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Updated: June 29, 2025
She too, she confesses, is ill, unhappy, though she will not tell Golaud what it is that ails her. Her husband discovers the absence of her wedding-ring, and harshly, suspiciously, asks where it is. Mélisande, confused and terrified, dissembles, and answers that she must have lost it in a grotto by the seashore, when she went there in the morning to pick shells for little Yniold.
The original Paris cast was as follows: Pelléas, M. Jean Périer; Mélisande, Miss Mary Garden; Arkël, M. Vieuille; Golaud, M. Dufrane; Geneviève, Mlle. Gerville-Réache; Le petit Yniold, M. Blondin; Un Médicin, M. Viguié. M. André Messager was the conductor. The work was admirably mounted under the supervision of the Director of the Opéra-Comique, M. Albert Carré.
"You are always with mama.... See, we are just under mama's window now. She may be saying her prayers at this moment.... Tell me, Yniold, she is often with your uncle Pelléas, is she not?" The child's naïve answers inflame his jealousy, confirm his suspicions, though they baffle him. "Do they never tell you to go and play somewhere else?" he asks.
The characters are these: ARKËL, King of Allemonde PELLÉAS & GOLAUD, half-brothers, grandsons of ARKËL MÉLISANDE, an unknown princess; later the bride of GOLAUD LITTLE YNIOLD, Son of GOLAUD by a former marriage GENEVIÈVE, Mother of PELLÉAS and GOLAUD A PHYSICIAN Servants, Beggars, etc. The opening scene is in a forest, in an unknown land. It is autumn.
"They are looking at the light." "They do not say anything?" "No, papa, they do not close their eyes.... Oh! oh!... I am terribly afraid!" "Why, what are you afraid of? look! look!" demands Golaud. "Oh, oh! I am going to cry, papa! let me down! let me down!" insists Yniold, in nameless terror. Mélisande and Pelléas meet in an apartment in the castle.
The theme in this form is developed at length; there is a reminiscence of the Mélisande theme, and the music, by a gradual diminuendo, passes into the third scene of the act in the park, before the Fountain of the Blind. At the beginning occurs the incident of the passing flock of sheep observed by Yniold. This scene need not detain us long, since it is musically as well as dramatically episodic.
Suddenly they cease their crying. Yniold calls to the shepherd. "Why do they not speak any more?" "Because," answers the shepherd, who is concealed from sight, "it is no longer the road to the fold." "Where are they going to sleep to-night?" cries the child. There is no answer, and he departs, exclaiming that he must find somebody to speak to. Pelléas enters, to keep his tryst with Mélisande.
"It is time to go in," says Geneviève. "Pelléas, show the way to Mélisande. I must go 'tend to little Yniold," and she leaves them alone. "Will you let me take your hand?" says Pelléas to Mélisande. Her hands are full of flowers, she responds. He will hold her arm, he says, for the road is steep.
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