# Was Debussy A Good Opera Composer?



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

_Pelléas et Mélisande_ is a often regarded as a key work in 20th century music drama. While I have great respect for Debussy with his smaller scale works, particularly piano pieces, his only complete opera is a weak one. Many parts of it sound like the music is supporting the text, like a theatrical piece. What do you think?

Edit: to clarify, the second option in the poll is "He was *not* noteworthy with opera", apologies for the spelling mistake with "note"


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

ArtMusic said:


> _Pelléas et Mélisande_ is a often regarded as a key work in 20th century music drama. While I have great respect for Debussy with his smaller scale works, particularly piano pieces, his only complete opera is a weak one. Many parts of it sound like the music is supporting the text, like a theatrical piece. What do you think?


It is a good work but not perfect. Much like how Beethoven wasn't a strong opera composer compared to Mozart or Gluck, but Fidelio is still one of the key operas of the Classical era.

Musical drama certainly was not the strength of either Beethoven or Debussy but their genius can be seen in their operas some way or another.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

chu42 said:


> It is a good work but not perfect. Much like how Beethoven wasn't a strong opera composer compared to Mozart, but Fidelio is still one of the key operas of the Classical era.
> 
> Musical drama certainly was not the strength of either Beethoven or Debussy but their genius can be seen in their operas some way or another.


Thank you. I think Beethoven had a greater sense of opera than Debussy did.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

ArtMusic said:


> _Pelléas et Mélisande_ is a often regarded as a key work in 20th century music drama. While I have great respect for Debussy with his smaller scale works, particularly piano pieces, his only complete opera is a weak one. Many parts of it sound like the music is supporting the text, like a theatrical piece. What do you think?
> 
> Edit: to clarify, the second option in the poll is "He was *not* noteworthy with opera", apologies for the spelling mistake with "note"


P&M is imy favorite opera. What I love about it is the style of singing, it is conversational but more musical than recitative. And then there's the orchestration and harmonies. All round fantastic work. I've got three DVDs of it but my favorite is the Robert Wilson minimal version.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> P&M is imy favorite opera. What I love about it is the style of singing, it is conversational but more musical than recitative. And then there's the orchestration and harmonies. All round fantastic work. I've got three DVDs of it but my favorite is the Robert Wilson minimal version.


Fascinating. So now I understand why some people might love it - it is because of the style of singing. It is indeed very conversational, which I described as theatrical like in my first post. The harmonies are not to my liking, it's more supportive than anything else.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I haven't listened to it for several years but I have the Abbado recording. I'll have to give it a listen this week.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Pelleas is a great opera, I love its hallucinatory Symbolist quality. I love hearing the French language sung in any medium, and coupled with Debussy’s music it’s a winner, though it isn’t necessarily conventionally “dramatic.” I haven’t heard the whole thing yet, but I’ll be getting there in my chronological opera survey that I’m doing right now.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I got the Boulez recording when it first came out, listened to it a couple of times and few times since -- but believe it to be a masterpiece -- but one I have to be in a special mood to want to listen to.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

It _is_ a great opera, though it grew on me, I now regard it as among my favorite operas. But is having one great opera enough to make a composer one of the 'greatest opera composers'? I would say no, therefore none of the poll answers reflect my opinion.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Pelléas et Mélisande is a great work and a key opera, this makes Debussy a noteworthy composer of opera. It doesn't quite make him among the greatest opera composers, in my view because it's just one work. If he had composed a couple more operas of comparable quality I would choose the first option.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"In opera, there is always too much singing." --Claude Debussy


----------



## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Who cares, silly question with so little opera behind his name


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Anyone like Le Martyre de St. Sébastien? 


I’ve very much enjoyed the spooky Pélleas in the opera house apart from one thing: the doctor scene.


----------



## level82rat (Jun 20, 2019)

A better question is whether opera as a form can even be well-composed


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

level82rat said:


> A better question is whether opera as a form can even be well-composed


Yes it can. Think of Stockhausen's use of formula composition in the Licht cycle. And at a more chunked up level, the structure of Wozzeck and Grimes.


----------



## juliante (Jun 7, 2013)

Like most of Debussy...i can't make my mind up. When i am in the right mood i can find his orchestral music transportative... but yesterday i revisited Prelude...faune and felt like i was just listeninig to some nice incidental film music.


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Given that there are 4 negative options and only 1 positive, this is a biased poll.


----------



## annaw (May 4, 2019)

I think that _Pelléas et Mélisande_ is a wonderfully dreamy opera, and it is very elegantly composed. It's been some time since I last listened to it (I should do something about this soon), but I think that Debussy's fondness of Wagner's long, flowing melodies, particularly those of _Parsifal_, is quite undeniable. While it's refined, delicate, and French, I'm very close to claiming that it's a kind of French version of a Wagner opera.

I really like how unique _Pelléas et Mélisande_ ia and I think it's a really great opera. However, I didn't vote for Debussy being one of the greatest opera composers just because I don't think he _was_ a primarily opera composer in the first place. It's difficult to evaluate an opera composer based on one opera.


----------



## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

I've heard 5 or 6 performances, and have 4 or 5 recordings.

bypassing the irrelevant question of Debussy as an opera composer, this is my favorite opera and to me the greatest piece of musical theater I know. I had a bit of a discussion about this in the audience at the Met many years ago with Phillip Langridge, and he started with his opinion which agreed with mine (although he was also advocating for a tenor Pelleas, imagine). Hard to move at the end of any good performance, it stuns the listener to submission with the depth and beauty -- and sadness -- of the conclusion.

Arkel says "if I were God I would have pity on the hearts of men" Si j'étais Dieu, j'aurais pitié du coeur des hommes

I would say I'd give all of Wagner for that, but that's too low a price.

For those who haven't found this work yet, and it took me decades to do so, try again. It is without compare.


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Anyone like Le Martyre de St. Sébastien?


I do. I have the Tilson Thomas recording with Sylvia McNair and Leslie Caron.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Anyone like Le Martyre de St. Sébastien?
> 
> I've very much enjoyed the spooky Pélleas in the opera house apart from one thing: the doctor scene.





starthrower said:


> I do. I have the Tilson Thomas recording with Sylvia McNair and Leslie Caron.


Yeah, that's the one I've heard. I like _Le Martyre_ (the suite is adequate, IMO) but not nearly as much as P&M.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mparta said:


> I've heard 5 or 6 performances, and have 4 or 5 recordings.
> 
> bypassing the irrelevant question of Debussy as an opera composer, this is my favorite opera and to me the greatest piece of musical theater I know. I had a bit of a discussion about this in the audience at the Met many years ago with Phillip Langridge, and he started with his opinion which agreed with mine (although he was also advocating for a tenor Pelleas, imagine). Hard to move at the end of any good performance, it stuns the listener to submission with the depth and beauty -- and sadness -- of the conclusion.
> 
> ...


It is so very strange, that scene where she loses the ring in the well, Melisande's hair . . .


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> Yeah, that's the one I've heard. I like _Le Martyre_ (the suite is adequate, IMO) but not nearly as much as P&M.


I don't know what to make of it, I may give it a spin again soon, it's the natation which I don't like on that Tilson Thomas performance, there's something about the rich tone of the actor, very luvvie (do Americans say that for a certain type of actor?), it isn't my cup of tea.


----------



## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> It is so very strange, that scene where she loses the ring in the well, Melisande's hair . . .


 I think we can all agree, Melisande is a rather odd girl. Kind of a general warning to children, "meet a weird girl in the woods in the middle of the night, take her home, don't expect a happy ending"

She has literary antecedents in Maeterlinck, I think, something to do with Barbe-Bleue perhaps?


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

This recording is one I enjoy that has Prélude à l'aprés-midi d'un faun, the symphonic fragments of Le Martyre and La Mer.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mparta said:


> I think we can all agree, Melisande is a rather odd girl. Kind of a general warning to children, "meet a weird girl in the woods in the middle of the night, take her home, don't expect a happy ending"
> 
> She has literary antecedents in Maeterlinck, I think, something to do with Barbe-Bleue perhaps?


I think I've only ever seen one Maeterlinck play -- _Les Aveugles_ in The Edinburgh Festival. That was very strange indeed!


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

mparta said:


> I think we can all agree, Melisande is a rather odd girl. Kind of a general warning to children, "meet a weird girl in the woods in the middle of the night, take her home, don't expect a happy ending"
> 
> She has literary antecedents in Maeterlinck, I think, something to do with Barbe-Bleue perhaps?


More than "antecedents". Debussy used Maeterlinck's play of the same name almost verbatim, which dictated the vocal conversational style. Debussy tried as much as possible to duplicate the rhythm of how the words would be spoken, and melodies that also mimicked spoken inflection. I find the work very enjoyable, always have preferred it to many more traditional operas.

Nothing odd about it, IMO.


----------



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

For Pelléas, it probably depends a lot - more than most operas in these days of surtitles - on whether you understand the language. Once I went to a performance in English (pre-surtitles era) and it was well-received by the English-speaking audience. At the same time, many subtle aspects of text-setting would be lost.


----------



## mparta (Sep 29, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> More than "antecedents". Debussy used Maeterlinck's play of the same name almost verbatim, which dictated the vocal conversational style. Debussy tried as much as possible to duplicate the rhythm of how the words would be spoken, and melodies that also mimicked spoken inflection. I find the work very enjoyable, always have preferred it to many more traditional operas.
> 
> Nothing odd about it, IMO.


you could bother to read what I wrote: Melisande is a rather odd girl. No reference to your subject, so you've pitted my apples as if they were your plums, so to speak.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

mparta said:


> you could bother to read what I wrote: Melisande is a rather odd girl. No reference to your subject, so you've pitted my apples as if they were your plums, so to speak.


I was not responding to your statement that "Melisande is a rather odd girl" but this statement: "She has literary antecedents in Maeterlinck, I think, something to do with Barbe-Bleue perhaps?"

What antecedents in Maeterlinck if not his play? What about the Bluebeard tale is related to Pelleas et Melisande?

Please do not take offense, but is English your first language?


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> Who cares, silly question with so little opera behind his name


He wrote only one and several incomplete.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

mparta said:


> I've heard 5 or 6 performances, and have 4 or 5 recordings.
> 
> bypassing the irrelevant question of Debussy as an opera composer, this is my favorite opera and to me the greatest piece of musical theater I know. I had a bit of a discussion about this in the audience at the Met many years ago with Phillip Langridge, and he started with his opinion which agreed with mine (although he was also advocating for a tenor Pelleas, imagine). Hard to move at the end of any good performance, it stuns the listener to submission with the depth and beauty -- and sadness -- of the conclusion.
> 
> ...


Thank you.

Is it the plot that you enjoy supported by the music, rather than the music itself?


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

My favorite opera! So interesting musically and story wise.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'll have to re-watch soon. Maybe this weekend!


----------

