Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

BBC Proms

Music: Classical

The world's greatest classical music festival - stunning performances and collaborations.

The world's greatest classical music festival. Stunning performances, unique collaborations and the sheer joy of live music. Relive 2023's highlights before the new season begins.

2012

BBC Proms: 2012 Season: Prom 03

BBC Proms: 2012: Prom 03: Part 1: Pelleas et Melisande - Acts 1-3

Performances & Events

Pelleas et Melisande - Acts 1-3

Part 1 Part 1: Pelleas et Melisande - Acts 1-3

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2012, Prom 03, Pelleas et Melisande - Acts 1-3

Debussy's opera Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

Debussy's mysteriously atmospheric opera Pelléas et Mélisande, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, with the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Presented by Suzy Klein

For the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth, John Eliot Gardiner conducts the operatic masterpiece, Pelléas et Mélisande. Debussy's score is full of atmospheric suggestion and insinuating eroticism, and it follows the story of the mysterious Mélisande, rescued from the forest by Golaud, who marries her then discovers his half-brother Pelléas has also fallen in love with her. 

This doomed love is the central focus of the opera, but there is much that is opaque, obtuse, elusive. John Eliot Gardiner says that "to conduct Pelléas et Mélisande is to enter another world." He has recently performed this landmark piece in Paris at the Opera Comique with his period instrument ensemble, and this is the first time it will be heard at the Proms on the instruments of Debussy's time.

Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande - Acts 1-3

8.40pm Twenty Minutes: Proms Plus Live (see separate billing)

9.00pm
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande - Acts 4-5

Philip Addis (Pelléas)
Karen Vourc'h (Mélisande)
Laurent Naouri (Golaud)
John Tomlinson (Arkel)
Elodie Méchain (Geneviève)
Dima Bawab (Yniold)
Nahuel di Pierro (Doctor/Shepherd)
Monteverdi Choir
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
John Eliot Gardiner (conductor).

BBC Proms: 2012

BBC Proms: 2012: Prom 03

Prom 03

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

All broadcasts from the 118th season of the BBC Proms.

Suzy Klein presents as John Eliot Gardiner conducts Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.

Live from London's Royal Albert Hall, Suzy Klein presents as John Eliot Gardiner conducts Pelleas et Melisande to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Debussy's birth.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

BBC Proms

2012

Prom 03

Part 1: Pelleas et Melisande - Acts 1-3

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3