rings life to his characters with emotionally descriptive sound, a quality that
             Pelléas et Mélisande was introduced at the Opera-Comique in Paris on April 30, 1902. It was performed fourteen times in that year, and ten times the following season. The revolutionary opera took about ten years to compose. It has acquired a permanent place in the operatic repertory as one of the greatest composition of the twentieth century.
             It fuses words, and sounds, from beginning to end, and has evoked opera lovers from all over the world.
             Debussy's had an extraordinary way of depicting his characters with sound. His ability to make the listener feel the rage and anger in Gouland character which is built on the deep timbre of his voice. The feeling of love is in Mélisande voice but it is not for Gouland, but for Pelléas. Debussy's establishes Mélisande beauty with his music; the New Grove Dictionary of Opera describes her beauty,
             After a grooming-song reminiscent of a trouvere chanson, Mélisande lets her hair down from the tower. She has opened a window to let in the warm night air. Pelléas noticing for the first time addressing her the familiar 'tu'. He wants to kiss her hand, since he has to leave the next day. A fleeting symbol appears, a rose: Mélisande sees it, but Pelléas cannot. As her hair cascades over him, Debussy gives us the nearest we have to an aria, but the melody is in the orchestra. The vocal lines curve more lyrically than before, more like an expressive melodie than an aria. At the end of the scene Mélisande notices that her doves have flown away. Pelléas must leave her, 'or else they will never come back'. A long pedal note C (the tonic of the 'dark' key) heralds the disturbance by Goulaud. It is nearly midnight, he points out, underlining the contr
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