PELLEAS AND MELISANDE

(Pelléas et Mélisande) Composer: CLAUDE DEBUSSY Poem by MavuricE MAETERLINCK First performance: Opéra comique, Paris, April 30, 1902 5 acts (12 scenes). MELISANDE is met in the forest by Golaud who has gone there to hunt. He wishes her for his bride, and asks his half-brother, Pelléas, to make the intricate arrangements nece ary to please his grandfather, King Arkel of Allemonde. Pelléas is immediately attracted to Mélisande. Golaud is jealous, particularly when the wedding ring, which she has lost in a pool, becomes the centre of suspicion. He spies upon Pelléas and Mélisande, even to holding his child up to see what the pair are doing in her room. Once when she leans out the window to speak to Pelléas her hair falls about his head, and he care es it as Golaud enters. Finally, his suspicions having driven him mad, he kills Pelléas. When Mélisande lies dying in childbirth, she tells him that she loved Pelléas, but innocently. She dies, leaving him still tormented by doubts.