![]() I can enjoy nothing about him apart from his music.”įortunately, the music was more than enough, and Balázs would warm to Bartók considerably as he became aware of his genius. This avidity is obviously to be explained by the fact that so far he has not studied much of anything outside music. He studies the stars, hunts insects, engages in ethnography, etc. I was indeed already extremely exhausted, but he simply urged and drove me on, just to continue, and collect some more. A wonderful, quiet persistence dwells within him. A compulsive diarist, Balázs left a vivid sketch of the composer during this trip: Composer Béla Bartók, photographed around the time he composed Bluebeard’s Castle ![]() After being connected by a mutual friend (the composer Zoltán Kodály), the two got to know each other in 1906 during an expedition to the countryside: Bartók collected field recordings of Hungarian peasant music while Balázs copied down folk poetry. Like Bartók, Balázs dreamed of creating a new school of modern, Hungarian art inspired by the long-overlooked culture of Hungarian peasants. Béla Balázs was the ultra-Magyarized pen name of Herbert Bauer, a Hungarian poet, critic, and intellectual of German-Jewish descent. “A Lonely Man”īartók was extraordinarily lucky in his librettist, who produced a sophisticated, literary text a cut above the melodramatic hysterics of typical opera libretti. Of these new Bluebeards, the one fashioned by Béla Balázs is surely the finest. Such retellings often altered the plot or changed the emphasis of Perrault’s story to suggest new meanings-a sort of belle époque fan fiction, if you will. She inherits everything and marries a nice man who makes her forget all about her ordeal, and they live happily ever after.Īround the turn of the 20 th century, the Bluebeard story was experiencing something of a revival as authors sought to reinterpret fairytales in light of the era’s preoccupations with symbolism, the subconscious, and the emergent field of psychology. Just as he is about to deliver her to her fate, her brothers appear and slay Bluebeard. When Bluebeard returns, he discovers the blood on the key and realizes what she has done. Understandably upset, she drops its key onto the bloody floor, but an enchantment renders her unable to wash it clean. Naturally, she opens it when Bluebeard is away, discovering the mutilated corpses of his previous wives. In Perrault’s grisly telling, Bluebeard gives his new young bride the keys to his castle, but forbids her to open one of its chambers. The story of the opera derives from a fairytale told by the 17 th century French fabulist Charles Perrault. A New Take on a Classic Tale Béla Balázs (1884-1949), the librettist for Bluebeard’s Castle Sadly, the vicissitudes of history would ensure that it would also be his only opera, and it would not be recognized as the masterpiece that it is until after Bartók’s death. The first efforts of most opera composers (Wagner, Verdi, Strauss, and Puccini, for instance) are rarely masterpieces, but Béla Bartók’s first opera is a flawless, captivating drama and one of the seminal works of the 20 th century. Get tickets and more information here.īluebeard’s Castle is a miraculous accomplishment. ![]() In this post, discover the dark secrets that lie behind Bartók’s fascinating operatic masterpiece. On May 16 and 17, the Houston Symphony presents a spectacular, semi-staged production of Bluebeard’s Castle featuring world-renowned singers Michelle DeYoung and Matthias Goerne.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |