2025 AND BEYOND: PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Claude Debussy
PELLÉAS ET MÉLISANDE
Conductor: Anthony Negus
Director: Jenny Ogilvie
Performance dates: 28 June, 1, 3, 8, 10 July 2025
Pelléas et Mélisande offers a fresh take on the enduring dramatic device of the love triangle. Like Wagner, Debussy found inspiration in the mythic world of Arthurian legend. This opera is the story of Prince Golaud, who falls in love with and marries the mysterious princess Mélisande. He brings Mélisande to the castle at Allemonde, where she meets his half-brother, Pelléas. Pelléas and Mélisande fall in love and Golaud’s anger and jealousy wind like a spring towards a devastating climax.
A fin de siècle masterpiece, there’s almost no other opera like Pelléas. It offers shimmering orchestral interludes and haunting vocal melodies which unveil relationships in all their complexity and instability. After the Ring, this opera is an ideal next step for the Longborough Festival Orchestra under the baton of our Music Director, Anthony Negus.
“Debussy created a new kind of interior music drama, using Wagner as raw material.” Alex Ross, The Rest is Noise
“The orchestral interludes which Debussy writes for Pelléas et Mélisande are deeply imbued with a Parsifal like atmosphere. I’ve always felt a special feeling towards this opera. We have waited a long time to tackle it at Longborough, and I believe the time is now ripe for us to present it and to experience its mystery and subtle beauty in a new staging. Our theatre will serve this piece particularly well.” Anthony Negus, Music Director
