Pelléas et Mélisande. Drame lyrique en 5 actes et 12 tableaux de Maurice Maeterlinck [...]. Partition pour piano et chant. - Signed and Inscribed First Edition Score

Paris: E. Fromont. 1902. First Edition, First Issue. 283 pp. [PN] E. 1416 F..  Signed and inscribed by the composer on the page opposite the title to the French restauranteur Xavier Marcel Boulestin and dated June 1902. Pencil annotations to the front. Page [1] stamped in violet ink "Hommage de l'Editeur."  Handling wear, scattered soiling, toning and foxing mostly to the printed wrappers, the score nicely rebound in a pale green cloth with gilt leather title plate to spine. 4to. 

Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with libretto adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play. First performed 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, it is the only opera Debussy ever completed and considered a landmark in 20th-century music. 

Before becoming a successful restauranteur in England (the Restaurant Boulestin, opened in 1927, was known as the most expensive in London), the young Xavier Marcel Boulestin worked as secretary and ghostwriter to the author "Willy" (Henry Gauthier-Villars). Gauthier-Villars and his wife, the novelist Colette, were associated with Debussy, with Colette leaving some evocative descriptions of the composer. (15457)

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