Rodrigue et Chimène

Rodrigue et Chimène (English: Rodrigo and Ximena) is an unfinished opera in three acts by Claude Debussy. The French libretto, by Catulle Mendès, is based on the plays Las Mocedades del Cid by Guillén de Castro y Bellvís and Corneille's Le Cid which deal with the legend of El Cid (Rodrigue in the opera). It was first staged in a version completed by Edison Denisov in Lyon on 14 May 1993.

Mendès had begun work on his libretto in 1878, hoping to offer it to "one of the leading lights of the French school [of opera]". Massenet's Le Cid (1885, Paris Opera) may have put Mendès off in his search for a composer. It was only in April, 1890 that Mendès handed it to the young Debussy. Mendès had predicted that Debussy would become "one of the great composers of the future" and had helped to promote his music. Although he was unimpressed by the literary quality of the drama he had to set, Debussy was encouraged by the prospect that his work would be performed at the Paris Opéra and earn him some money. Over the next two years Debussy's musical style developed in a radically new direction and his enthusiasm for the old-fashioned Rodrigue et Chimène began to flag. In a letter of January, 1892, he admitted, "My life is hardship and misery thanks to this opera. Everything about it is wrong for me." On 17 May 1893 Debussy attended a performance of Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande and realised that this was exactly the type of drama he had been looking for. When he played excerpts from the score of Rodrigue et Chimène to Paul Dukas in August of the same year, he confessed that Mendès' libretto was "totally at odds with all that I dream about, demanding a type of music that is alien to me". Debussy abandoned any idea of bringing Rodrigue et Chimène to the stage and later claimed he had accidentally burned it.

...
Wikipedia