Pelléas et Mélisande (drama)

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Sarah Bernhardt in Pelléas et Mélisande

Pelléas et Mélisande is a play by Maurice Maeterlinck about the forbidden, doomed love of the two title characters. It was premiered on May 16, 1893 at the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens in Paris and is considered the main work of the Theater of Symbolism .

action

Prince Golaud gets lost on a journey in the forest and meets the beautiful and mysterious Mélisande there. He takes her as his wife to the gloomy water castle of his grandfather Arkel, on which Mélisande, however, does not feel comfortable. Only Golaud's brother Pelléas, with whom she has a deep friendship and almost psychic love, can cheer her up. This arouses Golaud's jealousy. In anger he kills Pelléas, but Mélisande is so shaken that she too dies.

analysis

Pelléas et Mélisande is more rooted in reality and in realism than Princesse Maleine from 1889, but is considered Maeterlinck's main symbolist work. The sparse and simple plot appears mysterious, the more complex characters are ambiguous. The events are determined by longings and bad premonitions. The piece hardly addresses social and moral problems.

Adaptations

The drama served as the basis for several musical works:

expenditure

  • Pelléas and Mélisande . Brussels 1892.
  • Pelléas et Mélisande , in Théâtre complet . Geneva 1979.
  • Pelleas and Melisande , translated by G. Stockhausen. Berlin 1897.
  • Pelleas and Melisande , translated by F. v. Opole-Bronikowski. Reclam, Stuttgart 1972. ISBN 3-15-009427-5 .
  • Pelleas and Melisande , translated by S. Gross, in The early pieces . Munich 1983.

literature

  • Anita Kolbus: Maeterlinck, Debussy, Schönberg and others: Pelléas et Mélisande. For the musical reception of a symbolist drama . Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2001. ISBN 3-8288-8313-3 .
  • Sophie Lucet: " Pelléas et Mélisande et l'esthétique du théâtre symboliste: mise en scène et dramaturgie", in: Annales de la Fondation Maurice Maeterlinck 39, 1994, pp. 27-48.

Web links

Commons : Pelléas et Mélisande (Maeterlinck)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files