Naomi van den Broek reviews Bluebeard’s Castle, by Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs, as reimagined by Theatre of Sound, presented by New Zealand Opera and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, at the Christchurch Town Hall, Saturday 12 August 2023. Image credits: Latitude Creative.
Bluebeard’s Castle, presented in collaboration by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) and New Zealand Opera (NZO) is as close to perfection as anything I’ve seen staged in New Zealand recently, and I’m happy it’s been staged in Ōtautahi Christchurch (which almost makes up for me having to travel to see NZO’s (M)Orpheus later this year). This extravagant production pulls out all the stops, featuring two international soloists and a 95-piece orchestra with organ, double harp, celeste, and additional brass located in the choir stalls. The stage of the Douglas Lilburn Auditorium has an approximately four metre thrust added to the front apron to accommodate the numbers onstage, and a huge amount of additional lighting, including about 20 lamps either standing or suspended over the musicians. The front of the stage houses a long shallow set consisting of an armchair, a pile of old-fashioned suitcases, and two side tables containing various artifacts of the couple’s long marriage.
This production is a new interpretation, by Theatre of Sound, of Bartók’s only opera, and was first staged in the UK in 2021. While the original opera is loosely based on the infamous fairytale, this production reimagines the story, centering it on an aging couple facing the challenge of the wife’s dementia. While it’s hard to imagine this on paper, this re-conception works extremely well, and I wonder if part of it is not the universality of archetypal storytelling. In the original, Judith is a new wife, coming to the home of Bluebeard, demanding he open seven locked doors to let in light, ultimately finding herself captive to the knowledge of what lies behind them. In her seminal work Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés has an entire chapter on the Bluebeard story, noting, “For women, the key always symbolizes entrée to a mystery or into knowledge… The key, the questions cannot be hidden or forgotten. They must be asked. They must be answered.” In this production, a confused and frightened Judith is unlocking the doors (suitcases) onto scenes of the couple’s past, while Bluebeard tries to console her, to help her know and remember, and to keep her safe and comforted as she struggles to understand what the memories reveal.
That this New Zealand production has been assembled in a fortnight for two one-night-only performances in Christchurch and Wellington is nothing short of magic! Huge amounts of work from stage and production management would have gone into presenting this seamless performance, and I hope the crew have a well-earned drink waiting for them after what will no doubt be a mammoth pack out. The production values are high across the board, with the set and costuming creating a naturalistic and believable world for the performers to inhabit, as well as being laden with symbolism to tell the story that lies written between the lines of the text of this particular production. The lighting is especially effective and I am glad to see that lighting designer, Jake Wiltshire, gets to join the cast and musicians onstage for the curtain call. The final lighting sequence is utterly exquisite, leaving the entire hall in darkness that the audience took a full five seconds to break with applause.
The challenge of directing a work with 95 musicians, a conductor, a set, and up to five actors on stage in some moments, in a space that is not a theatre, is expertly managed by revival director Stephen Higgins. I have to admit my heart is in my throat with actors traversing very narrow entrances and exits, at speed, through string sections, but there are no casualties. The acting is universally excellent, with my only small gripe being that when the text is spare, having performers give the appearance of talking can sometimes come off as ‘peas and carrots’ acting and I wonder if this couldn’t be more effectively managed with looks and gestures. Another challenge faced in the staging is the creaking of the thrust, which intrudes in some of the more intimate and musically spare moments. In a production requiring a fair amount of work from the audience to read the cues of what is not being told by the text, I also wonder if costuming the actor playing 1990s Judith in a way that created less of a height disparity with the other three Judiths wouldn’t have been quite a simple fix? Lastly, I’m intrigued to see that for a production staged only in Wellington and Christchruch, all the New Zealand pick up cast are based out of Auckland. Does NZO not know that actors also live in other centres? This is no disparagement of the work delivered by the non-singing cast, which is excellent, just an acknowledgement of the frustration and invisibility that performers living outside of Auckland often feel.
Under the baton of maestro Lawrence Renes, the musicians of the NZSO are not here to muck around! Bartók’s orchestration is simply stunning, and whether it be from exposed flute solos to rich tutti passages, the orchestra plays magnificently. Hearing 95 musicians playing at fortissimo in the Douglas Lilburn auditorium is a blood-stirring experience BUT the major issue this performance has is balance. THIS IS THE HILL I WILL DIE ON: If a company is staging a work with singers delivering text and they are repeatedly drowned out by the music (band or orchestra or canned) to the point where they can’t be heard six rows from the front of the stage, then why perform vocal centric work? I love hearing the full forces of the orchestra, but they were not pulling back at all in passages where the singers are performing lower in their range; this is a zero sum game for the singers. Yes, opera singers are trained to project, but competing with a huge orchestra that is performing on the same stage is a herculean task where compromises need to be made. I’d be keen to know if the UK version of the production had the orchestra on stage, what type of venue it was performed in, and whether – although a dirty word in some circles – the singers were amplified.
Regardless, the night absolutely belongs to Susan Bullock (Judith) and Lester Lynch (Bluebeard). This work is a tour-de-force for the two singers, and they are nothing short of world-class. Their vocal performances and acting are nuanced, artistic and technically assured. Their chemistry is electrifying, and their ability to wring so much meaning out of such spare text is sublime. Bullock’s delivery the repeated line (paraphrased) “Such a fair and spacious country” is heartwrenchingly intimate, and by the time Lynch sings to her (again, paraphrased) “Every night is yours hereafter” my tears are definitely falling. One of the things I love about opera is that it seems like one of the few performing arts where there isn’t a best before date for performers. Spending an evening in close proximity with such experienced and commanding performers is a rare gift.
As I leave the auditorium, I stop to check on a youngish woman openly weeping in her seat. She reassures me she’s fine, simply overwhelmed and overcome by what she’s just experienced. Me too, babe, me too.
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