The colors of darkness

With Ilan Volkov’s energetic conducting the Israel Opera’s performance of ‘Duke Bluebeard’s Castle’ looks set to be quite a spectacle.

By BARRY DAVIS
Ilan Volkov 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Ilan Volkov 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
If Ilan Volkov’s personality and energy are anything to go by, the current run of Bela Bartok’s one and only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, at the Opera House in Tel Aviv is a singularly captivating experience. Three days before the first performance (December 15, running until December 23) the 34-year-old conductor was plainly up for it. “It is a great opportunity to do this opera,” he says, “and we’re doing it eight times. Normally, I get to perform an opera just once and move on.”
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle was written in 1911 and is the Hungarian composer’s only foray into the operatic world. Why Bartok, who produced numerous works during his life, did not pen another opera or two is something of a mystery. “That happened with a number of composers but with Bartok it’s even more extreme,” says Volkov. “I think it may be because he went so far with his first opera – musically it is one of his most modern works – that he said, okay that’s as far as I want to go in this field. Also he changed his entire orientation after the opera, and wrote a lot more orchestral pieces, chamber music and solo piano works.”
The fact that Duke Bluebeard’s Castle wasn’t exactly an overnight success may have been another factor that contributed to Bartok’s rapid retirement from operatic endeavor. “It took eight years for the opera to get its first performance,” explains Volkov, “because the powers that be said it wasn’t dramatic enough and it was too complicated musically.
They wanted choirs and lots of stage presence and props. Duke Bluebeard's Castle doesn’t have any of that. I think the whole experience was also very traumatic for Bartok. He didn’t even get to hear the opera until eight years after he’d written it.”
Despite the fact there are only two singers in the one-act work, the current production of the opera certainly has a striking visual presence, with renowned American glass artist Dale Chihuly providing a highly esthetic and colorful backdrop.
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle tells the story of the eponymous aristocrat who arrives home at his castle with his new bride, Judith. Bluebeard asks Judith if she wants to stay and even offers her an opportunity to leave, but she decides to stay and insists that all the doors be opened, to allow light to enter into the forbidding interior. Bluebeard balks at the request but eventually gives way and opens the doors in succession.
Each door opens up onto a very different scene, ranging from a blood-stained torture chamber to a storehouse of riches, a beautiful secret garden and, finally, the last door – which Bluebeard tries his best to avoid opening for his bride – reveals the prince’s three previous wives whom Judith thought had been murdered by her groom.
Duke Bluebeard's Castle clearly does not exactly pertain to the light entertainment side of the arts. “Bartok, and that goes for all serious composers at the time, was not commercially oriented. He was also very critical of himself. He was very true to his artistic truth.”
VOLKOV CONFESSES to a penchant for the period in which Duke Bluebeard’s Castle was written. “Yes I conduct a lot of works for that time. It was an amazing era with so much innovation and it is only now we are starting to appreciate it. And we’re not talking about a handful of people, there were at least 15-20 artists doing wonderful work then.” Volkov attributes the outburst of creative trailblazing to more than just artistic bent. “There were very strong energies around back then. The old world order was ending, wars took place, empires collapsed. It was an extreme time.
People wrote their best works. Stravinsky wrote his best compositions at that time, as did Schoenberg and Mahler. It is amazing to think that Bartok wrote the opera a hundred years ago.”
The conductor says that it wasn’t just in music that major innovators were emerging, and that musicians also fed off their contemporaries from other fields.
“Look at people like Freud, who had a very strong influence on this opera – this is a very Freudian work, with its psychological aspects and sexual elements.
This is also a very daring opera, with violence and sex in it. There are also elements of fear and love. That is also very Freudian, and I think it is also something that talks to everyone today.”
While Bartok’s relatively minimalist visual approach to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle did not help the work’s marketing cause, Volkov feels it does help to get the audience on board. “It is a very open work which the audience can interpret in many different ways. Today, we are used to such works but, back then, it was not the accepted approach and people may have found it hard to fathom. It is a very interesting work in that you leave the performance with more questions than answers. It can leave you with question marks about your own life too. The opera has all sorts of elements that are reminiscent of things that are familiar to us, particularly with regard to the complex relations between couples and strength, both of men and of women.”
It seems the composer may have been an early supporter of female emancipation. “Here Bartok conveys the idea of women’s strength,” continues Volkov. “Bluebeard does not really want to open the doors, but she makes him do it.” The male character, says Volkov, is also open to different avenues of interpretation. “You can see him as a monstrous and violent person, or as a sympathetic character who wants to protect Judith.”
Volkov says he is also looking forward to having Chihuly’s artistic presence in the performances. “I don’t see the doors and what appears when they open because I am on the stage, and the doors are behind me. But I think the visual aspect primarily affects the singers. It is very different compared with singing in an opera house with full scenery, or without any scenery at all. Chihuly’s work can have a very positive effect on the singing. It is symbolic and not clearly defined, and I think the idea of having the work in this opera is inspired. It would probably not suit all works but definitely suits this one.”
EACH DOOR has a different color, which or of different symbolic value. The torture chamber door, for example is – naturally – blood red, the garden door is bluish green and the treasury door is gold. “The colors are mentioned in the libretto and they also connect with the scales Bartok chose for the music. The orchestration differs between the doors, as do the melodies and shades,” explains Volkov, adding that Chihuly’s contribution to the production also leaves the members of the audience free to arrive at their own conclusions.
“The objects that become visible when the doors are opened are also symbolic and unclear, and the audience can make up its mind about that too.”
Volkov performs all over the world and, among various prestigious slots, became the BBC’s youngest ever conductor when he took over the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the age of only 27. Still, in more ways than one, the current performances of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle represent something of a homecoming for him. “I sort of have a connection with Bartok. My grandfather’s brother was a music critic and also worked for [classical music publishing firm] Universal Edition, which was Bartok’s publishing company too. My great uncle told me one or two things when I was very small so, in addition, to the music, that’s something of a connection – almost like family.”
In addition to the opera the concert will also include a performance of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder.
For more information and tickets: (03) 692-7777 or www.israelopera.co.il.