Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)

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For other works with the same title, see Pelléas et Mélisande.

Pelléas et Mélisande (Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts by Claude Debussy. The French libretto is adapted from a famous symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck (Pelléas et Mélisande) and follows it almost exactly. It received its first performance at the Opéra Comique in Paris in 1902.

Pelléas et Mélisande is often called an impressionist opera, though others believe this flies in the face of explicit conducting instructions left by Debussy. It concerns the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters. Numerous recordings of it exist, and it is regularly performed, though some opera-goers see it as one of the less immediately-accessible operas.

Characters

Principal roles
*Golaud - Baritone
*Mélisande - Soprano
*Pelléas - Tenor or Baritone
Minor roles
*Geneviève - Mezzo-soprano
*Arkël - Bass
*Yniold - Mezzo-soprano
*Doctor - Bass
Other
*Shepherd - Baritone
*Serving women - Mute
*Three paupers - Mute
*Off stage sailors - Chorus

Setting

Time: The Middle Ages.

Place: The Kingdom of Allemonde.

External links

[Free eBook: Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande: A Guide to the Opera with Musical Examples from the Score] at Project Gutenberg, a contemporaneous analysis

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