The Dark Duke

You just raised the question: “Which Bluebeard are we actually talking about?” There are, in fact, a considerable number of interpretations and approaches, in which not only the story being told but also the character of Bluebeard is reinterpreted. In the case of Bartók’s opera, for example, he is not a murderer as in the original fairy tale. But to answer your question: The powerful, isolated, dangerous, and dark always invite the imagination—even dark imagination. We approach this darkness in very different ways and on many levels.

Now, Bluebeard is a myth insofar as he often represents a mystery. He is associated with a “supposed” event. Jack the Ripper is also a well-known figure by comparison, but there is no mystery surrounding him. He is nothing more than a horror figure—which is not the case with Bluebeard. When we look at his character in the opera, we see that he certainly has something alluring about him. And that, too, is what makes it so thrilling. But he’s also fraught with many question marks. A lot of “supposedly.”

You can look at this in terms of power structures —one person lays down the rules, the other has to follow them—or in terms of curiosity. If you say, “You’re not allowed to ask that…” —well, that’s exactly what will be asked. And if you say, “You can do anything, except that one thing,” then we know how it ends. It all starts right there in the Garden of Eden.

Rescue: That is her frequently evident psychological disposition. She has a savior complex, a narcissistic personality disorder, which manifests itself in her absolute confidence that she can save him. It goes like this: “I’ll do what everyone else couldn’t. Because they neither understood you nor loved you the way I do.” There’s a complex psychopathology behind this. That said, I think it would be too simplistic to reduce the question of why she loves him solely to this psychopathology. We should actually take a step back, give ourselves a moment, and ask: Well, does she actually love him? How long have they known each other? I’m very cautious about the question of why she loves him. I’m more interested in: Why is she going along with it? Why doesn’t she just turn around and walk away?

For example: He is Duke Bluebeard. So, a duke. If he were just Georg Bluebeard, he wouldn’t be nearly as interesting. With him, power—which is reflected in his status—comes into play. So it’s also this: I’m becoming a duchess.

After all, we all want salvation and redemption—at least somewhere deep down inside. Even though I personally believe that there can be no salvation from outside, but rather that we are the only ones who can free ourselves and make peace with ourselves, it is nevertheless clear that this story originated in a Christian-influenced cultural context. Thus, it goes without saying that the entire structure of interpersonal and psychological functions is rooted in Christianityrooted in Christianity. We couldn’t tell the story of Bluebeard that way in India—no one would understand it.

Goethe’s Torquato Tasso immediately comes to mind—that magnificent, stirring line: “And when man falls silent in his agony / A god gave me the words to say how I suffer.” What is crucial, in relation to your question, is the phrase “how I suffer.” The suffering we all must endure is part of our human condition, of our very humanity; it is an inherent part of every existence. Most of us fall silent in the face of suffering, but some have the strength and the talent to say something universally meaningful about it. And these are the poets, the composers, and the painters. Where others fall silent in the face of pain, they find a form of expression that speaks to us all. This brings us to the big question of what art actually does. If politics is the discipline in which we negotiate how we want to treat one another and live together, then art is the space where we explore who we are. That is what a poem, a song, and a painting are all about. And, of course, opera as well—the most complex of all art forms.

My approach has to be different. For every role, but especially when I portray profound, complex, and deeply dark characters. My job is to make the character—whether it’s a Giovanni or Bluebeard—seem normal. It mustn’t be a pose, otherwise the plot loses its credibility.

Yes, of course, to me he’s a person, a perfectly normal person. And that’s exactly the point. You look at him and say, “That’s a truly extraordinary person!” But from my perspective, that doesn’t work, because even if he were extraordinary to me, I wouldn’t be able to portray him believably. To me, he has to be completely normal. Completely natural. In other words, not some outlandish fictional character. And it’s exactly this journey from “Wow, that’s intense” to “Yeah, sure” that’s the actual process of getting to know a stage character. Sometimes that’s easier, sometimes harder. Of course, I draw a great deal of my inspiration from the music, and when the composer is a master like Bartók, Handel, or Mozart, then as a performer I’m given plenty of material to work with.

A particular challenge is the Hungarian language in which the opera is written. I don’t speak that language, so I have to spend a lot of time just learning the text. But Hungarian is so complicated that, by comparison, the complexity of Bartók’s musical language no longer strikes me as a challenge at all. When I began studying the part before my first performance of *Bluebeard*, Adam Fischer heard about it. During an intermission of a concert we were performing together in Copenhagen, he sat down and recited the entire text to me, spoken with the correct rhythm, and recorded it on my cell phone.

That was my initial foundation. Of course, one can certainly conclude that the work is over-orchestrated in places. But that has to do with the era in which it was written. Back then, a lot of things were a bit “crazy” in this regard, and people were very generous with lavish orchestral arrangements. Others did the same, of course—just think of Gustav Mahler or Arnold Schoenberg with his Gurre-Lieder. You have to be able to offer something vocally, no question about it. But you share the responsibility for the balance, so to speak, with the conductor and the orchestra. And I’m incredibly looking forward to that. The musicians are also very, very good at interpreting Bartók, especially in terms of their ability to to play something that is large in scope, yet still quietly.

I think Vasily Barkhatov’s idea—that there aren’t three other women, former wives, in Bluebeard’s life, but rather that it is always the same Judith in different life and relationship situations, an incredibly clever concept. Judith is the morning, the noon, the evening—and now the night. Bluebeard’s final words “From now on, it will always be night” thus point to a permanence now achieved or to the continuation of the relationship. In general, it’s simply a great joy to work with a director who has thought through his concept so consistently, well, and dramaturgically clearly thought through, and who has explored every sentence, every word. Everything—really everything—has been thoroughly examined and fits into the concept. So there were no unpleasant surprises on the third day of rehearsals, the kind you sometimes experience.

One could also interpret the story this way: Our capacity for growth as adults, when it comes to relationships, also lies in the fact we, in a sense, practice becoming a better version of ourselves. Every fresh start in a relationship—or every new relationship—is an opportunity to become that better version of oneself. So a failed relationship has nothing to do with “Well, she wasn’t the right one,” but rather with “I wasn’t the right one.” Perhaps one can also think of Bluebeard in this way—not as a murderer, but as someone striving to do better and better. In the human hope that this time it will work out. That is, of course, exactly the opposite of H. C. Artmann’s “Ringlgschbüüpsizza”!