ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY / BÉLA BARTÓK
EINE FLORENTINISCHE TRAGÖDIE / BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
CONTENTS
P.
4
SYNOPSIS P.
7
NEW MUSICAL PATHS CONVERSATION WITH ALAIN ALTINOGLU P.
12
THEATRE AS A WAY OF LISTENING TO PEOPLE ROMAN DOLZHANSKIY
P.
18
WHILE TWO ARE REJOICING, THE THIRD DIED CONVERSATION WITH VASILY BARKHATOV P.
23
WHO WAS ZEMLINSKY? ANTONY BEAUMONT P.
30
LOVE, PASSION & SINCERITY MICHAEL BRAUN P.
36
IMPRINT
ALEXANDER ZEMLINSKY
EINE FLORENTINISCHE TRAGÖDIE OPERA in one act Libretto OSCAR WILDE in German translation by MAX MEYERFELD
ORCHESTRA 3 flutes (3rd doubles as piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubles as cor anglais), 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons (3rd doubles as contrabassoon), 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, celesta, mandolin, violin I, violin II, viola, cello, double bass WORLD PRÈMIERE
30 JANUARY 1917 Court Theatre, Stuttgart
FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING
27 APRIL 1917
BÉLA BARTÓK
BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE (A KÉKSZAKÁLLÚ HERCEG VÁRA) OPERA in one act Libretto BÉLA BALÁZS ORCHESTRA 4 flutes (3rd and 4th double as piccolos), 2 oboes, cor anglais, 3 clarinets (3rd doubles as bass clarinet), 4 bassoons (4th doubles as contrabassoon), 4 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celesta, organ, violin I, violin II, viola, cello, double bass STAGE MUSIC 4 trumpets, 4 trombones WORLD PRÈMIERE
24 MAY 1918 Royal Opera House, Budapest
FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING
DURATION
2 H 30 M
22 NOVEMBER 1985
INCL. 1 INTERMISSION
EINE FLORENTINISCHE TRAGÖDIE: DMITRY GOLOVNIN CHRISTOPHER MALTMAN ASMIK GRIGORIAN
EINE FLORENTINISCHE TRAGÖDIE: CHRISTOPHER MALTMAN DMITRY GOLOVNIN
MICHAEL BRAUN
LOVE, PASSION & SINCERITY Triumph and failure are closely associated in Bluebeard’s Castle. This is evident in the plot – will requited love succeed or will it not? – but with some justice it can also be applied to the story of how Béla Bartók’s only opera was created. When he completed his one-act work in 1911, the ingredients for a great success were already in place. After Bartók’s graduation from the Music Academy in Budapest in 1903 he had rapidly made a name for himself as a highly promising young composer. His patriotic symphonic poem Kossuth – whose late romantic orchestral sound was densely interwoven with verbunkos elements – had been favourably received by the Hungarian public. But their affections had cooled rapidly since. And Bartók’s style had also changed. The discovery of Hungarian “peasant music” had consistently provided him since 1906 at the latest – the year of the first of his field trips to record folk songs – with new inspiration beyond familiar approaches. It drove him away from the established Magyar popular forms that were so prominently eternalised in, for example, Liszt’s Rhapsodies, and which Bartók himself had used in his Kossuth. Added to this was Bartók’s
general inclination towards innovation. His 14 Bagatelles for the piano from 1908 presented a cornucopia of concentrated sonic experiments and the String Quartet No.1 he composed shortly afterwards also ventured, full of personal expressive strength, to the very margins of traditional D minor tone language. Bluebeard’s Castle was intended to become the first work for large-scale production in which Bartók’s new, self-confident style would present itself. The composer had not previously shown any special inclination towards vocal music. While he had continued to compose songs since his youth, passing through various different phases ranging from traditional German lyrics (Goethe, Heine, Rückert) to Hungarian folklore (Lajos Pósa, Kálmán Harsányi), the quantity of these works had always lain behind that of his instrumental compositions. This far Bartók had not made any attempt at larger vocal forms, whether cantatas or full staged works. When he started work on Bluebeard, except for arranging a few peasant songs he had not written a new vocal work for over five years. The style of song that he now developed anew for himself deliberately aimed at a sensitive setting of
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LOV E , PA S SION & SINCER I T Y
Hungarian prosody, aided by the subtly declamatory approach of Debussy (to be found above all in Pelléas et Mélisande, 1902) and was inspired particularly by the Hungarian peasant songs of the “old style”. Bartók had identified this group of folk song melodies with their propensity for pentatonic structured melodies and parlando rhythms (repeating notes, preferences for step movements, variable time signatures) as a section of the repertoire that stretched back a particularly long way and regarded it as the most valuable treasure house of peasant song melodies. Although the success of a stage work could have given his career a powerful impetus at this point, his decision to compose the Bluebeard opera does not appear to have been primarily a strategic one. The symbolically intended play, which was only like a fairy tale in the tone of its language and setting, Bluebeard’s Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára) revolved in its most direct reading around the question of how far self-revelation can go before it becomes a danger to the love between a man and a woman. Other interpretations emphasise the special role being loved plays in self-discovery or recognise Bluebeard’s Castle as a parable of the artist’s strategy for life, paying the price of self-isolation to turn life experiences into sources of inspiration – to name just two approaches that make up the hermeneutic network around the Bluebeard opera. However Bartók understood it, Balázs’s play must have struck a nerve with him. The piece, first published in a theatrical magazine in 1910, was dedicated both to Bartók and his friend Zoltán Kodály. But while the latter could generate little enthusiasm for the Bluebeard drama, the former began setting it to music in
February 1911 – without even waiting to consult Balázs. Once the score was completed in September 1911, it would take another seven years and several reworkings until Bartók’s opera actually reached the stage. The rejection that Bluebeard’s Castle encountered for so long and prevented an early production was targeted not only at Bartók’s music, but even more at Balázs’s unconventional, modern and anarchic play which in Bartók’s hands had turned into a libretto with comparatively few changes. Of course, this cannot have been a source of any comfort. As the blocking of the Bluebeard opera coincided with a lack of artistic recognition elsewhere for his youthful music, for Bartók these years turned into a tangible creative crisis, which was intensified by the war years. Rays of hope during this time came above all from his research into folk songs which would be confronted by previously unknown hurdles only once the war had ended due to the new territorial realities. That a triumph was indeed able to grow out of this phase of artistic failure was mainly due to two things: firstly, in 1918 an exclusive contract was agreed with Universal Edition in Vienna that would suddenly bring Bartók’s music international attention and guarantee attractive distribution channels. And secondly, Bartók’s second stage work, the ballet The Wooden Prince, had achieved a breakthrough success at its world premiere the year before, thus preparing the way for its predecessor Bluebeard’s Castle to be staged. The opera received its belated world premiere in Budapest in 1918. However, it did not become the beginning of a wonderful friendship be-
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