I just got home from the opera. (How great is it that I get to say that???) Tonight, in the black box theatre, they performed Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande. The piece is about Melisande, a young girl, who marries Golaud, an older widower who finds her in the forest one day. He takes her home to meet his family, and she falls in love with his half-brother, Pelleas. Pelleas also loves her. As they grow bolder and bolder with their feelings and meetings, Golaud starts to figure things out. The results are devastating.
My words are very poor paints for such a musical landscape. This score washes over you like water. The music itself is like falling in love, sweeping between ecstasy and despair, always remaining on edge, quivering with possibility, being enveloped in fuzzy warmth that's pierced by crystal clarity.
Debussy's music always has this effect on me. There's something about it that reaches a place deep in my soul. Judging from his successes, I think I'm not the only one.
If you have the chance, go see Pelleas et Melisande. Be sure to see it in French; Debussy weaves the colors of the French language into the fabric of the music. It is An Experience.
~Hope
PS A fun anecdote: Tonight's Pelleas, JW, is the same person who played the teenage lover in For a Look or a Touch. At one of the Debussy rehearsals, an observer who was fluent in French asked the director, "Who is that marvelous French boy you found to play Pelleas?" JW is American.
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