Pelléas and Mélisande
| Pelléas and Mélisande | |
|---|---|
Sarah Bernhardt in Pelléas et Mélisande | |
| Written by | Maurice Maeterlinck |
| Characters | Arkël, king of Allemonde Geneviève, mother of Pelléas and Golaud Pelléas, grandson of Arkël Golaud, grandson of Arkël Mélisande Little Yniold, son of Golaud (by a former marriage) Physician Porter Servants Beggars |
| Date premiered | 17 May 1893 |
| Genre | Symbolism |
Pelléas and Mélisande (French: Pelléas et Mélisande) is a Symbolist play by the Belgian playwright and author Maurice Maeterlinck. The play is about the forbidden, doomed love of the title characters and was first performed in 1893.
The work never achieved great success on stage, apart from the operatic setting by Claude Debussy, but was at the time widely read and admired by the symbolist literary elite, such as Strindberg and Rilke. It inspired other contemporary composers, like Gabriel Fauré, Arnold Schoenberg, Jean Sibelius, and Mel Bonis.