Pel­léas und Mé­li­san­de (Pel­léas et Mé­li­san­de)

Stepbrothers and bosom buddies Golaud and Pelléas are the redeeming feature of King Arkel’s family, which is otherwise beset by illness and intrigue. But then Mélisande appears at a woodland spring, heralding the end of the brothers’ harmony. Golaud weds Mélisande but Pelléas wins her heart. Choosing not to set jealous violence at the core of his drama, Debussy presents us with a tragedy of interiority, a torrent of love and death springing from events that excite extremities of passion and bring people to do things they never would have thought themselves capable of doing.