Duke Bluebeard's Castle, San Francisco Symphony, June 23 2012

Little did I know that Bela Bartok (1881-1945) had written an opera. It’s a dark tale in which Judith, the Duke’s fourth wife, visits his castle for the first time. There are seven doors to seven rooms hiding the Duke’s secrets, which Judith persuades him to open, one by one. Behind the first door is a torture chamber; behind the second, the armory; and so on. Behind the seventh and last door are his first three wives, still alive.

It’s a one-act opera, with only two singing roles, for bass-baritone and mezzo-soprano, with a spoken introduction. It lasts about an hour. There is not much action; all that needs to happen is for the Duke and Judith to open the seven doors, and so it was appropriate for the San Francisco Symphony to present it as a semi-staged performance. Much publicity was made of the semi-sets, which were underwhelming. The orchestral players were in their usual positions on stage. To the left and right of the orchestra, and behind, were the walls of the castle: light-gray expanses of fabric, punctuated by buttresses. Well, sort of buttresses. These buttresses were flush with the castle wall at the bottom, extending farther out from the wall with increasing height. The sides of the buttresses to the right and left of the orchestra were therefore acute right triangles, with the smallest angle at floor level. On these triangular surfaces were projected various nondescript images, though I could identify water droplets and roses at various times. The entire wall behind the orchestra was also used for projections. Suspended above the orchestra were four (non-regular) tetrahedrons,stacked one in back of the other, though toward the end they were moved apart. They also served as surfaces for projections.

Our cast:
Duke Bluebeard: Alan Held
Judith: Michelle deYoung
Speaker: Ken Ruta
Conductor: Michael Tilson Thomas
Director: Nick Hillel

I attended the performance somewhat reluctantly, since the name “Bartok” conveys to me “modern music,” only some of which I can accept. But a friend’s rave review persuaded to see what sort of ticket might be available, and when I saw the opportunity to sit in the third row of orchestra center, I jumped. I need not have worried about the music. The pre-performance lecturer mentioned the recurring (dissonant) interval of the second, signifying “blood,” but in context it worked just fine. The music was not at all difficult to appreciate. None of it was particularly “memorable,” but the same can be said for Palestrina. What made the biggest impression on me was the music, loud and glorious, for the opening of the fifth door, the door to the Duke’s entire kingdom (dukedom?).

The singers performed (and they performed, not just sang as in a concert performance) behind the orchestra, slightly raised above their level, but my third row vantage point meant that they were often obscured by the conductor and the downstage players. Nevertheless, Alan Held made a magnificent Bluebeard; Michelle deYoung was adequate to her role of Judith. And the orchestra sounded wonderful. (The piano in the Liszt Concerto #1 that came before intermission sounded rather harsh from the third row.) I’m glad I went, glad to have added this opera to my repertoire, but rather disappointed in the staging. It’s somewhere between a gamma and a beta.