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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.
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