A fascinating production, signed by the great stage director Robert Wilson.

Opera in five acts after a poem by Maurice Maeterlink. Music by Claude Debussy. First performed on 30 April 1902 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris. First Barcelona performance at the Teatre Tívoli on 11 October 1919. 
First performed at the Gran Teatre del Liceu on 16 December 1930.

Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande played a decisive role in the history of opera.  Based on a Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck (1892), it met with incomprehension from the majority of critics and contemporary musical circles on its first showing in Paris. While the plot is a transposition of the myth of Tristan and Isolde  a tale of indomitable passion, which prevails over the lovers' own wills, the rules of morality and divine law and finds fulfilment only in death ,  the musical language is novel and far removed from that of Wagner: singing is replaced by continuous declamation, the plot is slow-moving, and stridency and virtuosity are shunned. The absent, passive characters roam quietly through the unsettling atmosphere of a medieval castle, while the enigmatic and hauntingly lovely Mélisande – whom the king's grandson Golaud met in the forest and married – lives out a passionate romance with Golaud's younger brother, Pelléas, which will end in the death of both lovers.

- More about scenography and symbolism of this opera.


Maria Bayo