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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 14 - 20 September 2000 Issue No. 499
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Béla Bartók (1881-1945) wrote only one opera -- Bluebeard's Castle -- and that was in one act. It will be performed on the main stage of the Cairo Opera House on the 17 and 19 September.Bluebeard's Castle is an opera of questions, based on a piece by the poet Béla Balazs, who called the work a mystery play. Bartók began writing it in 1911, and finished it in the same year. It was rejected as unplayable by the Budapest Opera, bastion of a conservative musical establishment, and had to wait until 1918 for its premiere, when it received a very mixed reception. Not until 1930, with Maria Basilides, and the dark voiced Mihaly Szekely in the only roles, did it achieve any success.
As with most operas the road from birth to final appreciation was a slow one. Yet it was only after the end of the second world war, and Bartók's death, that it secured a place in the international repertoire.
In one act, with no interval, the style is plain, pentatonic, entirely tonal. It is straightforward music, clearly indebted to Wagner, Strauss and Debussy.
The vocal style is parlando, short, brief phrases, without decoration. There are only two characters, Duke Bluebeard and Judith, a prosaic person who, meeting the Duke, falls in love.
She follows him to his home, the castle of the title. And what a place it is -- quite enough to erase all passion. But not Judith's. She is tough, determined and curious. She must and will know everything. In place of action, there is song, questions and dusty answers. Burning questions are always difficult to answer for those who have things to hide, and Bluebeard has plenty. And so begins the bleak tale of a woman's stupidity and a man's depth of deception. It is not pleasant.
This Cairo production will be performed by Kolas Kovàts and Màrta Lukin, is directed by Balàzs Kovalik, with the Cairo Opera Orchestra conducted by Gergely Vajda.
