Did Die Soldaten or Pelléas et Mélisande premiere in Paris?
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera) Pelléas et Mélisande ("Pelléas and Mélisande") is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play "Pelléas et Mélisande". It premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 30 April 1902 with Jean Périer as Pelléas and Mary Garden as Mélisande in a performance conducted by André Messager, who was instrumental in getting the Opéra-Comique to stage the work. The only opera Debussy ever completed, it is considered a landmark in 20th-century music.
Joseph Hémard Joseph Hémard, a popular French book illustrator, was born in Les Mureaux, France, a small town on the Seine, northwest of Paris, on 2 August 1880. He died on 9 August 1961 in Paris. He was a prolific artist. During the early years of the 20th century he published cartoons and comics in illustrated newspapers like "Le Pêle-mêle" or "Le Bon Vivant". He also designed costumes and sets for several operas, patterns for printed textiles, bookbindings, posters and even a facade for a bar in the 1925 Paris Exposition of Decorative Art. His lasting fame, however, lies in his book illustrations — always distinctly French in character and often erotic — which he produced for a great number of titles including many classics of French literature such as "Le Malade Imaginaire" (1920), " Gargantua et Pantagruel " (1922), "Jacques Le Fataliste" (1923), "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1927), and "Aucassin et Nicolette" (1936).