1908-1914 Period

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40686pg3#S40686.3,

This link is about Bartok's creativity's 1908-1914 period which Bluebeard's Castle was written also. Piano pieces were intensely written in this period. It is said that French effects had an important role. While the characters were reflected,for Bluebeard "smooth and pentatonic lines" and for Judith "more chromatic and angular writing" were used. Here is the part which is directly about the opera:

"In the first half of 1910 Bartók’s recognition as a composer appeared to be growing, and with it requests for him to perform. At a ‘Hungarian festival’ concert in Paris on 12 March 1910 he played several of his own works, as well as pieces by Szendy and Kodály. A press comment about these ‘young barbarians’ from Hungary probably prompted Bartók to write one of his most popular piano pieces, the Allegro barbaro bb63, in the following year. In other works of 1910–12 French influences are at their most apparent, with Debussy’s mark perhaps being too readily identified, notably in the orchestral Két kép (‘Two Pictures’) op.10 and the Four Orchestral Pieces op.12. The intervening op.11, the one-act opera A Kékszakállú herceg vára (‘Bluebeard’s Castle’) (1911) is, however, a masterful Hungarian emulation of the realism of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Written to an expressionistic libretto by Béla Balázs about the ‘mystery of the soul’, the action of Bluebeard’s Castle is negligible, involving just two singing protagonists, Bluebeard and his new wife Judith, who progress through the opening of the eponymous castle’s seven doors, drawn by the woman’s curiosity. The opera’s climactic turning-point comes at the fifth door, to Bluebeard’s kingdom, after which Judith’s jealousy becomes obsessive, leading to her eventual entombment, along with all Bluebeard’s previous wives, and eternal darkness. Bartók’s work changed the course of Hungarian opera by successfully developing a fluid form of Hungarian declamation of Balázs’s ballad-like text, based largely upon the inflections of parlando rubato folksong. He also managed to characterize the protagonists modally: Bluebeard through smooth, pentatonic lines; Judith through more chromatic and angular writing. Bartók’s operatic conception owed much to Wagner, particularly in his use of a recurring minor-2nd ‘blood’ motif, while the orchestration is still indebted to Strauss, whose influence in other compositional respects had waned. The adjudicators of two Budapest opera competitions of 1911–12 nonetheless found little merit in this ‘unperformable’ work, and it was assigned to Bartók’s drawer."

"Bluebeard's Castle" by Sandor Veress

http://www.jstor.org/stable/942684?seq=1&Search=yes&term=bartok&term=castle&term=bluebeard%27s&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dbartok%2Bbluebeard%2527s%2Bcastle%26wc%3Don%26dc%3DAll%2BDisciplines&item=2&ttl=306&returnArticleService=showArticle&resultsServiceName=doBasicResultsFromArticle

I found this article useful to get a clear idea about the opera. First of all, approach to Bluebeard's story is very different in Bartok's work. He shows characters' depth much more, his psyhcological approach is really interesting and very different than the traditional fairytale. This article explains this in a simple and clear way. Also mentions about Debussy&Bartok relation that I was planning to mention too. As the most interesting thing for me, he sees Bluebeard as a big "crescendo" that occurs during the whole work, an Judith oppositely as a big "decrescendo" in terms of emotions, plot and their reflection to musical symbols. This opposite manner of two main characters creates an interesting effect, Bartok's way to reflect this is again to use symbols and changes those are started from and related in a way to each other.

Briefly "Bluebeard" Story

"Bluebeard" (French: La Barbe bleue) is a French literary folktale written by Charles Perrault and is one of eight tales by the author first published by Barbin in Paris in January 1697 in Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. The tale tells the story of a violent nobleman in the habit of murdering his wives and the attempts of one wife to avoid the fate of her predecessors. Gilles de Rais, a 15th-century artistocrat and prolific serial killer, has been suggested as the source for the character of Bluebeard as has Conomor the Accursed, an early Breton king. "The White Dove," "Mister Fox" and "Fitcher's Bird" are tales similar to "Bluebeard"."

"Bluebeard is a very wealthy aristocrat, feared because of his "frightfully ugly" blue beard. He had been married several times, but no one knew what had become of his wives. He was therefore avoided by the local girls. When Bluebeard visited one of his neighbours and asked to marry one of her two daughters, the girls were terrified, and each tried to pass him on to the other. Eventually he persuaded the younger daughter (Perrault does not name the woman, but many versions state her name to be Fatima) to marry him, and after the ceremony she went to live with him in his château."

"Very shortly after, however, Bluebeard announced that he had to leave the country for a while; he gave over all the keys of the chateau to his new wife, including the key to one small room that she was forbidden to enter. He then went away and left the house in her hands. Almost immediately she was overcome with the desire to see what the forbidden room held, and finally her visiting sister, Anne, convinced her to satisfy her curiosity and open the room."

"The wife immediately discovered the room's horrible secret: Its floor was awash with blood, and the dead bodies of her husband's former wives hung from hooks on the walls. Horrified, she locked the door, but blood had come onto the key which would not wash off. Bluebeard returned unexpectedly and immediately knew what his wife had done. In a blind rage he threatened to behead her on the spot, but she implored that he give her quarter of an hour to say her prayers. He consented so she locked herself in the highest tower with her sister, Anne. While Bluebeard, sword in hand, tried to break down the door, the sisters waited for their two brothers to arrive. At the last moment, as Bluebeard was about to deliver the fatal blow, the brothers broke into the castle, and as he attempted to flee, they killed him. He left no heirs but his wife, who inherited all his great fortune. She used part of it for a dowry to marry her sister to the one that loved her, another part for her brothers' captains commissions, and the rest to marry a worthy gentleman who made her forget her ill treatment by Bluebeard."
(From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluebeard)

The Outline that I'm Planning to Obey

- Slight information about Bela Bartok
- Symbolism in Opera
- "Bluebeard" story and psychological analysis about the story
- Motives that symbolizes the characters
- Motives that symbolizes concepts like "Fate"
- Chordal usage
- Transformation or changes of motives or harmonic patterns between each other
- Scene design