Pelléas et Mélisande (opera) Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels on 9 January 1907. This was followed by foreign premieres in Frankfurt on 19 April of the same year, New York City at the Manhattan Opera House on 19 February 1908, and at La Scala, Milan with Arturo Toscanini conducting on 2 April 1908. It first appeared in the United Kingdom at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on 21 May 1909. In the years following World War I, the popularity of "Pelléas et Mélisande" began to fade somewhat. As Roger Nichols writes, "[The] two qualities of being escapist and easily caricatured meant that in
La Scala orchestra pit had not yet been built. Above the boxes, La Scala has a gallery—called the "loggione"—where the less wealthy can watch the performances. The gallery is typically crowded with the most critical opera aficionados, known as the loggionisti, who can be ecstatic or merciless towards singers' perceived successes or failures. For their failures, artists receive a "baptism of fire" from these aficionados, and fiascos are long remembered. For example, in 2006, tenor Roberto Alagna was booed off the stage during a performance of "Aida". This forced his understudy, Antonello Palombi, to quickly replace him mid-scene without time to change