Arthur
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: An Edinburgh courtroom and the Flannan Isle lighthouse; December 1900
PROLOGUE In the courtroom, the three officers who arrived at the lighthouse to relieve the keepers and found it abandoned give their version of events.
ACT I In a flashback to the lighthouse we are introduced to the three lighthouse keepers. It is their last evening and they eat, play cards and sing to amuse themselves. Slowly, however, underlying tensions and mutual enmities begin to surface and their characters become more clearly defined: the Bible-thumping hypocrite, Arthur; the rough, uncultivated Blazes; and the gentler, wistful Sandy. As thick fog slowly blankets the lighthouse, emotional tensions are heightened to breaking point and each man sinks into despair, haunted by his own personal demon. Suddenly the blinding lights of an oncoming ship appear through the fog, to be mistaken for the eyes of a great beast. The three keepers are replaced by the three relief officers who indicate that the keepers, driven to insanity by their isolation, had attacked them and had to be killed. The mystery surrounding the lighthouse (did the keepers abandon it or were they killed?) is never solved; the light is made automatic but the three men can still be seen, forever reliving their final hours.
Music and Background
The courtroom prologue suggests parallels with Britten’s Peter Grimes, and something of the tough, man-against-the-elements atmosphere of that earlier piece transfers to this operatic psycho-drama, although the forces are much smaller and the music more tightly written, using mathematical systems in the way that much of Davies’ work does. The more lyrical moments tend to be parodies of popular musical forms – another Davies fingerprint. All the roles are taken by the same three voices.
Highlights
The arrival of ‘the Beast’ is memorable, and so is the mechanically repeated figure, ‘The lighthouse is now automatic’, that plays out the score.
Did You Know?
Recommended Recording
Neil Mackie, Christopher Keyte, Ian Comboy, BBC Philharmonic/Peter Maxwell Davies. Collins Classics 14152. The only one.
(1862–1918)
Pelléas et Mélisande (1902)
Born near Paris, Debussy was fascinated by the theatre all his life and had a celebrated relationship with the impresario Diaghilev, who turned scores like the Prélude à l’Après Midi d’un Faune into ballets. He was also interested in the human voice, and matured into one of the greatest of French song-writers, with incomparable settings of Verlaine and Baudelaire. But he only completed one opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, and although he devoted later years to attempts at an operatic adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, they survive as little more than sketches. Principally, the composer is remembered for his piano, chamber and orchestral music – written largely in an imagistic way that earned him the label ‘impressionist’, though ‘symbolist’ might be more accurate. With atmospherically suggestive scores like Prélude à l’Après Midi d’un Faune and the orchestral Images, he introduced a new language of sound and was undoubtedly one of the founding fathers of modern music.
FORM: Opera in five acts; in French
COMPOSER: Claude Debussy (1862–1918)
LIBRETTO: Maurice Maeterlinck’s play, slightly adapted by Debussy
FIRST PERFORMANCE: Paris, 30 April 1902
Principal Characters
Arkel, King of Allemonde
Geneviève, Arkel’s daughter-in-law and mother of Golaud and Pelléas
Golaud, Arkeľs grandson
Pelléas, Arkeľs grandson and Golaud’s half-brother
Mélisande
Yniold, Golaud’s son by his first marriage
Synopsis of the Plot
Setting: The imaginary kingdom of Allemonde; medieval times
ACT I While out hunting, Golaud finds a mysterious girl, Mélisande, weeping in a forest; nearby is a well with a golden crown at the bottom, fallen from her head. Golaud marries Mélisande and, some time later, takes her to Arkeľs castle to ask his grandfather’s forgiveness for the unplanned marriage; Arkel had a different bride in mind for Golaud. On her arrival, Mélisande meets Pelléas and it is clear that they have fallen in love with each other.
ACT II Pelléas and Mélisande are together by a well when Mélisande drops her ring into the water; at that moment Golaud falls from his horse. Later, lying injured in bed, Golaud notices that the ring is missing and Mélisande replies, falsely, that she lost it by the sea. Golaud sends her, with Pelléas, to look for it.
ACT III Mélisande is sitting at the castle window, talking to Pelléas; she allows her long hair to fall over his shoulders and he plays with it. They are surprised in their game by Golaud who warns Pelléas to leave Mélisande alone. Golaud then questions his little son, Yniold, about the relationship between Pelléas and Mélisande and even holds him up to the window so that he can see what they are doing: just sitting together, answers the boy.
ACT IV Pelléas tells Mélisande that he is leaving and they plan one last meeting. Golaud is by now furiously jealous and attacks Mélisande, dragging her across the room by her hair until he is stopped by Arkel. The two lovers meet by the well, as arranged. In the distance they hear the castle doors being locked and barred – there is no going back. Golaud, hiding nearby, hears and sees their declarations of love; he leaps at them, killing Pelléas while Mélisande escapes.
ACT V Mélisande has given birth to a child and now lies, ill and