Hearts of Darkness: Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung
This article originally appeared in the 2001 souvenir program of the Cincinnati Opera.
by Colin Eatock
It’s been said that a candle burns the brightest just before it goes out. Certainly, that was true of the latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the arts, sciences and philosophy flourished. Even as the existing order was challenged by contending nationalisms and new political ideologies, the last decades of the 19th century produced a glorious era unsurpassed in the history of Central Europe.
In Vienna, Hugo Wolf composed exquisite songs and Anton Bruckner’s expansive style brought the symphonic tradition to new heights. The decorative, erotic art of Gustav Klimt created a scandale, and the plays of Arthur Schnitzler probed beneath the surface of bourgeois life. And in 1899, Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams, furthering medical science’s understanding of the subconscious.
Budapest, an ambitious rival to Vienna, was enjoying a period of rapid growth. Elegant art nouveau buildings were erected; and the city could boast that Gustav Mahler (then famous chiefly as a conductor) was the director of its opera house.
Cultural developments continued unabated into the 20th century, despite the gathering clouds of the Great War that would soon tear the Hapsburg Empire apart. And in this milieu, two composers destined to be major figures in the new era were nurtured. Arnold Schoenberg, born in Vienna in 1874, absorbed from birth the cosmopolitanism of the Imperial capital. Béla Bartók, born in a provincial town in Transylvania in 1881, showed early promise as a musician and made his way to Budapest in 1899 for advanced training.
These two composers were forward-looking men who played crucial roles in defining modernism – the 20th century’s dominant musical style. Both, however, began their careers as late Romantics: Bartók’s first piano compositions show the influence Liszt; and Richard Strauss can be heard behind the lush chromaticism of Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, an early work for string sextet. Yet quite independently of one another, they came to the realization that the musical vocabulary of the 19th century was exhausted and new approaches were needed.
Their parallel artistic paths led to the creation of two short, unique operas: Schoenberg’s Erwartung, written in 1909 and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, composed the following year. Both works were well ahead of their time, and years passed before they were seen and heard by the public. Bluebeard was not performed until 1918, and Erwartung – translatable as “expectation” – had to wait until 1924 for its premiere.
The two operas are musically related, but not cut from quite the same cloth. Bartók’s first and only opera bears the stamp of Debussy – in particular, of his Pelléas et Mélisande. Influenced also by Bartók’s study of folk-music, Bluebeard’s Castle stretches the bounds of tonality to the limit but does not exceed them. Schoenberg’s first music theatre-work (he was to write three more) is a bold example of early atonality, although the rigorous 12-tone system that he devised was still years away.
With respect to dramatic and literary structure, the pieces are quite similar. Both operas have unusually small casts of singers: in Bluebeard’s Castle we encounter Duke Bluebeard and Judith; in Erwartung (which Schoenberg called a “monodrama”) we have only one character, namelessly referred to as “The Woman.” Conventional plots are not to be found – instead of a logical sequence of events we find allegory, symbolism and analysis of the human mind.
Bluebeard’s Castle, based very loosely on an old European legend, begins with Duke Bluebeard arriving at his castle with his new bride, Judith. In the mysterious fortress, she discovers seven locked doors, and she asks Bluebeard to open them. When Bluebeard gives her the keys to the first five doors, she is alternately appalled and amazed by what she finds behind them: his torture chamber, his armory, his treasury, his secret garden and his vast realm. With reluctance, he gives her the sixth key, which opens a door to a lake of tears. And when she finally convinces him to give her the last key, she finds Bluebeard’s three wives – his brides of the Morning, Noon and Evening in the seventh chamber. Bluebeard crowns Judith as his Bride of the Night, and she joins the others in the final room, leaving the duke alone once again.
In Erwartung, the Woman arrives in a state of agitation. As she speaks distractedly to herself it becomes apparent that she is waiting for a man. In the shadows of the night she sees a tree-trunk and imagines it to be a dead body. Then, to her horror, she discovers a real dead body – the man she was waiting for. Hoping he might be still alive, she attempts to revive him, to no avail. Angrily, she accuses the corpse of infidelity to her, and as the piece ends, she wonders aloud what she should do with herself, now that her lover is dead.
What are we to make of these strange stories of implicit murder? And, more fundamentally, what artistic purpose underlies them? These questions were – in small measure – addressed by the creators of these operas. Arnold Schoenberg described Erwartung as the portrayal of a nightmare, or as a moment of psychological trauma represented in slow motion. In any case, it’s apparent that the librettist for this drama of the subconscious, the medical doctor Marie Pappenhiem, was well aware of Freud’s theories. And with regard to Bluebeard’s Castle, the librettist Béla Balázs once remarked: “At our worst, we are all Bluebeards because we build our own ‘better world’ through the usurpation of other mens’ souls.” With just a touch of optimism he added, “Redemption can be achieved only through self-sacrificing love.”
Critics have often been mystified by these works, but a few have devised some intriguing theories about them. Paul Griffiths has likened the Woman in Erwartung to a desperate Isolde awaiting her Tristan, or to Elektra praying for the arrival of her brother Orest – but without either of them ever showing up. And Michael Ewans has suggested that Bluebeard’s Castle is a meditation on “the violation of individuality which is involved in any close relationship between man and woman.”
Robert Lepage, creator of the Bluebeard/Erwartung double bill staged by the Cincinnati Opera this summer, has some ideas of his own. “Musically, there’s something extremely classical and very disciplined in both pieces, but and the same time they are so avant-garde and erratic and crazy,” he observed in 1993, when the production was premiered in Toronto. “In a sense, these are epic pieces, but you can work on them in a very intimate way.”
A native of Quebec City, Lepage is widely regarded as one of the most original minds working in theatre today. His work has been seen around the world: in Britain and continental Europe, and from coast to coast in the USA and Canada. Remarkably, this production, created for the Canadian Opera Company, was his first foray in opera. To say the least, it proved an auspicious debut.
“A glowing example of everything opera can be,” praised Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper. “A bonfire of the imagination that ultimately ignites the soul,” echoed the Toronto Sun. And soon – thanks to an ambitious touring schedule that took this COC production to Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as to Melbourne and Hong Kong – critics around the world were in agreement. (In Edinburgh, The Scotsman declared the production “absolutely remarkable”; and it was named the best musical and the best theatrical presentation of the 1993 festival.)
For this the success of this production, Lepage shares credit with the brilliant designer Michael Levine. Based in Toronto, Levine sprang on to the theatre scene as a Wunderkind, in the late 1980s. Since then, he has designed for the Metropolitan Opera, and for the opera companies of San Francisco, Santa Fe, Geneva and Glasgow, among others. In his words, Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung are a reaction against “the cake and champagne, endless balls, and art that was pretty and Romantic.” His stark, dark setting certainly reflects this view.
With Bluebeard/Erwartung, Lepage and Levine have created a production of startling originality: disturbing – even shocking – yet at the same time fascinating and satisfying. Before the performance is over, you will see Bluebeard’s wives magically emerge from a vast lake of blood, and the entire Music Hall standing dizzily on its ear. Be forewarned: this is not opera for the faint of heart.
© Colin Eatock 2001
by Colin Eatock
It’s been said that a candle burns the brightest just before it goes out. Certainly, that was true of the latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where the arts, sciences and philosophy flourished. Even as the existing order was challenged by contending nationalisms and new political ideologies, the last decades of the 19th century produced a glorious era unsurpassed in the history of Central Europe.
In Vienna, Hugo Wolf composed exquisite songs and Anton Bruckner’s expansive style brought the symphonic tradition to new heights. The decorative, erotic art of Gustav Klimt created a scandale, and the plays of Arthur Schnitzler probed beneath the surface of bourgeois life. And in 1899, Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams, furthering medical science’s understanding of the subconscious.
Budapest, an ambitious rival to Vienna, was enjoying a period of rapid growth. Elegant art nouveau buildings were erected; and the city could boast that Gustav Mahler (then famous chiefly as a conductor) was the director of its opera house.
Cultural developments continued unabated into the 20th century, despite the gathering clouds of the Great War that would soon tear the Hapsburg Empire apart. And in this milieu, two composers destined to be major figures in the new era were nurtured. Arnold Schoenberg, born in Vienna in 1874, absorbed from birth the cosmopolitanism of the Imperial capital. Béla Bartók, born in a provincial town in Transylvania in 1881, showed early promise as a musician and made his way to Budapest in 1899 for advanced training.
These two composers were forward-looking men who played crucial roles in defining modernism – the 20th century’s dominant musical style. Both, however, began their careers as late Romantics: Bartók’s first piano compositions show the influence Liszt; and Richard Strauss can be heard behind the lush chromaticism of Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, an early work for string sextet. Yet quite independently of one another, they came to the realization that the musical vocabulary of the 19th century was exhausted and new approaches were needed.
Their parallel artistic paths led to the creation of two short, unique operas: Schoenberg’s Erwartung, written in 1909 and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, composed the following year. Both works were well ahead of their time, and years passed before they were seen and heard by the public. Bluebeard was not performed until 1918, and Erwartung – translatable as “expectation” – had to wait until 1924 for its premiere.
The two operas are musically related, but not cut from quite the same cloth. Bartók’s first and only opera bears the stamp of Debussy – in particular, of his Pelléas et Mélisande. Influenced also by Bartók’s study of folk-music, Bluebeard’s Castle stretches the bounds of tonality to the limit but does not exceed them. Schoenberg’s first music theatre-work (he was to write three more) is a bold example of early atonality, although the rigorous 12-tone system that he devised was still years away.
With respect to dramatic and literary structure, the pieces are quite similar. Both operas have unusually small casts of singers: in Bluebeard’s Castle we encounter Duke Bluebeard and Judith; in Erwartung (which Schoenberg called a “monodrama”) we have only one character, namelessly referred to as “The Woman.” Conventional plots are not to be found – instead of a logical sequence of events we find allegory, symbolism and analysis of the human mind.
Bluebeard’s Castle, based very loosely on an old European legend, begins with Duke Bluebeard arriving at his castle with his new bride, Judith. In the mysterious fortress, she discovers seven locked doors, and she asks Bluebeard to open them. When Bluebeard gives her the keys to the first five doors, she is alternately appalled and amazed by what she finds behind them: his torture chamber, his armory, his treasury, his secret garden and his vast realm. With reluctance, he gives her the sixth key, which opens a door to a lake of tears. And when she finally convinces him to give her the last key, she finds Bluebeard’s three wives – his brides of the Morning, Noon and Evening in the seventh chamber. Bluebeard crowns Judith as his Bride of the Night, and she joins the others in the final room, leaving the duke alone once again.
In Erwartung, the Woman arrives in a state of agitation. As she speaks distractedly to herself it becomes apparent that she is waiting for a man. In the shadows of the night she sees a tree-trunk and imagines it to be a dead body. Then, to her horror, she discovers a real dead body – the man she was waiting for. Hoping he might be still alive, she attempts to revive him, to no avail. Angrily, she accuses the corpse of infidelity to her, and as the piece ends, she wonders aloud what she should do with herself, now that her lover is dead.
What are we to make of these strange stories of implicit murder? And, more fundamentally, what artistic purpose underlies them? These questions were – in small measure – addressed by the creators of these operas. Arnold Schoenberg described Erwartung as the portrayal of a nightmare, or as a moment of psychological trauma represented in slow motion. In any case, it’s apparent that the librettist for this drama of the subconscious, the medical doctor Marie Pappenhiem, was well aware of Freud’s theories. And with regard to Bluebeard’s Castle, the librettist Béla Balázs once remarked: “At our worst, we are all Bluebeards because we build our own ‘better world’ through the usurpation of other mens’ souls.” With just a touch of optimism he added, “Redemption can be achieved only through self-sacrificing love.”
Critics have often been mystified by these works, but a few have devised some intriguing theories about them. Paul Griffiths has likened the Woman in Erwartung to a desperate Isolde awaiting her Tristan, or to Elektra praying for the arrival of her brother Orest – but without either of them ever showing up. And Michael Ewans has suggested that Bluebeard’s Castle is a meditation on “the violation of individuality which is involved in any close relationship between man and woman.”
Robert Lepage, creator of the Bluebeard/Erwartung double bill staged by the Cincinnati Opera this summer, has some ideas of his own. “Musically, there’s something extremely classical and very disciplined in both pieces, but and the same time they are so avant-garde and erratic and crazy,” he observed in 1993, when the production was premiered in Toronto. “In a sense, these are epic pieces, but you can work on them in a very intimate way.”
A native of Quebec City, Lepage is widely regarded as one of the most original minds working in theatre today. His work has been seen around the world: in Britain and continental Europe, and from coast to coast in the USA and Canada. Remarkably, this production, created for the Canadian Opera Company, was his first foray in opera. To say the least, it proved an auspicious debut.
“A glowing example of everything opera can be,” praised Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper. “A bonfire of the imagination that ultimately ignites the soul,” echoed the Toronto Sun. And soon – thanks to an ambitious touring schedule that took this COC production to Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as to Melbourne and Hong Kong – critics around the world were in agreement. (In Edinburgh, The Scotsman declared the production “absolutely remarkable”; and it was named the best musical and the best theatrical presentation of the 1993 festival.)
For this the success of this production, Lepage shares credit with the brilliant designer Michael Levine. Based in Toronto, Levine sprang on to the theatre scene as a Wunderkind, in the late 1980s. Since then, he has designed for the Metropolitan Opera, and for the opera companies of San Francisco, Santa Fe, Geneva and Glasgow, among others. In his words, Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung are a reaction against “the cake and champagne, endless balls, and art that was pretty and Romantic.” His stark, dark setting certainly reflects this view.
With Bluebeard/Erwartung, Lepage and Levine have created a production of startling originality: disturbing – even shocking – yet at the same time fascinating and satisfying. Before the performance is over, you will see Bluebeard’s wives magically emerge from a vast lake of blood, and the entire Music Hall standing dizzily on its ear. Be forewarned: this is not opera for the faint of heart.
© Colin Eatock 2001
