Review: “Bluebeard’s Castle” puts modern twist on a classic masterpiece

The story of Bluebeard springs from a French folktale that composer Béla Bartók turned into a gothic horror opera masterwork. The piece tells of an ominous nobleman who has brought an ill-at-ease woman named Judith back to his castle. The structure is full of locked doors which Judith begs Bluebeard to open, each one containing disturbing insights into the reality of the man himself. From behind the final door emerge three women, introduced as Bluebeard’s previous wives. They dress Judith in royal clothing and take her away, leaving Bluebeard alone.

The Atlanta Opera offered a decidedly modernized interpretation of Bluebeard’s Castle at the Bailey Performance Center’s Morgan Concert Hall at Kennesaw State University October 7-9. 

Far from a by-the-numbers recreation of the opera’s most traditional presentation, director Daisy Evans’ remarkable new interpretation saw the story relocated from the harrowing caverns of a mysterious castle to the intimate confines of a suburban home. The effect was nothing short of captivating.

With its cryptic imagery and inconclusive ending it’s not difficult to see why Bluebeard’s Castle would be an easy choice for a modern reimagining. The concept of reinterpreting classic stage works in a modern setting certainly isn’t new — filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 gangland reimagining of Romeo and Juliet and the 2007 Patrick Stewart-helmed performance of Macbeth are prominent examples. 

The success of the effort usually hinges on the capacity of the new interpretation to make the source material relevant in a modern context. Director Daisy Evans, in close collaboration with conductor Stephen Higgins, has delivered a startlingly bold and utterly captivating new concept in the already surrealistic world of Bluebeard.

Evans’ version reimagines Bluebeard (Michael Mayes) and Judith (Susan Bullock) as an elderly married couple returning home to a cozy (though seemingly Dada-inspired) suburban living room. The haunting locked rooms are consolidated into memorabilia and family heirlooms lifted from a single leather travel trunk that looms large on the stage. 

Far from being the horrific trappings that reveal Bluebeard to be a power-mad warlord, these relics are meant to help the modernized Judith remember her past as she confronts dementia. The three previous wives of Bluebeard are reimagined as earlier incarnations of Judith (here played by Eva Lukkonen, Marissa Romanoff and Mary Beth Morrison) and they are joined in various flashback sequences by the couple’s two children, a son played by Coleman Hand and a daughter played by Thainara Carvalho.

Despite being performed in English, this new interpretation is a one-to-one translation of the original Hungarian and retains all of the violent, foreboding imagery of the original. Remarkably, this does little to distract from the newly imagined focus on Judith’s dementia, instead serving as metaphorical language for her burgeoning realization that Bluebeard’s presentation of family heirlooms may awaken darker and more heartbreaking memories from the annals of their marriage. 

In the end Judith and Bluebeard remain as tormented and conflicted as ever. But the cunning use of modern imagery brings that sinister conflict into a whole new realm of contemporary relevance.

From a musical standpoint, Mayes and Bullock both deserve top honors. While Bluebeard’s Castle lacks the wide ranging vocal virtuosity of more bombastic works, it is nevertheless an endurance match for the two leads who deliver the entirety of the sung material without rest for over an hour. 

The result was a performance that leaned heavily on measured restraint and an almost conversational vocal delivery that opened up to embrace larger dynamics only at the most critical of moments. That attention to subtlety also served to emphasize the newly emergent sentimental side of this unique production.

For all the evening’s adventurous experimentation, it was the subtle background presence of the instrumental ensemble that was perhaps the most daring. The original Bluebeard’s Castle calls for a 75-piece orchestra, which would have undercut the performance’s intimate nature and been a logistical impossibility for the venue. 

Higgins was tasked with paring down the vast orchestra to a mere seven-piece ensemble. His minimalist arrangement complemented the performance’s understated atmosphere well. It was commendable for its ability to never dominate the action but rather pulsate gently in the background in a manner akin to the tense, ever-present scores of vintage black and white horror films. 

That delicate but omnipresent pulse was complemented by interwoven and frequently dissonant phrases handled predominantly by clarinetist David Odom.

At a brief talkback session after the performance, Mayes (joined by Bullock, Evans and Higgins) discussed his vision for “opera with a conscience,” the practice of making opera relevant to contemporary societal concerns. In tying Bluebeard’s Castle into the increasingly pressing matter of dementia, Mayes and company undoubtedly succeeded on that front.

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Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.