What is the story behind Pelleas and Melisande?
The plot concerns a love triangle. Prince Golaud finds Mélisande, a mysterious young woman, 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.
Who wrote Pelleas and Melisande?
Claude Debussy
Maurice Maeterlinck
Pelléas et Mélisande/Librettists
What is the rhythm of Pelleas and Melisande?
In Pelléas and Mélisande, the rhythm and pitch of the vocal parts are aligned as closely as possible to Maeterlinck’s original French prose, leaving no room for the singers to interpret them with their own emotional inflections.
What is the general mood of the story Pelléas and Melinda?
Set in a nebulous, fairy-tale past, the play conveys a mood of hopeless melancholy and doom in its story of the destructive passion of Princess Mélisande, who falls in love with her husband’s younger brother, Pelléas.
What was Debussy’s only opera?
Pelléas et Mélisande is Debussy’s only opera, and it’s considered to be a landmark in 20th-century music. The five-act love story premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in April 1902.
In what year was Debussy’s opera Pelleas et Melisande composed?
1902
…music, completed only one opera: Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), an almost verbatim setting of Maurice Maeterlinck’s play. Pelléas is notable for the dramatic impact of its harmonic language and for its unity of text and score, as evident especially in the way the composer made the sounds of Maeterlinck’s French…
How does Debussy’s creative style being characterized?
Debussy’s innovations were based to some extent on: the special and subtle inflections of the French language and poetry; on the character and length of sound (as opposed to strong metrical and rhythmic accent); on the fluid and asymmetrical organization of French meter, rhythm, accent, and phrase.
What is Debussy only opera?
What are the characteristics of Claude Debussy music?
Debussy’s impressionist works typically “evoke a mood, feeling, atmosphere, or scene” by creating musical images through characteristic motifs, harmony, exotic scales (e.g., whole-tone and pentatonic scales), instrumental timbre, large unresolved chords (e.g., 9ths, 11ths, 13ths), parallel motion, ambiguous tonality.
What kind of opera is Pelleas and Melisande?
A family slowly corrodes as their tragic fates inevitably take hold. Discover the haunting beauty of Pelleas and Melisande, the only opera from Claude Debussy. This symbolist masterpiece fuses text, ethereal harmonies and floating instrumental colour with an atmospheric poetry unlike any other work.
Who is the girl by the fountain in Maeterlinck’s Pelleas and Melisande?
Debussy’s impressionist score to Maeterlinck’s symbolist play builds up atmospheric musical scenery. The young woman by the fountain is named Mélisande. She will not tell Golaud anything more about who she is, but agrees to come with him. A letter arrives for Golaud’s parents, Geneviève and King Arkel.
When did Claude Debussy write Pelleas and Melisande?
Pelléas et Mélisande ( Pelléas and Mélisande) is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck ‘s symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande. It was premiered at the Salle Favart in Paris by the Opéra-Comique on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as…
How did Golaud find out about Pelleas and Melisande?
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GYpdlMaKmM