Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a rare revival of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, opening January 15

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts a rare revival of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande, opening January 15

• Isabel Leonard, fresh from her success in Marnie, returns for her second

major role of the season as Mélisande; Paul Appleby is the ardent Pelléas,

and Kyle Ketelsen, recently seen as Escamillo in Carmen, is the jealous Golaud

• Ferruccio Furlanetto sings the role of the king Arkel, 39 years after his Met debut

New York, NY (December 14, 2018)—Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducts five performance of Pelléas et Mélisande, Debussy’s mysterious meditation on love and betrayal, January 15–31, 2019. The classic production by Sir Jonathan Miller returns to the Met for the first time since the 2010–11 season, and the cast features three young Met stars at the heart of a passionate love triangle: Isabel Leonard as Mélisande, Paul Appleby as Pelléas, and Kyle Ketelsen as Golaud. Ferruccio Furlanetto sings the role of Arkel and Marie-Nicole Lemieux makes her Met debut as Geneviève. Derrick Inouye conducts the January 31 performance.

Pelléas et Mélisande Radio and Online Broadcasts

The January 15 and January 19 performances of Pelléas et Mélisande will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM Channel 75. The January 19 performance will be broadcast over the Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, and the January 15 performance will also be streamed live on the Met’s web site, metopera.org.

Pelléas et Mélisande Artist Biographies

American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard makes her role debut as Mélisande. Earlier this season at the Met she sang the title role in the Met premiere of Nico Muhly’s Marnie, and she returns later this season to sing Blanche de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, which will also be conducted by Maestro Nézet-Séguin. She made her Met debut as Stéphano in Roméo et Juliette in 2007, followed by roles as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni,Rosina in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia,Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Miranda in Thomas Adès’s The Tempest,Blanche de la Force,and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther. Later this season, she will also sing with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, led by Maestro Nézet-Séguin.

French-Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux makes her Met debut as Geneviève. She rose to prominence in 2000 after winning the Queen Fabiola and Lied Prizes at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium. Recent performances include Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and Dalila in Saint-Saën’s Samson et Dalila and Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly,both at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris. Other performances this season include Ottone in Handel’s Agrippina at Teatro Real in Madrid, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, as well as Azucena in Verdi’s Il Trovatore in Madrid. Later this season, she will be seen at the Met as Mistress Quickly.

American tenor Paul Appleby sings Pelléas, which he will also sing later this season at Dutch National Opera.  A winner of the Met’s National Council Auditions in 2009, he made his Met debut singing Brighella in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in 2011. A graduate of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, he has also sung Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Demetrius in the Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island,Hylas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens,Chevalier de la Force in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites,Brian in the Met premiere of Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, David in Mozart’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Tom Rakewell in The Rake’s Progress.He reprises the role of Don Ottavio later this season at the Met.

American bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen sings Golaud, a role he has previously sung at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris and Opernhaus Zürich. He made his Met debut as Angelotti in Tosca, followed by performances as Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen, Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, andMr. Flint in Britten’s Billy Budd. Other performances this season include the King of Scotland in Handel’s Ariodante at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Rodolfo in Bellini’s La Sonnambula at Opernhaus Zürich, and Escamillo at San Francisco Opera. He was seen earlier this season at the Met as Escamillo.

Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto sings the role of king Arkel, a role he has sung with Paris Opera. After making his Met debut in 1980 as the Grand Inquisitor in Verdi’s Don Carlo, he has sung more than 210 performances with the company, including Jacopo Fiesco in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Philip II in Don Carlo,the title roles in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro,and Don Ruy Gomez de Silva in Verdi’s Ernani.  Later this season, he sings Padre Guardiano in La Forza del Destino at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Banco in Macbeth at the Vienna State Opera; and Vodnik in Dvořák’s Rusalka at San Francisco Opera. He was last seen at the Met in 2017 in performances of Verdi’s Requiem.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, conducts Debussy’s only opera for the first time at the Met. He made his Met debut in the 2009–2010 season, conducting a new production of Bizet’s Carmen. The Canadian conductor has returned in every subsequent season, leading performances of Wagner’s Parsifal, Strauss’s Elektra, Verdi’s Don Carlo, Gounod’s Faust, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Dvořák’s Rusalka. He also led the opening night performance of the Met’s 2015–2016 season, a new production of Verdi’s Otello. He has conducted a wide breadth of repertoire at a number of the world’s leading companies, including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Dutch National Opera, the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is also a frequent guest conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Since 2012, he has been music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He is also music director of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. This season at the Met, he also conducts performances of La Traviata and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites.

For More Information

For further details on Pelléas et Mélisande, including casting by date, please click here.

Pelléas et Mélisande

Music by Claude Debussy

Libretto by Maurice Maeterlinck

Tuesday, January 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, January 19 at 12:30 p.m.

Tuesday, January 22 at 7:30 p.m.

Friday, January 25 at 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m.

*Met debut

Production a gift of Pierre and Ailene Claeyssens

For prices and ticket information, please call (212) 362-6000 or visit metopera.org.

Special rates for groups of 10 or more are available by calling (212) 341-5410 or visiting metopera.org/groups.