translation was staged the following year and ran for 496 performances. Messager conducted the first nights of both productions. The English version was staged in New York the following year, running for 81 performances. Twentieth century At the Opéra-Comique, Messager conducted the premieres of Massenet's Grisélidis and Charpentier's Louise, and gave the first French performances of operas as contrasted as Hansel and Gretel and Tosca. But by far the best known of his premieres was Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). Messager encouraged the composer to complete the opera and worked closely with him in getting the orchestration ready for the premiere. In gratitude Debussy dedicated the work to Messager. Holoman writes, "his championing of Pelléas et Mélisande alone would have earned him a place in music history." Debussy regarded Messager as the ideal conductor. Before the premiere he had trusted him to "make his dream into a reality"; after it he praised him for knowing "how to awaken the inner sound world of Pelléas with tender delicacy". After Messager's commitments obliged him to leave Paris for London, Debussy found the performances much less satisfactory. As a conductor, Messager won praise on both sides of the English Channel. The English music critic Francis Toye wrote that, good though Arturo Toscanini's conducting of Pelléas et Mélisande was at La Scala in Milan, Messager's was still better. The Parisian critic Pierre Lalo said of Messager: From 1901 to 1907 Messager was one of the directors of the Grand Opera Syndicate, which ran the annual seasons at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, featuring the leading singers of the day, including Nellie Melba and Enrico Caruso. Much of his time was spent on administration, and he had limited scope for conducting. From 1901, for two years, Messager had an affair with the Scottish soprano Mary Garden, whom he met at the Opéra-Comique and conducted when she took over the title role of Louise. She also appeared in a revival of his Madame Chrysanthème. His first appearance as a conductor at Covent Garden was in 1902 for the first performance of Princess Osra by Herbert Bunning. He next conducted there in 1904 in the British premiere of Saint-Saëns's Hélène, followed in 1905 by Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, the world première of Franco Leoni's L'oracolo, Orphée et Euridice and Roméo et Juliette; in his final year, 1906, he conducted Armide, Carmen, Don Giovanni, Faust, the British