Pelléas et Mélisande

Remembering Seiji Ozawa

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Seiji Ozawa, the internationally renowned Japanese conductor, passed away in Tokyo last week (February 6, 2024) as a result of heart failure. He was 88. Ozawa’s 29-year tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra began in 1973. Prior to the appointment, he served as music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1965-1969) and the San Francisco Symphony (1970-1977). In 1984, he founded the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Matsumoto, Japan. In …

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Fauré’s “Pelléas et Mélisande” Suite: Incidental Music for a Symbolist Play

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Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1898 French symbolist play, Pelléas and Mélisande, centers around a doomed love triangle. Set in an ancient ruined castle and a dense forest, it “expresses a sense that human beings understand neither themselves nor each other nor the world.” (Bettina Knapp) Joan Pataky Kosove writes, Pelléas et Mélisande tells the story of a young and beautiful girl who marries one man, falls in love with another, and dies. But the play …

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