stage.. With our concentration on solely this facet of the opera, this esoteric adaptation perfectly symbolizes the inability of the characters to communicate with each other. Johnathan Miller's Pelléas et Mélisande, Metropolitan Opera © Marty Sohl Another brilliant interpretation by Laurent Pelly at the Theater an der Wien in 2009 was a poetic and feminine production which brought together Natalie Dessay and Laurent Naouri.

Transposed to the start of the twentieth century, when the opera was composed, the production depicted a bourgeois society in a setting which clearly evoked the world of Stefan Zweig. Mélisande embodied the introverted woman, melancholic and fragile, shaken by a violent passion, echoing the heroine of theReise in die Vergangenheit. So we will discover the newest adaptations of this timeless opera very soon, and in particular the brand new production by Christophe Honoré Opéra de Lyon next season! Pelléas et Mélisande features in Bavarian State Opera's new season: bachtrack.com/22/291/view/209787 Debussy – PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE | The Opera Platform Debussy – PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE Twitter PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE, Claude Debussy’s only complete opera, returns to Festival d’Aix-en-Provence after a 40-year absence. Inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, the mysterious story of two fallen lovers is presented in a new production filled with dream-like realism.

In the depths of a forest, Prince Golaud meets the young, beautiful Mélisande weeping besides a fountain. Although he knows nothing about her, he marries her and take her to Allemonde to the dark ancestral castle where his grand-father the King Arkel reigns. Here Mélisande meets Pelléas, the strange half-brother of her husband. The love story that ensues between them spells tragedy. Golaud, consumed by jealousy, kills his brother while Mélisande dies slowly after giving birth to a daughter. Tortured by doubt, Golaud find neither the truth nor forgiveness in last breath of his young wife. In 1892, the symbolist author Maurice Maeterlinck published PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE, a play characterised by radiance and mysterious shadows. Claude Debussy was immediately taken with the sensuous and dream-like atmosphere of this drama. Magnifying the text of the Belgian author, Debussy created a score filled with delicate, murmured music, symphonic interludes with audacious harmonies and atmospheric silences.

PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE, one of the most beautiful operas ever written, was premiered in 1902. The five acts – as poetic as they are deathly – make up one of Debussy’s masterpieces. There is a suffocating beauty here, which left a profound mark on 20th century opera. The director Katie Mitchell, in residence at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence since 2012, oversees this much-awaited production. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra. As for Barbara Hannigan, Laurent Naouri and Stéphane Degout, they form eternal triad: wife, husband and lover.

Information “Pelléas et Mélisande” with Simon Rattle, Christian Gerhaher and Magdalena Kožená “Pelléas et Mélisande” with Simon Rattle, Christian Gerhaher and Magdalena Kožená Magdalena Kožená, Christian Gerhaher, Bernarda Fink, Franz-Josef Selig, Gerald Finley, Elias Mädler, Peter Sellars Claude Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande Semi-Staged Performance (02:54:49) Magdalena Kožená Mezzo-Soprano (Mélisande), Christian Gerhaher Baritone (Pelléas), Bernarda Fink Contralto (Geneviève), Franz-Josef Selig Bass Baritone (Arkel), Gerald Finley Bass Baritone (Golaud), Elias Mädler Boy Soprano, Soloist of the Tölzer Knabenchor (Yniold), Jörg Schneider Bass (Doctor), Sascha Glintenkamp Bass-Baritone (Shepherd), Rundfunkchor Berlin, Nicolas Fink Chorus Master, Peter Sellars Staging free Artist biographies

 “All the stars are falling,” Pelléas sings in the fourth act of Claude Debussy’s Maeterlinck opera Pelléas et Mélisande.

“On you and me!” Mélisande answers. A short time before, the two confessed their forbidden love to each other. What follows is the showdown: the couple sees – emerging from the darkness – Mélisande’s husband Golaud, rushing towards them with a drawn sword. Inflamed with rage, he strikes down his half-brother Pelléas, while Mélisande flees wounded. A new chapter was opened in music history when Debussy’s drame lyrique was staged on 30 April 1902 at the Paris Opéra-Comique. For in the through-composed dramatic work, in which is told the strange story of the two lovers in a mysterious and timeless dream world, there are neither arias nor ensembles. And even the orchestral interludes are organically integrated into the whole – despite the fact that Debussy extended them to their current length only during rehearsals for the premiere, as in their original version they were not long enough for the necessary set changes. Their function is not only to usher the listeners from one scene to the next but also to articulate everything the sung text is not able to articulate.

After all, Debussy had in mind for the composition “a dramatic form” in which “the music begins at the point where the word becomes powerless as an expressive force”. Sir Simon Rattle, who debuted at the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden with Debussy’s Pélleas et Mélisande in April 2008, now conducts the symbolic masterpiece with “his” orchestra in a semi-staged production by Peter Sellars, the Philharmoniker’s Artist in Residence this season, whose stagings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion in 2010 and St John Passion in 2014 were both overwhelming successes. Magdalena Kožená and Christian Gerhaher take on the title roles. The Canadian bass baritone Gerald Finley sings Golaud, while Bernarda Fink is heard as Geneviève and Franz-Josef Selig as King Arkel.

“‘Speaking’ French in Music” Observations on Claude Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande “I urge you most strongly to get hold of Pelléas et Mélisande by Claude Debussy … or his Chansons de Bilitis,” Romain Rolland wrote to Richard Strauss on 9 July 1905. “They are marvels of ‘speaking’ French in music, and true models of their kind.” A few days earlier, the German composer had asked the French writer and musicologist for advice on preparing a French-language version of his opera Salome, which he had just completed.

Rolland soon realized, however, that Strauss not only had difficulties with Debussy’s prosody, which Rolland had recommended as a model, but with the entire work: “What completely escapes him (and that’s very natural) is the principal thing about this type of art: the restrained and supple truthfulness of the recitative, of the musical speech, with its imperceptible tremors, certain inflections of which are so suggestive, and evoke profound and distant echoes in our hearts.” On the way to Pelléas It is not surprising that Pelléas et Mélisande bewildered Strauss and many of his other contemporaries who were influenced by Richard Wagner’s music dramas. Debussy had already explained his ideas in 1889: “I am not tempted to imitate what I admire in Wagner. I visualize a quite different dramatic form … . I dream of poetic texts which will not condemn me to long, heavy acts, but which will provide me with changing scenes, varied in place and mood, where the characters do not argue but submit to their lives and destinies.” What Debussy envisioned in a conversation with his teacher Ernest Guiraud first had to be found, however.

The libretto of the opera Rodrigue et Chimène, which Debussy worked on during the early 1890s but never completed, could not fulfil these wishes because of its traditional structure. In 1891 the composer believed he had discovered a suitable text in Maurice Maeterlinck’s La Princesse Maleine, but then learned that his countryman and colleague Vincent d’Indy had already secured the rights to set the work. Only on his third attempt did Debussy finally find the literary work with which he hoped to open a new chapter in the history of opera. Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama Maeterlinck’s lyric drama Pelléas et Mélisande was premiered at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens on 17 May 1893. Among those in the audience was the 30-year-old Debussy, who, after successfully completing the composition, later declared: “The drama of Pelléas, which, despite its dreamlike atmosphere, contains far more humanity than those so-called real-life documents, seemed to suit my intentions admirably.

In it there is an evocative language whose sensitivity could be extended into music and into the orchestral backcloth.” The magical attraction that Maeterlinck’s text had for Debussy was not only due to the distinctive stylistic qualities of the writing, however, but also to the mysterious story. The composer could hardly have failed to notice that the lyric drama can also be understood as a symbolist version of the Tristanstory. The fateful love affair between the young Pelléas and the enigmatic Mélisande corresponds at least superficially to the love between Tristan and Isolde. Both relationships are illicit, since Mélisande is the wife of Pelléasʼs half-brother Golaud, while Tristan has wooed Isolde for his uncle Marke. Moreover, in both cases the forbidden passion ends in the death of the lovers. On the atmospheric level, however, Wagner’s ecstatic romantic drama and Maeterlinck’s stylized stage play are worlds apart. Whereas Wagner’s lovers seek eternal union in a sensual frenzy, Pelléas and Mélisande do not enter into a sustained dialogue, even at the moment of their declaration of love.

Isolated and, in the case of Mélisande, overcome with an inexplicable sadness, they seem instead to resign themselves to a fate that neither they nor the audience can fathom. Emerging from Wagner’s shadow In order to escape unscathed from the dark and disturbing shadow of the Bayreuth master, Debussy used a dual strategy. In his writings he attempted to demystify the figure of Wagner with a witty polemical campaign and, at the same time, to historicize the works of his German colleague. In his compositions, on the other hand, he sought to break through Wagner’s power with a deliberate form of “counterresponse”. The elements of this compositional act of liberation included, for one thing, the eradication or toning down of overly obvious Wagner quotations and reminiscences. For example, the famous Tristan chord, which had crept into the score in several places, was either removed or “harmonically neutralized” by the composer and thus deprived of its anticipated effect. Secondly, Debussy’s music consciously distanced itself from the tonal dramaturgy of the Tristanscore, which is aimed at large-scale build-ups and overwhelming climaxes.

An effective antidote was a dramatic device whose effect Debussy described to his friend and colleague Ernest Chausson: “I have found, and what is more, quite spontaneously, a technique which strikes me as fairly new, that is silence (don’t laugh) as a means of expression, and perhaps the only way to give the emotion of a phrase its full power.” A particularly impressive example of the dramatic power which can result from a radical reduction of musical means is the moment in which Pelléas and Mélisande declare their love. Rather than setting this crucial point in the story as an extended frenzy of sound, Debussy silences the orchestra and has the lovers whisper their confession with unparalleled simplicity. Mélisande’s death and Straussʼs bewilderment Debussy’s aesthetic of silence reaches its actual culmination in the unusual treatment of Mélisande’s death. Here, as well, the composer decided to avoid every form of emotional exaggeration. A letter he wrote to the painter Henry Lerolle shortly after completing the first version of the work indicates that he reckoned with incomprehension on the part of many contemporary listeners: “Whenever a woman dies in the French theatre, it has to be like the Lady of the Camellias.

… People can’t get used to the idea that one might take one’s leave discreetly like somebody who has had enough of planet Earth and is on his way to where the flowers of tranquillity bloom!” Strauss was also one of the contemporaries who were perplexed by Mélisande’s silence and the dying tenderness of her gentle voice. In the diary entry quoted earlier, Rolland recounted their attendance at a performance of Pelléas in May 1907: “What is even more surprising is that the last scene escapes him completely. I myself consider it the height of emotion and art. I don’t believe that anything so intense and with such economy of resources has been produced in music since Monteverdi. It is really Racinean art. – So far as Strauss is concerned, it lacks music.” Tobias Bleek Translation: Phyllis Anderson Magdalena Kožená, was born in Brno (Czech Republic) and studied there at the local conservatory and also with Eva Blahová in Bratislava.

A winner of many competitions, including the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995, her first engagements were at the Janáček Theatre of the National Theatre in Brno and at the Prague Spring International Music Festival. Since then, she has appeared in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet (in the female title role in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice), at the Opéra Comique and at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées (Mélisande), at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (Varvara in Kátja Kabanová) and at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin in productions of Der Rosenkavalier and the Chabrier opera L’Étoile. Well known for her interpretation of Mozart roles (Cherubino, Idamante, Sesto, Zerlina), Magdalena Kožená has appeared at many major festivals such as Edinburgh, Salzburg, Aldeburgh and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.

She is also acclaimed world-wide as a concert and Lieder singer, accompanied by pianists such as Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Malcolm Martineau, András Schiff and Mitsuko Uchida as well as leading orchestras and conductors. In 2003, Magdalena Kožená was awarded the title “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government; Gramophone voted her “Artist of the Year” in 2004. Since September 2003 she has performed many times as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker and took part in Bach’s St Matthew Passion in April 2010 and October 2013 as well as 2014 in the St John Passion, equally staged by Peter Sellars. She most recently appeared with the orchestra in January 2015 in a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

During his studies under Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach, German baritone Christian Gerhaher attended the Opera School of the Academy of Music in Munich and, together with his regular piano partner Gerold Huber, studied lied interpretation with Friedemann Berger. While completing his medical studies Christian Gerhaher perfected his vocal training in master-classes given by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Inge Borkh. He has appeared both at home and abroad both as a lieder recitalist and as a concert soloist with such leading orchestras as the Vienna, Munich and Berlin Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony and the Cleveland Orchestra. In addition to his busy schedule in the world’s recital rooms and concert halls, he has also taken part in a number of opera productions that have included the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Wolfram in Wagner’s Tannhäuser, Olivier (Capriccio) und Wozzeck.

The magazine Opernwelt voted him “Singer of the year” in 2010 for his performance of the title role in Henze’s Prinz von Homburg. Among the conductors with whom he has worked are Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons and Sir Simon Rattle. Christian Gerhaher has appeared many times with the Berliner Philharmoniker since his debut in December 2003, when he took the part of the baritone soloist in Britten’s War Requiem under the direction of Donald Runnicles. As artist in residence in the 2013/14 season, the baritone gave several chamber concerts. With the orchestra he was last heard in Berlin in performances of Brahms’s German Requiem in January 2015, conducted by Christian Thielemann. Christian Gerhaher holds the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art, an honorary professorship in lieder interpretation at the Academy of Music in Munich and has also given masterclasses at Yale University, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and elsewhere.

His lieder recordings with Gerold Huber as his accompanist have won many prizes, including a Gramophone Award in 2006 and 2015 as well as the German Record Critics’ Annual Award in 2010. Bernarda Fink, was born to a Slovenian family in Buenos Aires, where she received her musical education at the Instituto Superior de Arte, which is part of the renowned Teatro Colón. In 1985 she moved to Europe. With a repertory that extends from early Baroque to the 20th century she performs regularly in opera, concert and recital at the major opera and concert venues as well as prominent festivals in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA. Leading symphony orchestras and many early-music ensembles have invited her to participate in their concerts. In concert she performs with conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle and Franz Welser-Möst.

She first appeared with the Berliner Philharmoniker in January 1995 under the direction of René Jacobs with a concertante performance of Monteverdi’s Orfeo in the philharmonic chamber music hall. Since then Bernarda Fink has been making regular guest appearances in concerts of the Berliner Philharmoniker, most recently in November 2014 in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater under Sir Simon Rattle’s baton. In February 2006 the Austrian Chancellor honoured her with the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art; in 2013 she received the prize of the Prešeren Foundation, the highest Slovenian cultural distinction. Bernarda Fink holds the title of Österreichische Kammersängerin. The Canadian baritone Gerald Finley began singing as a chorister in Ottawa and completed his musical studies at King’s College in Cambridge and at the Royal College of Music in London.

His debut at the Glyndebourne Festival, where he played Sid in Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, led to engagements at the world’s major opera and concert venues like the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Opéra National in Paris, the Vienna State Opera and to the festivals in Glyndebourne and Salzburg. In opera, Gerald Finley has sung all the major baritone roles of Mozart (particularly Don Giovanni and Figaro); in recent years, critical successes have been in the Wagner repertoire: as Hans Sachs at the Glyndebourne Festival, as Amfortas in Parsifal at Royal Opera Covent Garden, and as Wolfram at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. His extensive repertoire also includes works by Handel, Rossini, Bizet, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Korngold and Britten. In contemporary opera, Gerald Finley has excelled in creating leading roles such as Jaufré Rudel in Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin or Howard K. Stern in the 2010 world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Anna Nicole.

Modern day composers who have written for Gerald Finley include Peter Lieberson (Songs of Love and Sorrow) and Einojuhani Rautavaara (Rubáiyát). As a recitalist, Gerald Finley works regularly with pianist Julius Drake, appearing throughout Europe and North America. In concert he performs with leading conductors including Sir Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Andris Nelsons and Sir Simon Rattle. Since his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1994, he has returned several times, most recently in December 2011 as Forester in the final scene of Leoš Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. Franz-Josef Selig graduated in church music from the Cologne University of Music before changing to the vocal classes there by Claudio Nicolai. Early in his career, he was a member of the ensemble at the Essen Aalto Theatre for six years.

Today, the freelance singer appears regularly in opera houses all over the world and at international festivals in the great bass roles of Gurnemanz, King Marke, Sarastro, Rocco, Osmin, Daland and Fasolt. Guest engagements have taken Franz-Josef Selig to London, Vienna and New York as well as to the Aix-en-Provence, Bayreuth and Salzburg festivals. He has worked with conductors such as James Levine, Christian Thielemann, Sir Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Muti and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Despite his numerous concert and opera engagements, Franz-Joseph Selig finds time for recitals, where he is also to be heard as a member of the ensemble “Liedertafel” together with Markus Schaefer, Christian Elsner and Michael Volle with Gerold Huber at the piano. Numerous CD and DVD productions document the artistic versatility of the singer. The bass made his debut in Berliner Philharmoniker concerts in December 2013 in Robert Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, conducted by Daniel Harding.

Peter Sellars, one of the most unconventional and innovative theatre and opera directors of our times, is this season’s artist in residence with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Central to his work on literary subjects is his desire to highlight their relevance to the political and social questions of today. On graduating from the Phillips Academy in Massachusetts in 1975, he studied literature and music at Harvard University, making his debut as a stage director in New York in 1980. After a further period of study in Asia, he became director of the Boston Shakespeare Company in 1983 and the following year was appointed director of the American National Theatre Company in Washington, DC. Sellars came to international attention as an opera director when his productions of Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni were broadcast on American television, leading to invitations to appear in major houses all over the world, including the Salzburg, Glyndebourne and Vienna Festivals, the San Francisco Opera and the Opéra National de Paris.

He has championed the creation of many new works, with long-time collaborator John Adams, such as Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic, and works by Tan Dun, Osvaldo Golijov and Kaija Saariaho. He has also run many leading festivals, including the Los Angeles Festival in 1990 and 1993, and the New Crowned Hope Festival as part of the Vienna Mozart Year celebrations in 2006. Peter Sellars is resident curator of the Telluride Film Festival. He has received numerous honours (MacArthur Prize and the Erasmus Prize among others) and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. The collaboration between Sellars and the Berliner Philharmoniker began in April 2010 with the St Matthew Passion, followed by the St John Passion in 2014. Most recently, in November 2015, he presented Kaija Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone together with students of the Orchestra Academy conducted by Duncan Ward. Magdalena Kožená appears by courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft.

Watch now Pelléas et Mélisande Pelléas et Mélisande Embed this video <iframe src="" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><p><a href="/#!/charles-dutoit-debussy-pelleas-et-melisande-verbier-festival-2012">Degout, Kožená: Pelléas et Mélisande</a> on <a href="">medici.tv</a>.</p> The second opera of the 2012 edition of the Verbier Festival: Pelleas et Melisande by Claude Debussy who would have celebrated his one hundred fiftieth birthday! When Prince Golaud, grand-son of King Arkel of Allemonde, meets the young and beautiful creature with long hair, Melisande, he knows nothing about her. However, he marries her right away. A few months later, he talks about his marriage to his beloved half-brother, Pelleas who seems to be falling in love with the girl...

In March, medici.tv had webcast live the sublime production of Robert Wilson at the Opéra de Paris (with Philippe Jordan, Elena Tsallagova and Stéphane Degout, soon available in the catalogue). In Verbier, the same Pelleas with Stéphane Degout (named lyric artist of the year at the latest Victoires de la musique classique), the Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená (our picture), and José van Dam. Conducted by Charles Dutoit, this version of Debussy's masterpiece, made of long and beautiful recitatives, promises to be sublime! Avec le soutien de l'Association des Amis Magdalena Kožená appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH. © Picture: Magdalena Kožená by Mathias Bothor/DG Linked event : Pelléas et Mélisande | LA Phil Pelléas et Mélisande Composed: 1893-1895, 1901-1902 Length: c.

155 minutes Orchestration: 3 flutes (3rd = piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (chime, cymbals, glockenspiel, triangle), 2 harps, and strings First LA Phil performance (complete opera): February 4, 1995, Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting (for Los Angeles Opera) Discussing his dramatic interests in 1885, Debussy wrote a patron that he “would always prefer something in which, in some way, action would be sacrificed to the long-pursued expression of the feelings of the soul.” He found what he was looking for when he attended a performance of Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande at its premiere in May 1893. He had already read the published play and he began sketching ideas for an opera almost immediately.

When he received Maeterlinck’s permission to use the play, he took it largely as given, cutting four scenes (with the author’s consent) and descriptive details from the dialogue. Debussy worked at his opera fairly steadily for two years (during which he also completed the Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune), though not without numerous starts and stops. In October 1893, for example, he wrote to the composer Ernest Chausson: “I was hasty in singing a victory song for Pelléas et Mélisande as, after one of those sleepless nights that always is a good counselor, I had to recognize that this wasn’t it at all. The thing resembled a duo of Mr. So-and-So, or it doesn’t matter whom, and most of all the ghost of Old Klingsor, alias R. Wagner, appeared at the turn of a measure. So I tore everything up and struck out searching for a new chemistry of more personal phrases, and strove to become as much Pelléas as Mélisande... Quite spontaneously I’ve made use of a means of expression that seems to me quite special, which is silence – Don’t laugh!

It acts as an agent of expression and perhaps is the only means of giving full value to the emotion of a phrase.” Debussy had a short score largely completed by the summer of 1895. He returned to it again to finish the orchestration and other details in preparation for its premiere at the Opéra-Comique in 1902, including creating or extending orchestral interludes in several places to cover scene changes. Objective plot action is only one level of meaning in Maeterlinck’s drama, which is focused on psychological chiaroscuro and symbolic contrasts of light/vision/love and darkness/blindness/tragedy. The first scene is set in a forest in the vaguely medieval kingdom of Allemonde. Golaud, grandson of King Arkel, has been hunting, as the vigorous dotted notes of his theme suggest, and has lost both hounds and prey. He encounters Mélisande, whose past will remain a mystery. Golaud is attracted by her eyes and fey air of sorrow, and persuades her to follow him.

In the next scene Geneviève, Golaud’s mother, reads a letter from him to his younger brother Pelléas, telling Pelléas that he has been married to Mélisande for six months and asking that if Arkel accepts her, a lamp should be lit to indicate that. Aged and nearly blind, Arkel forgives Golaud for marrying a stranger, and at the end of the scene Geneviève reminds Pelléas to light the lamp. More time passes, for in the third scene of Act I, Geneviève, Mélisande, and Pelléas are outside on the coast, seeking some relief from the gloomy half-light of the castle. A half-seen ship passes (with a chorus of sailors), and Pelléas and Mélisande are left alone for the first time. At the beginning of Act II, Mélisande and Pelléas are outside by a well. Mélisande is attracted to the water, and her wedding ring fells into the well (to a harp arpeggio). The ring’s connection of her and Golaud seems more than symbolic, for at the moment it fell into the water, Golaud was thrown from his horse and injured.

In the next scene, he lies in bed, tended by Mélisande, who again complains of the brooding darkness of the castle. Golaud is sympathetic until he notices the ring is missing; he roughly orders her out to search for it, aided by Pelléas. In the next scene she has Pelléas show her the eerie seaside grotto where she told Golaud that she lost the ring in the sea, and there they see three beggars in the moonlight. In Act III Mélisande sits in a castle window brushing her long hair. Pelléas comes by outside under the window, and asks to kiss her hand, since he must leave the next day. Her hair falls over him as she leans out, but Golaud interrupts the scene and tells them to stop behaving childishly. Golaud leads Pelléas into the oppressive castle vaults, and warns him to stay away from Mélisande.

In the final scene of the Act, Golaud tries to calm his rising jealousy, but interrogates his young son Yniold (by a previous relationship) about what he has seen pass between Pelléas and Mélisande, finally lifting Yniold up to spy into the room where Pelléas and Mélisande are quietly staring at a light. As Act IV begins, Pelléas and Mélisande agree to meet one last time by the well where she lost her ring. Arkel joins Mélisande and expresses pity for her unhappiness. Golaud joins them, and becomes enraged by the sight of his wife and her innocent appearance. In the next scene, Yniold is outside, playing by the well, where he loses his golden ball and watches a flock of sheep and their shepherd pass. Pelléas and Mélisande arrive and finally speak clearly about their burgeoning love, in highly symbolic discussion of light and darkness. They hear the castle gate close, and rejoice in the idea of death as a kind of affirmation. Golaud enters and kills Pelléas with his sword; Mélisande flees.

Act V is a single scene in a castle room, where Mélisande lies in bed. The doctor in attendance offers some hope for her, but Arkel understands that she is dying. Golaud is consumed by remorse but also still jealous, questioning Mélisande about her relationship with Pelléas. She is delirious, though, as if in a dream, and he learns nothing concrete. Mélisande has recently given birth to a girl, and Arkel asks her to hold her child, as her own life slips away. Debussy underlines Maeterlinck’s symbolism with astonishingly original music, even though his use of motifs to identify all the actors and other forces is quite Wagnerian. A carefully calculated, psychologically potent progression of rhythmic and harmonic development impels and closes the fateful circle of life and love, providing stunningly orchestrated musical gleams and shadows that flicker with the drama. Like Wagner, Debussy varies and develops each musical motif in accordance with the dramatic context. All except one, that is: “Notice that the motif which accompanies Mélisande is never altered,” the composer wrote.

“It comes back in the Fifth Act unchanged in every respect because in fact Mélisande always remains the same and dies without anyone – only old Arkel, perhaps – ever having understood her.” — John Henken Words to Pelléas et Mélisande The dramatic and lyrical power of Pelléas et Mélisande hangs on the fragility of Debussy’s score. All but one of the opera’s five acts emerge from hushed silence, and begin almost before we are aware of it. True, there are two forceful endings (to Acts 3 and 4) and one headlong opening (to Act 4); but for the rest, most take place somewhere near the threshold of our hearing. In the darkness of the theater this is thrilling, but in a half-lit concert performance, such concentrated quietness can be harder to achieve. Esa-Pekka Salonen’s solution is to introduce a speaker, who brings us faint shadows of the story and helps through the power of her voice to adjust our ears to the hushed atmosphere. Perhaps, he said, she might be the child born in the play’s final moments, recalling from the distance of a lifetime.

All these spoken words are pillaged from Maurice Maeterlinck and are taken from three sources: his original French play, from which Debussy drew his libretto; two of the play's earliest translations into English; and – most fascinatingly – the author’s combative and poetic “Preface to Pelléas et Mélisande,” in which he defends himself against his critics – “I have been asked more than once if my dramas were really written for a puppet theater...” – and states his credo: “Art always works by detour and never acts directly.” This was a credo Debussy understood from the moment he encountered Maeterlinck's text, and which led him to create from it an operatic and symphonic masterpiece. — Gerard McBurney is a composer, writer, and broadcaster. He is currently Artistic Programming Advisor at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Creative Director of the CSO’s Beyond the Score.

Pelleas and Melisande | LA Phil Pelleas and Melisande Last Modified: May 14, 2012 Schoenberg's Pelleas und Melisande (1902-1903) is one of several compositions that has come to be regarded as the last gasp of Romanticism -- or one of its grandest survivors -- while simultaneously suggesting a future path for music. In this respect, it has much in common with the old-new music of Gustav Mahler, whose Fifth and Sixth symphonies were taking shape at roughly the same time. Of the two composers, it was Schoenberg ("Schönberg" until moving to the United States in 1934) who at the turn of the century clung more tenaciously to the past, a past dominated above all by Richard Wagner's by then nearly half-a-century old Tristan und Isolde, whose themes, dramatic and musical, haunted Schoenberg.

The immediate inspiration for Pelleas und Melisandewas Maurice Maeterlinck's 1892 drama, which gave rise to numerous other musical treatments, most notably the incidental scores by Fauré and Sibelius and Debussy's opera -- the latter to serve as a guiding light for a generation and more of European composers. The Belgian-born (in 1862) Maeterlinck and his misty Pelléas et Mélisande -- Schoenberg dropped the French accents, literally and figuratively -- proved to be the right man and play at the right time, presenting a shadowy, open-to-many-interpretations world of inner conflict. In this it served as a counterpoise, intentionally or not, to the socially-conscious naturalist drama (think Ibsen) that had long reigned in Europe. Maeterlinck's world of half-lights, of repressed and barely expressed emotions that could burst forth frenziedly, if briefly, proved ideal musical fodder. If the Fauré and Sibelius scores mined the play's delicate poignancy and Debussy's its elements of longing, menace and mystery, Schoenberg took his cue from its dark, destructive passions.

The subject of Pelleas und Melisande was introduced to Schoenberg in 1901 by Richard Strauss, who had facilitated the younger man's move from Vienna to Berlin and helped him obtain a position at one of the city's outstanding music schools, the Stern Conservatory. Strauss thought Maeterlinck's play had operatic potential and that Schoenberg was the man for the job. Neither composer was at the time aware of Debussy's opera-in-progress. Schoenberg, still unaware of what had happened four months earlier in Paris -- i.e., the well-publicized (there) premiere of Debussy's work -- began his symphonic poem in July of 1902. "I had planned then to convert Pelléas et Mélisande into an opera," Schoenberg recalled many years later in a radio talk, "but I gave up this plan, though I did not know that Debussy was working on an opera at the same time. I still regret that I did not carry out my original intention. It would have differed from Debussy's.

[Why, one wonders, didn't Strauss, who must have been in the know, keep him better informed?] I might have missed the wonderful perfume of the poem; but I might have made my characters more singing. On the other hand, the symphonic poem helped me, in that it taught me to express moods and characters in precisely formulated units, a technique which an opera would perhaps not have promoted so well. Thus my fate evidently guided me with great foresight." Another instance of Schoenberg the lecturer sounding so much more schoolmasterish, so much more cold-blooded and damned practical, than his music. During the summer of 1903 the composer returned to Vienna for the premiere of his Pelleas und Melisande. Of that event he wrote, "The first performance... under my own direction, provoked a riot among the audience and even among the critics.

Reviews were unusually harsh and one of the critics suggested that I be put into an asylum, with music paper kept out of my reach." Another of the negative reviews, written by the critic Ludwig Karpath, who plays a part as well in Mahler's career, is worth quoting: "Schönberg's Pelleas und Melisande is not just filled with discords, in the sense that Don Quixote by Strauss is, but constitutes in itself a discord lasting fifty minutes. This is to be taken literally. What else might be concealed behind this cacophony is difficult to guess." What was concealed, from Dr. Karpath at any rate, is in fact a clear symphonic structure, based on sonata form, while its outer-limits chromaticism is undeniable, centered on the key of D minor -- the key, not incidentally, of the other work on this Los Angeles Philharmonic program. It took only five years for the musical world to realize that Schoenberg was not deranged, or that the work was not irredeemably cacophonous, merely dense and demanding.

By 1910, with more futuristic creations by the composer already exposed to the world, e.g., the epochal First Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, and the Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, Pelleas may have seemed relatively comforting when Oskar Fried conducted it in Berlin, to a generally favorable reception. Pelleas und Melisande, scored for a huge orchestra, is to our ears at once spectacularly complex and accessible. Its motives are continually surrounded by counter-motives, with at one point five different themes sounded simultaneously. Yet it is as rapturously, achingly melodic as the equally hyper-Romantic Schoenberg creations that surround it: the string sextet Verklärte Nacht and the massive Gurrelieder cantata. The symphonic poem is in one continuous movement divided into four parts, each corresponding to a movement of a classical symphony. The "action" mirrors that of Maeterlinck's play. The introduction deals with the discovery of the mysterious, waif-like Melisande by Golaud, Pelleas's step-brother, as she weeps, lost (as is Golaud) in the forest.

Golaud's theme is announced by three horns, Melisande's by a descending figure that begins in the oboe and is completed by English horn. These two themes and a "fate" motive (heard almost at the beginning, in the bass clarinet) alternate and mingle with Pelleas's theme, which had begun as a muted trumpet solo and developed into a heroic pronouncement for full orchestra. Part II, the symphony's scherzo, if you will, opens with the scene of Melisande -- now married to Golaud -- losing her wedding ring in a well, to Golaud a particularly ominous sign. The famous "tower scene," immortalized in Debussy's opera, follows. Melisande is combing her hair in a window of the castle's tower. Her tresses cascade down the tower wall and are caressed by the enraptured Pelleas. Golaud angrily interrupts the scene. The ensuing section of part two depicts the increasingly agitated and by now dangerously jealous Golaud leading Pelleas through a series of dank caverns, pointing out images of death.

Part III, the symphonic adagio, is a wordless love duet for Pelleas and Melisande, which rises to a thrilling climax reminiscent of the most heated moments of the Act II love duet of Tristan und Isolde. As they embrace, Golaud rushes toward Pelleas, fatally wounding him with his sword. In Part IV, after having borne Golaud a daughter, Melisande is on her death bed. She begs the repentant Golaud to believe that her and Pelleas's love was innocent, "like the love of children". Melisande dies and in a magnificently lush, poignant epilogue all the principal themes are intertwined, with the "fate" motive prominent. The piece ends bleakly, with the theme of the tragedy's catalyst and its stricken survivor, Golaud. -- Note by Herbert Glass, English-language annotator for the Salzburg Festival and contributor to musical periodicals in the United States and Europe.

DETAILS: Length: 44 minutes Orchestration: piccolo, 3 flutes (3rd = piccolo), 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets (3rd = bass clarinet), bass clarinet, E-flat clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 8 horns, 4 trumpets, 5 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbal, field drum, glockenspiel, tam tam, triangle), 2 harps, and strings First Los Angeles Philharmonic performance: January 6, 1966, Hans Swarowsky conducting

Question: Who composed the opera Pelleas et Melisande?
Answer: Debussy