Bluebeard's Castle
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"We open the successive doors in Bluebeard's castle because "they are there," because each leads to the next by a logic of intensification which is that of the mind's own awareness of being"-- In Bluebeard's Castle (1971) by George Steiner |
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Duke Bluebeard's Castle is a one-act opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer. It lasts only a little over an hour and there are only two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard (Template:Lang), and his new wife Judith (Template:Lang); the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time.
Bluebeard's Castle was composed in 1911 (with modifications made in 1912 and a new ending added in 1917) and first performed on May 24, 1918 in Budapest. Universal published the vocal (1921) and full score (1925). The Boosey & Hawkes' full score includes only the German and English singing translations while the Dover edition reproduces the Universal Edition Hungarian/German vocal score (with page numbers beginning at 1 instead of 5). A revision of the UE vocal score in 1963 added a new German translation by Wilhelm Ziegler, but seems not to have corrected any errata.
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