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Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
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Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on 30 April 1902. The French libretto was adapted from the Symbolist play of the same name by Maurice Maeterlinck. It was the only opera Debussy completed and is a landmark in 20th century music.
The plot concerns a love triangle. Prince Golaud finds a mysterious young woman, Mélisande, lost in a forest.
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Encyclopedia
Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. It was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Paris on 30 April 1902. The French libretto was adapted from the Symbolist play of the same name by Maurice Maeterlinck. It was the only opera Debussy completed and is a landmark in 20th century music.
The plot concerns a love triangle. Prince Golaud finds a mysterious young woman, Mélisande, lost in a forest. He marries her and brings her back to the castle of his grandfather, King Arkel of Allemonde. Here Mélisande becomes increasingly attached to Golaud’s younger half-brother Pelléas, arousing Golaud’s jealousy. Golaud goes to excessive lengths to find out the truth about Pelléas and Mélisande’s relationship, even forcing his own child, Yniold, to spy on the couple. Pelléas decides to leave the castle but arranges to meet Mélisande one last time and the two finally confess their love for one another. Golaud, who has been eavesdropping, rushes out and kills Pelléas. Mélisande dies shortly after, having given birth to a daughter, with Golaud still pleading with her to tell him “the truth”.
Composing the opera
Debussy first became interested in composing an opera based on a work by Maeterlinck, the leading exponent of symbolist theatre at that time, after seeing a production of his 1889 play La princesse Maleine, which was the first in a series of his works set loosely in medieval times. The play was immensly popular in Paris and Le Figaro praised it as "superior in beauty to what is most beautiful in Shakespeare". Debussy's interest, however, shifted to Pelléas et Mélisande after he read the play sometime between its publication in May 1892 and its first performance at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens on 17 May 1893, which he attended. In a 1902 article, "Pourquoi j’ai écrit Pelléas", Debussy recounted: "The drama of Pelléas which, despite its dream-like 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 [‘décor orchestral’]."
By August 1893 Debussy had gained Maeterlinck’s permission to use his play, and he began composing the opera the following month. His method of composition was fairly systematic, with him working on only one act at a time but not necessarily in chronological order. The first scene that he wrote was Act 4 scene iv, the climactic love scene between Pelléas and Mélisande.
Debussy's music was obviously heavily inspired by his deep response to the text. During the initial intense period of composition Debussy communicated within several letters to friends and associates the difficulty he was having in depicting the elusive and mysterious quality of Maeterlinck’s characters within the music. He wrote to Ernest Chausson the challenge of portraying the "de ce rien” (‘nothingness’) in the character of Mélisande, and the gentleness and "outre-tombe" (beyond-the-grave) feeling of Arkel. These challenges were ultimately overcome and both Debussy and Maeterlinck felt that the music matched the ideas that Maeterlinck had communicated in the libretto and the play.
At some point during the early stages of composition, Debussy decided to remove four scenes from the play, a decision approved of by Maeterlinck. These cuts significantly reduce the role of the serving-women to one silent appearance in the last act. For example, the opening scene of the play, which depicted serving-women attempting to open the front door of the castle and wash an indelible stain from the entrance, was entirely cut. The other removed scenes cause only some minor details to be lost but overall the essence of the original play is captured within the opera.
Debussy also made several cuts to Maeterlinck’s text, often removing repetitive phrases and reducing descriptive language. Maeterlinck had a propensity for highly detailed descriptions that he would incorporate into the dialogue rather than describe within stage directions, which he rarely gave, like other playwrights. For example, Act 1 scene ii of the play has Geneviève describe Mélisande as "always dressed like a princess, even though her clothes were torn by brambles". Debussy removed this description from the opera's libretto but the stage designers for the premiere incorporated this visual description into Mélisande's costume design. Similar cuts were made throughout the opera while still using the original language as a cue for the visual aspects of the first production.
Debussy claimed to have finished the opera on 17 August 1895 but, in accordance with his usual method, he had only written an initial short score without detailed orchestration and with some lines missing in the vocal score. However, the short score did include ideas for orchestration that were indicated for the most part in coloured inks. Debussy did not go on to produce the full score needed for rehearsals until the Opéra-Comique accepted the work in 1898. At this point he added the full orchestration, finished the vocal score, and made several revisions, including the addition and subtraction of principal motifs throughout the opera. It is this version that went into rehearsals in January 1902.
During the initial rehearsal process, it became necessary for Debussy to make several radical revisions to the score. It became apparent that the original interludes were not long enough for set changes to be made between scenes. Under the pressure of theatre management, Debussy reluctantly and hastily expanded many of the interludes to accommodate the time needed for scene changes. However, when the first vocal score of the opera, in French only, was published in 1902 by Fromont, the original interludes were included and not the new ones. Later, when the full score was published in 1905–6 in French and English, the newer, longer interludes were included. After these publications, Debussy continued to refine the opera's orchestration, some of which were included in secondary publications (the study score in 1950 and the full score in 1966). However, most of these changes are preserved only in Debussy’s personal copy.
Putting Pelléas on stage
Finding a venue
Debussy spent years trying to find a suitable venue for the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande, realising he would have difficulties getting such an innovative work staged. As he confided to his friend Camille Mauclair in 1895: "It is no slight work. I should like to find a place for it, but you know I am badly received everywhere." He also told Mauclair that he had contemplated asking the wealthy aesthete Robert de Montesquiou to have it performed at his Pavillon des Muses, but nothing came of this.
The composer and conductor André Messager was a great admirer of Debussy's music and had heard him play extracts from the opera. When Messager became became chief conductor of the Opéra-Comique theatre in 1898, his enthusiastic recommendations prompted Albert Carré, the head of the opera house, to visit Debussy and hear the work played on the piano at two sessions, in May 1898 and April 1901. On the strength of this, Carré accepted the work for the Opéra-Comique and on 3 May 1901 gave Debussy a written promise to perform the opera the following season.
Trouble with Maeterlinck
Debussy had promised the role of Mélisande to Maeterlinck's companion Georgette Leblanc and had even rehearsed the part with her privately. But Albert Carré became keen on a new Scottish singer, Mary Garden, who had captivated the Parisian public when she had played the lead role in the premiere of Gustave Charpentier's Louise in 1900. Debussy was at first reluctant to comply with Carré but when he heard Garden sing he was so impressed that he later recalled: "That was the gentle voice that I had heard in my inmost being, with its hesitantly tender and captivating charm, such that I had barely dared to hope for."
Maeterlinck first learnt about the change of singer when an announcement appeared in Le ménestrel newspaper on December 29, 1901. He was furious and tried to take legal action to prevent the opera from going ahead. When this failed, he threatened Debussy with physical violence, telling Leblanc he was going to "give Debussy a drubbing to teach him what was what" and Madame Debussy had to dissuade him from attacking her husband with a cane. On 14 April, Le Figaro published a letter from Maeterlinck in which he completely dissociated himself from the production, complaining about the cuts that had been made in the libretto (although he had originally sanctioned them) and describing "the Pelléas in question" as "a work that is strange and hostile to me [...] I can only wish for its immediate and decided failure." Maeterlinck finally saw the opera in 1920, two years after Debussy's death. He later confessed: "In this affair I was entirely wrong and he was a thousand times right."
Rehearsals
Rehearsals for Pelléas et Mélisande began on 13 January 1902 and went on for 15 weeks; Debussy was present for 69 of the sessions. Mélisande was not the only role which caused casting problems: the child who was to play Yniold was not chosen until 5 March. In the event, the boy (Blondin) proved incapable of singing the part competently and Yniold's main scene (Act IV Scene 3) was cut and only reinstated in later performances when the role was given to a woman. The rehearsals also showed that the stage machinery of the Opéra-Comique was unable to cope with the rapid set changes the libretto demanded and Debussy had to compose orchestral interludes to cover them. Many of the orchestra and cast were hostile to Debussy's innovative work and, in the words of Roger Nichols, "may not have taken altogether kindly to the composer's injunction, reported by Mary Garden, to 'forget, please, that you are singers'." The dress rehearsal took place on the afternoon of Monday, 28 April and was a rowdy affair. Someone (in Mary Garden's view, Maurice Maeterlinck) distributed a salacious parody of the libretto to the audience, who also laughed at Garden's Scottish accent (she allegedly pronounced courage as curages, meaning "the dirt that gets stuck in drains"). The censor, Henri Roujon, asked Debussy to make a number of cuts before the premiere, including a mention of the word "bed". Debussy agreed but kept the libretto unaltered in the published score.
Premiere
Pelléas et Mélisande received its first performance at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with André Messager conducting and set designs in the Pre-Raphaelite style by Lucien Jusseaume and Eugène Ronsin. The premiere received a warmer reception than the dress rehearsal because the Opéra-Comique's regular subscribers who found the work so objectionable were counterbalanced by a group of Debussy aficionados. Messager described the reaction: "[It was] certainly not a triumph, but no longer the disaster of two days before...From the second performance onwards, the public remained calm and above all curious to hear this work everyone was talking about...The little group of admirers, Conservatoire pupils and students for the most part, grew day by day..."
Critical reaction was mixed. Some accused the music of being "sickly and practically lifeless" and of sounding "like the noise of a squeaky door or a piece of furniture being moved about, or a child crying in the distance." Camille Saint-Saëns, a relentless opponent of Debussy's music, claimed he had abandoned his customary summer holidays so he could stay in Paris and "say nasty things about Pelléas." But others — especially the younger generation of composers, students and aesthetes — were highly enthusiastic. Debussy's friend Paul Dukas lauded the opera, Romain Rolland described it as "one of the three or four outstanding achievements in French musical history" and Vincent d'Indy produced an extensive review which compared the work to Wagner and early 17th-century Italian opera. D'Indy found Pelléas moving too: "The composer has in fact simply felt and expressed the human feelings and human sufferings in human terms, despite the outward appearance the characters present of living in a dream." The opera won a "cult following" among young aesthetes and the writer Jean Lorrain humorously described the "Pelléastres" who aped the costumes and hairstyles of Mary Garden and the rest of the cast.
Later performance history
The initial run lasted for 14 performances, making a profit for the Opéra-Comique. It became a staple part in the repertory of the theatre, reaching its hundredth performance there on 25 January 1913. In 1908, Maggie Teyte took over the role of Mélisande from Mary Garden. She described Debussy's reaction on learning her nationality: "Une autre anglaise — Mon Dieu" ("Another Englishwoman — my God"). Teyte also wrote about the composer's perfectionist character and his relations with the cast:As a teacher he was pedantic — that's the only word. Really pedantic [...] There was a core of anger and bitterness in him — I often think he was rather like Golaud in Pelléas and yet he wasn't. He was — it's in all his music — a very sensual man. No one seemed to like him. Jean Périer, who played Pelléas to my Mélisande, went white with anger if you mentioned the name of Debussy... Debussy's perfectionism — plus his dislike of the attendant publicity — was one of the reasons why he rarely attended performances of Pelléas et Mélisande. However, he did supervise the first foreign production of the opera, which appeared at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels on 9 January 1907. This was followed by foreign premieres in Frankfurt on 19 April of the same year, New York at the Manhattan Opera House on 19 February 1908, and at La Scala, Milan with Arturo Toscanini conducting on 2 April 1908. It first appeared in the United Kingdom at Covent Garden Theatre on 21 May, 1909.
In the years following World War One, the popularity of Pelléas et Mélisande began to fade somewhat. As Roger Nichols writes, "[The] two qualities of being escapist and easily caricatured meant that in the brittle, post-war Parisian climate Pelléas could be written off as no longer relevant." The situation was the same abroad and in 1940 the English critic Edward J. Dent observed that "Pelléas et Mélisande seems to have fallen completely into oblivion." Interest was revived by the famous production which debuted at the Opéra-Comique on 22 May, 1942 under the baton of Roger Desormière with Jacques Jansen and Irène Joachim in the title roles. The couple became "the Pelléas and Mélisande for a whole generation of opera-goers, last appearing together at the Opéra-Comique in 1955." Notable later productions include those with set designs by Jean Cocteau (first performed in Marseille in 1963) and the 1969 Covent Garden one conducted by Pierre Boulez. Boulez's rejection of the tradition of Pelléas conducting caused controversy among critics who accused him of "Wagnerising" Debussy, to which Boulez responded that the work was indeed heavily influenced by Wagner's Parsifal. Boulez returned to conduct Pelléas in an acclaimed production by the German director Peter Stein for the Welsh National Opera in 1992. Modern productions have frequently re-imagined Maeterlinck’s setting, often moving the time period to the present day or other time period, such as the 1985 Opéra National de Lyon production which set the opera during the Edwardian period.
Roles
The opera is unusual in that each of the main roles can be sung by a wide range of voice types. For instance, soprano Victoria de los Ángeles and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade have both sung the role of Mélisande; and tenor Nicolai Gedda and baritone Rod Gilfry have both sung Pelléas.
Synopsis
- Place: The Kingdom of Allemonde
- Time: The Middle Ages
Act 1
Scene 1: A forest
Prince Golaud, grandson of King Arkel of Allemonde, has become lost while hunting in the forest. He discovers a frightened, weeping girl sitting by a spring in which a crown is visible. She reveals her name is Mélisande but nothing else about her origins and refuses to let Golaud retrieve her crown from the water. Golaud persuades her to come with him before the forest gets dark.
Scene 2: A room in the castle
Six months have passed. Geneviève, the mother of the princes Golaud and Pelléas, reads a letter to the aged and nearly blind King Arkel. It was sent by Golaud to his brother Pelléas. In it Golaud reveals that he has married Mélisande, although he knows no more about her than on the day they first met. Golaud fears that Arkel will be angry with him and tells Pelléas to find how he reacts to the news. If the old man is favourable then Pelléas should light a lamp from the tower facing the sea on the third day; if Golaud does not see the lamp shining, he will sail on and never return home. Arkel had planned to marry the widowed Golaud to Princess Ursule in order to put an end to "long wars and ancient hatreds", but he bows to fate and accepts Golaud's marriage to Mélisande. Pelléas enters, weeping. He has received a letter from his friend Marcellus, who is on his deathbed, and wants to travel to say goodbye to him. Arkel thinks Pelléas should wait for the return of Golaud, and also reminds Pelléas of his own father, lying sick in bed in the castle. Geneviève tells Pelléas not to forget to light the lamp for Golaud.
Scene 3: Before the castle
Geneviève and Mélisande walk in the castle grounds. Mélisande remarks how dark the gardens and the huge forest which surrounds the castle are. Pelléas arrives. They look out to sea and notice a large ship departing and a lighthouse shining. Night falls. Geneviève goes off to look after Yniold, Golaud's young son by his previous marriage. Pelléas takes Melisande's hand to help her down the steep path. He tells her he might have to go away tomorrow. Mélisande asks him why.
Act 2
Scene 1: A well in the park
It is a hot summer day. Pelléas has led Mélisande to one of his favourite spots, the "Blind Men's Well". People used to believe it possessed miraculous powers to cure blindness but since the old king's eyesight started to fail they no longer come there. Mélisande lies down on the marble rim of the well and tries to see to the bottom. Her hair loosens and falls into the water. Pelléas notices how extraordinarily long it is. He remembers that Golaud first met Mélisande beside a spring. Mélisande plays with the ring Golaud gave her, throwing it up into the air until it slips from her fingers into the well. Pelléas tells her not to be concerned — she can get another ring — but she is not reassured. He also notes that the clock was striking twelve as the ring dropped into the well. Mélisande asks him what she should tell Golaud. He replies, "The truth."
Scene 2: A room in the castle
Golaud is lying in bed with Mélisande at the bedside. He is wounded, having fallen from his horse while hunting. The horse suddenly bolted for no reason as the clock struck twelve. Mélisande bursts into tears and says she feels ill and unhappy in the castle. She wants to go away with Golaud. He asks her the reason for her unhappiness but she refuses to say. When he asks her if the problem is Pelléas, she replies that he is not the cause but she does not think he likes her. Golaud tells her not to worry: Pelléas can behave oddly and he is still very young. Mélisande complains about the gloominess of the castle, today was the first time she saw the sky. Golaud takes her hands to comfort her and notices the wedding ring is missing. Mélisande claims she dropped it in a cave by the sea where she went to collect shells with little Yniold. Golaud orders her to go and search for it at once, even though it is dark, before the tide comes in. When Mélisande replies that she is scared to go alone, Golaud tells her to take Pelléas along with her.
Scene 3: Before a cave
Pelléas and Mélisande make their way down to the cave in pitch darkness. Mélisande is frightened to enter but the cave gives off its own light and Pelléas tells her she will need to describe the place to Golaud to prove she has been there. The moon comes out and reveals three beggars sleeping in the cave. Pelléas tells her there is a famine in the land. He decides they should come back another day.
Act 3
Scene 1: One of the towers of the castle
Mélisande is at the tower window, singing a song (Mes longs cheveux) as she combs her hair. Pelléas appears and asks her to lean out so he can kiss her hand as he is going away the next day. He cannot reach her hand but her long hair tumbles down from the window and he kisses and caresses it instead. Pelléas playfully ties Mélisande's hair to a willow tree in spite of her protests that someone might see them. A flock of doves takes flight. Mélisande panics when she hears Golaud's footsteps approaching. Golaud dismisses Pelléas and Mélisande as nothing but a pair of children and leads Pelléas away.
Scene 2: The vaults of the castle
Golaud leads Pelléas down to the castle vaults, which contain the dungeons and a stagnant pool which has "the scent of death." He tells Pelléas to lean over and look into the chasm while he holds him safely. Pelléas finds the atmosphere stifling and they leave.
Scene 3: A terrace at the entrance of the vaults
Pelléas is relieved to breathe fresh air again. It is noon. He sees Geneviève and Mélisande at a window in the tower. Golaud tells Pelléas that there must be no repeat of the "childish game" between him and Mélisande last night. Mélisande is pregnant and the least shock might disturb her health. It is not the first time he has noticed there might be something between Pelléas and Mélisande but Pelléas should avoid her as much as possible without making this look too obvious.
Scene 4: Before the castle
Golaud sits with his little son, Yniold, in the darkness before dawn and questions him about Pelléas and Mélisande. The boy reveals little that Golaud wants to know. He says that Pelléas and Mélisande often quarrel "about the door" and that they have told Yniold he will one day be as big as his father. They never send Yniold away because they are "afraid" when he is not there and "keep on crying in the dark." He admits that he once saw Pelléas and Mélisande kiss "when it was raining." Golaud lifts his son on his shoulders to spy on Pelléas and Mélisande through the window but Yniold says that they are doing nothing. He threatens to scream unless Golaud lets him down again. Golaud leads him away.
Act 4
Scene 1: A room in the castle
Pelléas tells Mélisande that his father is getting better and has asked him to leave on his travels. He arranges a last meeting with Mélisande by the Blind Men's Well in the park.
Scene 2: The same
Arkel tells Mélisande how he felt sorry for her when she first came to the castle "with the strange, bewildered look of someone constantly awaiting a calamity." But now that is going to change and Mélisande will "open the door to a new era that I foresee." He asks her to kiss him. Golaud bursts in with blood on his forehead — he claims it was caused by a thorn hedge. When Mélisande tries to wipe the blood away he angrily orders her not to touch him and demands his sword. He mentions that another peasant has died of starvation. Golaud notices Mélisande is trembling and tells her he is not going to kill her with the sword. He mocks the "great innocence" Arkel says he sees in Mélisande's eyes. He commands her to close them or "I will shut them for a long time." He tells Mélisande that she disgusts him and drags her around the room by her hair. When Golaud leaves, Arkel asks if he is drunk. Mélisande simply replies that he does not love her any more. Arkel comments: "If I were God, I would have pity on the hearts of men."
Scene 3: A well in the park
Yniold tries to lift a boulder to free his golden ball which is trapped between it and some rocks. He hears flock of sheep bleating in the dark as they have lost the way to the sheepfold.
Scene 4: The same
Pelléas arrives alone at the well. He is worried how far he has become involved with Mélisande and fears the consequences: "I have been playing like a child round a thing I did not suspect was there. I have been playing in a dream, round the snares of fate." He knows he must leave but first he wants to see Mélisande one last time and "tell her all the things I haven't said." Mélisande arrives. She was able to slip out without Golaud noticing. Pelléas tells her he is going away but first he wanted to tell her that he loves her. Mélisande confesses that she has loved him since she first saw him. Pelléas hears the servants shutting the castle gates for the night. Now they are locked out, but Mélisande merely says, "All the better." Pelléas is resigned to fate too: "Things no longer depend on our wish. All is lost, all is saved." The two kiss then Mélisande hears something moving in the shadows. It is Golaud, who has been watching the couple from behind a tree. Golaud strikes down Pelléas with his sword and kills him. Mélisande flees into the words in terror with Golaud in pursuit.
Act 5
A bedroom in the castle
Mélisande sleeps in a sick bed after giving birth to her child. The doctor assures Golaud that her condition is not serious. Overcome with guilt, Golaud claims he has killed for no reason. Pelléas and Mélisande merely kissed "like a brother and sister." Mélisande wakes and asks for a window to be opened so she can see the sunset. Golaud asks the doctor and Arkel to leave the room so he can speak with Mélisande alone. He blames himself for everything and begs Melisande's forgiveness. Golaud presses Mélisande to confess her forbidden love for Pelléas. She maintains her innocence in spite of Golaud's increasingly desperate pleas to her to tell "the truth." Arkel and the doctor return. Arkel tells Golaud to stop before he kills Mélisande, but he replies "I have already killed her." Arkel hands Mélisande her newborn baby girl but she is too weak to lift the child in her arms. The room fills with serving women, although no one can tell who has summoned them. Mélisande quietly dies. At the moment of death, the serving women fall to their knees. Arkel comforts the sobbing Golaud. He says Mélisande "was a poor little mysterious being like all of us. She lies there as if she were her baby's elder sister." Now her daughter must live in her place. C'est au tour de la pauvre petite ("It's the poor little thing's turn now.")
Instrumentation
The score calls for:
- 3 flutes/piccolo, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 3 bassoons
- 4 French horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba
- timpani, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, bell
- 2 harps
- strings
Discography
Pelléas et Mélisande has been recorded numerous times by numerous different ensembles over the last century with a total of 29 full recordings of the opera having been produced for commercial sale. The earliest recording from the work is a 1904 Edison cylinder recording of Mary Garden singing the passage Mes longs cheveux with Debussy accompanying her on the piano. The first full recording of the opera was done by the Grand Orchestre Symphonique du Grammophone under conductor Piero Coppola in 1927. The 1942 mono recording conducted by Roger Désormière, is considered a reference by most critics and record collectors. Other recordings have received mixed reviews but most of them have their admirers.
Sources
- Roger Nichols and Richard Langham Smith (eds.) Claude Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (Cambridge Opera Handbooks, CUP, 1989)
- Paul Holmes Debussy (Omnibus, 1991)
- Robert Orledge Debussy and the Theatre (CUP, 1982)
- The Cambridge Companion to Debussy ed. Simon Tresize (CUP, 2003)
- Roger Nichols The Life of Debussy (CUP, 2008)
- The Viking Opera Guide ed. Amanda Holden (1993)
- Booklet notes to the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon recording of Pelléas et Mélisande (conducted by Claudio Abbado) by Hugh MacDonald (in English), Jürgen Maehder and Annette Kreutziger-Herr (in German), Myriam Chimènes (in French)
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