The Bartok Opera That Explained Men — What Would A Modern Version Be Like?

Kerry McCarpet
Jul 30, 2017 · 5 min read

I saw Bluebeard’s Castle a while back and thinking about what a modern version might be like — I realised how many aspects of romantic love would now have to involve technology…

Bartok’s opera, if you haven’t seen it — tells the story of a man returning to his castle for the first time with his new wife, Judith. The castle is dark, gloomy and imposing and he’s continually telling Judith she doesn’t have to stay, giving her chances to escape. But in love, she has that indomitable determination to know and accept Bluebeard, frightening or otherwise. Once inside the dingy interior, she notices the outline of seven doors — so in an attempt to bring light into to the place, she asks if she can open them — obvsos.

Bluebeard is reluctant — “Can’t you just love me as you see me, luv?” he kind of says to her — and we realise that the doors are doors into his actual being that he’d like to keep closed. But apparently there can’t be secrets — she needs to see into all of him, so she starts throwing them open optimistically…

Behind the first is a torture chamber, with bloodied instruments — perhaps symbolic of the pain he’s caused to himself and others — and she’s shocked and afraid… but then brightens when she sees a shaft of light piercing the window of the room and somewhat illuminating the castle. Behind the second door is Bluebeard’s arsenal of weapons and armour — his need to protect himself and his reputation. Again, they’re covered in blood… it’s a bit of a theme…

Behind the third, we see gold light flooding the stage as Bluebeard’s treasure is revealed. And the motifs here are almost like those of some kind of flasher — “This is everything good I have, take what you want!” Sadly, the riches too, become dulled with the appearance of blood… um… and you’re starting to feel uneasy at this point… Behind the fourth door is a beautiful garden — perhaps the domestic comfort he could create for Judith… unfortunately… it soon becomes bloodied because… well he appears to have some unresolved issues by the looks of things… The fifth door opens out to the vast panorama of Bluebeard’s personal horizons — a grand vista of beauty… though slowly they’re sullied by… blood…

So when the sixth door is opened, you’re expecting more of the same aren’t you — but what you get is a silvery lake of… water? No, it turns out, these are all tears. And this is what you don’t see on Facebook, THE REALITY of people… Anyway, Judith’s getting apprehensive — and she’s demanding to see what’s behind the seventh door — but Bluebeard’s begging her to go no further. “Where are your previous wives — you killed them didn’t you? These are their tears! The rumours are true!” And at this, he gives her the final key…

So what’s behind Door Seven then? Well… it’s all three of his wives, isn’t it — still living, but silent as though behind glass… He becomes highly emotional as they emerge — and prostrates himself before them, revering each in turn. First is his wife of the dawn, followed then by his wife of the midday sun, and after her, the wife he married in his twilight years… At which point he turns to Judith, and starts to worship her too, as his wife of the night… She seems horrified and yet puts up no fight, as she’s weighed down by the crown he places on her head… and saddened by her fate, she joins the other three, behind the closing door… so that Bluebeard is left alone in the darkness… this time forever.

What to make of this ending? Is it that Bartok, for this is surely about him, felt that no woman who knew him completely, could love him completely? Or is it that love to Bela, is like a piece of cake — where the act of owning it, destroys it? Or is it just lamenting the sexual mismatch between men and women, where the former’s programmed to spread his genetics whilst the latter has to trust one man to protect and provide, through the years of pregnancy and childcare?

I think there’s a theme in the story-world about women’s nosiness getting them into trouble — Pandora’s Box, Eve eating the apple… But if you were a standard cave woman, intent on making sure that your partner wasn’t cheating, on his days out “gathering fruit”… yeah… you’d probably have a hell of a lot of questions for him all the time. You’d be more keen to know him, than he you… because why should he care who you really are — what are your chances of an affair in the full light of the homestead?

The erosion of communal life, and descent from the safety of the trees — has possibly sharpened sexual relations into the monogamy we’re drawn to today… But in ultra-modernity, we might be asking too much of the other person becuase they can seem like all we have… Without so much “society” the love and security a human needs, now has to come from a small family, enjoined by their struggle to survive.

I can’t help but wonder though — if Bluebeard sought to know Judith better, would he still have had to lock her in the cupboard and take his supper in darkness? If he understood her complexity, perhaps he’d be less bored or less afraid of rejection… whichever attitude it is that Bartok feels will draw the door closed behind her…

Saying that, I do like Joyce Carol Oates’ take on the original story, where the wife knows Bluebeard’s a murderer, but chooses not to open the final door and lives quite happily with him, in safety. I think there’s a lot of that in the successful relationships I see — you have to accept people’s chosen facade as what’s real since that is, after all, all they actually get to curate about themselves — so in some sense it’s more them than they are.

I’d like to work on a modern version where of course Bluebeard would now be a woman, taking a man to her apartment… 7 TV screens in 7 different rooms… on the first, normal advertising — her dreams and her pain spliced together… On the second, shopping channels of all sorts — her defence against life… On the third, interactive social media — the full bounty of her love, communicated in pre-planned, in insincere passages of affectless text… On the fourth… a screen in her kitchen, on which she can program all of the automated household tasks — that leave her feeling a strange rudderless redundancy… On the fifth… her website and online personal brand — all fake and overblown… On the sixth… infomercials for Citalopram, because no human should ever have to cry… and on the seventh… mmm… that could go either way… Would it be pornography — an invitation for the man to treat her with brutal indifference… or would it be a Hollywood film about romance — that treats his needs with contempt?

What we choose in reality depends on our capacity for the greatest act of revolution — to switch off the screens.

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