Please note that Christine Rice has withdrawn from these concerts due to illness. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra welcomes Jenny Carlstedt, who has graciously agreed to sing the role of Mélisande. PROGRAM ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOURTH SEASON Chicago Symphony Orchestra Riccardo Muti Zell Music Director Pierre Boulez Helen Regenstein Conductor Emeritus Yo-Yo Ma Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant Global Sponsor of the CSO Thursday, May 14, 2015, at 7:00 French Saturday, May 16, 2015, at 7:00 Tuesday, May 19, 2015, at 7:00 & Pelléas et Mélisande Festival Music by Claude Debussy Libretto adapted from the play by Maurice Maeterlinck Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor Narrator ..........................................................................................................................................................Dianne Wiest Mélisande ................................................................................................................Jenny Carlstedt mezzo-soprano Pelléas, Arkel’s grandson ..............................................................................................Stéphane Degout baritone Golaud, half-brother of Pelléas ......................................................................................Eric Owens bass-baritone Arkel, king of Allemonde ........................................................................................... Willard White bass-baritone Geneviève, mother of Golaud and Pelléas ................................................................Elodie Méchain contralto Yniold, the young son of Golaud ............................................................................................ Chloé Briot soprano The doctor / A shepherd ........................................................................................................David Govertsen bass Sailors, servants, beggars Chicago Symphony Chorus Duain Wolfe director First Chicago Symphony Orchestra performances Mike Tutaj Projection design Keith Parham Lighting design Anya Plotkin Production stage manager Staging and narrations devised by Gerard McBurney English titles adapted from original titles by Jonathan Burton Projection photography by Alison McBurney (continued) Pelléas et Mélisande Music by Claude Debussy Libretto adapted from the play by Maurice Maeterlinck Act 1 Scene 1 ........................................................................................................................................................................A forest Scene 2 ................................................................................................................................................A room in the castle Scene 3 ................................................................................................................................................... Outside the castle Act 2 Scene 1 ................................................................................................................................................By a well in the park Scene 2 ................................................................................................................................................A room in the castle Scene 3 .......................................................................................................................................................Outside a grotto INTERMISSION Act 3 Scene 1 .......................................................................................................................... One of the towers of the castle Scene 2 .......................................................................................................................................................The castle vaults Scene 3 ............................................................................................................ A terrace at the entrance of the vaults Scene 4 ................................................................................................................................................... Outside the castle INTERMISSION Act 4 Scene 1 ................................................................................................................................................A room in the castle Scene 2 ................................................................................................................................................A room in the castle Scene 3 .....................................................................................................................................................A well in the park Scene 4 .....................................................................................................................................................A well in the park Act 5 Scene 1 ........................................................................................................................................A bedroom in the castle The setting is the kingdom of Allemonde and its surroundings The CSO thanks Julie and Roger Baskes, lead sponsors of the Reveries & Passions Festival concert programming. The appearance of the Chicago Symphony Chorus is made possible by a generous gift from Jim and Kay Mabie. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional sponsorship support for the Reveries & Passions Festival has been provided by: The Jacob and Rosaline Cohn Foundation, Mr. & Mrs. Richard J. Franke, The Gilchrist Foundation, and Burton X. and Sheli Rosenberg. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is grateful to WBEZ 91.5FM for its generous support as a media sponsor of the French Reveries & Passions Festival. CSO Tuesday series concerts are sponsored by United Airlines. This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. 2 COMMENTS by Phillip Huscher Claude Debussy Born August 22, 1862, Saint Germain-en-Laye, France. Died March 25, 1918, Paris, France. Pélleas et Mélisande Born exactly one week language whose sensitivity could be extended apart in 1862, Claude into music and into the orchestral backcloth.” Debussy and Maurice Debussy had been looking for an operatic Maeterlinck would subject—he had toyed with various ideas and eventually be linked in made a few false starts, including, most substan- creating the seminal tially, a setting based on Corneille’s Le Cid. “For French masterwork of a long time I had been striving to write music twentieth-century music, for the theater, but the form in which I wanted it Pelléas et Mélisande. We to be was so unusual that after several attempts do not know when I had given up on the idea,” he later wrote. The Debussy first became attracted to the Symbolist Corneille subject, he realized, was “totally at writer’s work, but in 1891 he asked for permis- odds with all that I dream about, demanding sion to transform Maeterlinck’s play, La princesse a type of music that is alien to me.” Debussy’s Maleine, into an opera. Maeterlinck turned him vision was so radically new that he could not at down (the play had already been promised to first put it into words—in 1890, he tried to list Vincent d’Indy). Debussy then read some of his ideals and concerns in a letter to Maeterlinck’s new play, Pelléas et Mélisande the composer Ernest Guiraud: “A poet who half shortly after it was published in May of 1892, speaks things. Two related dreams: that’s the and attended the premiere on May 17, 1893. That ideal. No country, no date . scenes with dif- afternoon, sitting in a small Paris theater, he ferent locations and of different types; characters found his ideal operatic subject, one that would who do not discuss, submitting to life, destiny, free him to create a new kind of musical etc.” With these scattered thoughts, Debussy theater—and “release dramatic music from the was beginning to reconstruct the foundations heavy yoke under which it has lived for so long,” of opera—to build a new kind of musical drama as he later said. “The drama of Pelléas, which that mirrored the naturalness of speech and that despite its dream-like atmosphere, contains far was musically fluid and free, never stopping for more humanity than those so-called real-life traditional arias or ensembles. documents, seemed to suit my intentions admira- In August of 1893, Debussy sent his poet bly,” he recalled. “In it there is an evocative friend Henri de Régnier to ask Maeterlinck COMPOSED These are the first Chicago Symphony APPROXIMATE 1893–1895, 1898, 1900–1902, Orchestra performances. PERFORMANCE TIME subsequently revised Acts 1 & 2 INSTRUMENTATION 59 minutes FIRST PERFORMANCE three flutes and piccolo, two oboes Act 3 April 30, 1902; Opéra-Comique, Paris, and english horn, two clarinets, three 34 minutes France bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, Acts 4 & 5 three trombones, tuba, timpani, 64 minutes FIRST CSO PERFORMANCES percussion, two harps, strings November 26, 28 & 29, 1986, Orchestra CSO RECORDING Hall. Erich Leinsdorf conducting 1986. Erich Leinsdorf conducting. CSO (Preludes and Interludes, arranged (Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the by Leinsdorf) Twentieth Century: Collector’s Choice) (Preludes and Interludes, arranged by Leinsdorf) 3 for permission to set Pélleas et Mélisande to with the scene by the well—the climactic, fateful music. This time, the playwright agreed at once. encounter between Pelléas and Mélisande—and Debussy began composing early in September, continued to concentrate on one act at a time— even before he got Maeterlinck’s approval. and not always in order.