Pelléas et Mélisande

It is one of those works that pass like a shooting star through the musical firmament: unlike anything written before or after, making no concessions to the tastes and traditions of its day, running counter to all the codes and expectations of the public. Premiered in Paris in 1902, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande is one of those fascinating scores whose very uniqueness carries within it the seeds of things to come. 

In the heart of a deep forest, the prince Golaud discovers a mysterious young woman, weeping by a fountain. She only tells him her name, Melisande, but she accepts to follow him to the castle of Arkel, the old king of Allemonde. There, she weds Golaud. In this cold, ancient castle, where the sun never penetrates and where sorrow seems to seep from the very walls themselves, a strange complicity arises between the young bride and her brother-in-law, Pelleas, a young man with dreams who brings a ray of light to her life. Under the blind eyes of the absent king, destiny slowly tightens the webs of tragedy.

In this production presented in 2017 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in co-production with the Dijon Opera, the stage director — and administrator general of La Comédie Française — Eric Ruf imagines a world in measure with this masterpiece where human passions appear under their darkest and most suffocating veil. Is redemption possible in the end?


WITH the support of the Crédit Agricole de Champagne-Bourgogne