Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
English National Opera
Swanhunter
Opera North
Bartok’s only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, shouldn’t be a difficult work to stage, to sing and to play, yet most of my worthwhile experiences of it have been listening to recordings — where it has done notably well. Though the plotline is as simple as can be, and the music matches it in urgency and directness, or rather because of these facts, it is a piece that invites and certainly receives the attentions of meddling producers who ignore what it is about and invent more or less elaborate dramatic situations which it could have been about. Daniel Kramer, who produced the dazzling Punch and Judy which was so notable a success at the Young Vic last year, has decided that it is about a character closely resembling Josef Fritzl, and Giles Cadle’s set design goes along with this. The Prologue is eliminated; we see, before the music begins, Bluebeard and Judith under a street lamp, in front of a door, he wrestling with her, and dragging her inside. As soon as he’s got his way, the music starts, the door is at the top of the set, and so what we see is a cellar, a scruffy, ill-organised place. Judith wears a silly party frock, while Bluebeard looks as much like Fritzl as Clive Bayley could.
This Bluebeard is edgy, indulges in childish jumping on the spot, behaves in a way that isn’t closely connected to what he says. Bayley delivers his music in a sepulchral tone, without a lot of inflexion. Michaela Martens as Judith is a sympathetic figure, and comes across as much less of a nag than usual. She makes the most of any radiant music that comes her way. Edward Gardner conducts with great intensity, and what can be disconcerting, the semi-chant of much of the singing alternating with the illustrative sumptuousness of some of the music, is seamless, and a cumulative tension, which must be present but often isn’t, is maintained throughout: the audience’s silence at the end struck me as registering awe, which is what I felt.
The only question about Bluebeard is whether it presents a universal human predicament, that of the lover needing and wanting to know everything about her or his beloved, or whether it is a kinky hangover from the Viennese fin de siècle, happening to presage Fritzl and his ghastly history.
It seems to me obvious that it is the first of these, that its point is that the kind of love Judith so rapturously expresses, wanting to help a man in pain and to turn his life around, is shown to be something that is more destructive than helpful; that, in Nietzsche’s phrase, ‘playing the role of Fate’ is a doomed enterprise for both parties. As I said above, simple, direct, but in need of eternal repetition and reinforcement. Taken in that way, Bluebeard is overwhelming. Taken in Cadle’s way it is only as powerful as the shocks it presents — and when we see the row of his children who have been cooped up for their whole lives in his cellar, it makes quite an impact, but one which distracts from the greatness and true power of Bartok’s work. I found the musical performance, combined with some of the acting, extraordinarily impressive, and registered, as one so often does, the director’s ego-trip with casual interest and some disdain.
The next evening I saw the première of Jonathan Dove’s latest opera for children, Swanhunter, in the Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, a wholly involving experience. Dove and his regular collaborator Alsadair Middleton have taken a story from the Kalevela of Lemminkäinen’s going in search of a bride and, after many feats of bravery, being killed by an arrow, and then being reassembled by his mother. There are six singers and the same number of instrumentalists, including an accordionist, and a small but arresting amount of scenery and props. Stuart Stratford conducted a wonderfully assured performance, and I found this quite the most gripping opera of Dove’s I have seen.
Though only an hour and a quarter long, it is ambitious, portraying the hero’s adventures and demise in alternately stark and lyrical ways. Andrew Rees, though apparently quite ill, gave a stunning account of Lemminkäinen, and Yvonne Howard as his mother made the most of her role, the largest part of which is the long lament and expression of hope that follows her son’s death. Most of the opera moves at a rapid tempo, and is incident-packed. One has to adjust to the lengthy meditative final section, and I only hope the young audiences it is designed for will. One thing they will surely like as much as I did is the sheer volume that is maintained almost throughout, which, when the voices are as fine as this, and so well balanced with the orchestra, commands a thrilled attention.
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