Aldeburgh Festival 2026: Pelléas et Mélisande

A mysterious princess. A remote castle. A love triangle. Debussy’s breathtaking opera is a dark fairytale caught in a dream. “No time, no place. No big scene.” So Debussy wrote to his teacher Ernest Guiraud in 1890. It was a kind of mission statement for his ideal style of opera: in a world of increasingly “big scenes” – courtesy of Wagner and Verdi – Debussy wanted something radically different. After several false starts, he finally found wha...