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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bluebeard, by Kate Douglas Wiggin
+#19 in our series by Kate Douglas Wiggin
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+Title: Bluebeard
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+Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
+
+Release Date:  October, 2002  [Etext #3494]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bluebeard, by Kate Douglas Wiggin
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+
+NOTE from AEWarren: I am not able to reproduce the themes
+("_Motivs_" or "_Motive_")
+
+
+
+
+BLUEBEARD
+
+A Musical Fantasy
+
+by Kate Douglas Wiggin
+
+
+
+
+Dedication: To my friend Walter Damrosch
+Master of the art form so irreverently treated in these pages.
+Kate Douglas Wiggin
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+More than a dozen years ago musical scholars and critics began to
+illuminate the musical darkness of New York with lecture-recitals
+explanatory of the more abstruse German operas. Previous to this era no one
+had ever thought, for instance, of unfolding the story, or the "_Leit_
+_motive_" (if there happened to be any!), in "The Bohemian Girl,"
+"Maritana," or "Martha." These and many other delightful but thoroughly
+third-class works unfolded themselves as they went along, to the entire
+satisfaction of a public so unbelievably care-free, happy, thoughtless,
+childlike, uninstructed, that it hardly seems as if they could have been
+our ancestors.
+
+Wagner changed all this at a single blow. One could no longer leave one's
+brains with one's hat in the coat-room when the "Nibelungen Ring"appeared!
+Learned critics, pitifully comprehending the fathomless ignorance of the
+people, began to give lectures on the "Ring" to large audiences, mostly of
+ladies, through whom in course of time a certain amount of information
+percolated and reached the husbands--the somewhat circuitous, but only
+possible method by which aesthetic knowledge can be conveyed to the
+American male. Women are hopeless idealists! It is not enough for them that
+their brothers or husbands should pay for the seats at the opera and
+accompany them there, clad in irreproachable evening dress. Not at all!
+They wish them to sit erect, keep awake, and look intelligent, and it is
+but just to say that many of them succeed in doing so. The art-form known
+as the lecture-recital, then, has succeeded in forcibly educating so large
+a section of the public that immense audiences gather at the Metropolitan
+Opera House, one-half of them at least, in a state of such chastened
+susceptibility and erudition that the Tetralogy of Wagner has no terrors
+for them.
+
+The next move was in behalf of the more cryptic, symbolic, hectic, toxic
+works of the ultra-modern French school, which have been so brilliantly
+illuminated by their protagonists that thousands of women in the larger
+cities recognize a master's voice whenever one of his themes is played upon
+the Victrola.
+
+I shall offer my practically priceless manuscript of "Bluebeard" for
+production in French at the Metropolitan, and in English at the Century
+Opera House; meantime Mr. Hammerstein is so impressed with its originality,
+audacity, and tragic power that he is laying the corner-stone for a
+magnificent new building and will open and close it with "Bluebeard" in
+German, if no unforeseen legal complications should prevent.
+
+It is in preparation for all this activity that I issue this brief but
+epoch-making little work.
+
+      KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.  NEW YORK, February, 1914.
+
+
+
+CAST OF CHARACTERS
+
+Bluebeard (_baritone_). Man of enormous wealth but dubious morals. Pioneer
+of the trial-marriage idea.
+
+Fatima (_singing_actress_). Innocent, romantic, frivolous blonde type, rich
+in personal charm, weak in logic and a poor judge of men.
+
+Sister Anne (_soprano_). Impulsive, magnetic, ambitious, highly
+marriageable brunette.
+
+The Mother (_contralto_). Impecunious, mercenary widow, determined to
+settle her daughters in life without any regard to eugenic principles.
+
+Mustapha (_robust_tenor_). Elder brother; the one who has the fat acting
+part since he rescues Fatima and slays Bluebeard.
+
+Other Brothers (_falsettos_). Of no account save to show the size of the
+family  to which Fatima belongs and her mother's sound convictions on the
+subject of race suicide. The other brothers have nothing to do except to
+slay sheep (by accident) when attempting to destroy Bluebeard's tiger and
+elephant.
+
+The  Tiger (_throaty_baritone_). Comic character.
+
+The  Elephant & The Dragon (_basses_). Introduced simply as corroborative
+   detail.
+
+Chorus of Bluebeard's Vassals (_baritones_and_basses_).
+
+Chorus of Headless Wives (_sopranos_and_contraltos_).
+
+Chorus of Sheep (_tenors_).
+
+
+Bluebeard
+
+(Lecture-Recital)
+
+WE are proceeding on the supposition that this music-drama of "Bluebeard"
+is a posthumous work of Richard Wagner. It is said (our authority being a
+late number of the musical and Court Journal, _Die_Fliegende_Bla'tter_)
+that a housemaid, while tidying one of the rooms in a villa formerly
+occupied by the Wagner family in summer, perceived an enormous halo shining
+persistently over a certain bedstead standing against the wall, the said
+halo absolutely refusing to remove itself when attacked with a feather-
+duster. The housemaid thought at first that it was simply an effect of the
+sunlight, but observed subsequently that the halo was just as large, fine
+yellow, opaque, and circular on dark days as on bright ones; consequently,
+on a certain morning when it was so huge and glaring as to be positively
+offensive to the eye, inasmuch as it did not hang over a Holy Family, but
+over an ordinary and somewhat uncomfortable article of furniture, she
+adopted the courageous feminine expedient of looking underneath the bed,
+where she found this priceless legacy of the master reposing in a hat-box
+in which it had lain for nearly half a century, unsuspected, undisturbed.
+
+If this incident is true it is exquisitely pretty and touching; if not, it
+is highly absurd and ridiculous, but the same may be said of many
+hypothetical historical incidents. At all events, the financial
+arrangements which followed upon the discovery of the MS. and the price
+demanded for it by the Wagnerian housemaid convinces me absolutely of its
+authenticity.
+
+To me it is not strange that Wagner should choose to immortalize the story
+of Bluebeard, for the interesting and inspiring myth has been used in all
+ages and in all countries. It differs slightly in the various versions. In
+some, the shade of the villain's beard is robin's-egg and in others indigo;
+in some the fatal key is blood-stained instead of broken; while in the
+matter of wives the myth varies according to the customs of the locality
+where it appears: In monogamous countries the number of ladies slain is
+generally six, but in bigamous and polygamous countries the interesting
+victims mount (they were always hung high, you remember) to the number of
+one hundred and seventeen.
+
+I ought, perhaps, to confess to you that there are critics who still deny
+the authenticity of this work, although they concede that it is full of
+Wagner's spirit and influence and may have been produced by some ardent
+follower or pupil; one steeped to the eyebrows in mythologic lore and
+capable of hurling titanic tonal eccentricities against the uncomprehending
+ear-drum of the dull and ignorant herd. There are those, too, who think
+that some disciple of Richard II.,--Strauss, not Wagner,--had a hand in the
+orchestration, simply because his "Sinfonia Domestica" occupies itself with
+the same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard
+libretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be
+sure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day
+arbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have
+been other days!
+
+The incredulous ones urge that Wagner would never have been drawn to the
+Bluebeard myth as a foundation for a libretto; but for myself I regard its
+selection as a probable reaction, violent, no doubt, from the composition
+of Parsifal. In Parsifal the central themes and the unavoidable conclusion
+are derived from outgrown beliefs that have long since ceased to influence
+the heart of mankind. Parsifal is medieval, mystic, rapt, devout. Its
+ideals are those of celibacy and asceticism, the products of an age whose
+theories and practices as regards sex-relationships can have no echo in
+modern civilization. What more natural than that Wagner should fling
+himself, for mental and emotional relief, into a story throbbing with human
+love and marriage? Neither would some calm domestic drama serve, some story
+of the nursery or hearth-stone, dealing with the relations of one fond
+husband and father, one doting mother and child. As a contrast to the
+asceticism and celibacy of Parsifal we have in Bluebeard rampant and
+tropical polygamy; fervent, untiring connubialism. The ardent and
+susceptible Solomon might have been a more dignified hero, one would think;
+but, although he could furnish wives enough to properly fill the stage, his
+domestic life was not nearly as varied, as thrilling, and as upset as
+Bluebeard's, whose story makes a well-nigh invincible appeal to manager,
+artists, and subscribers alike; and, for that matter, is as likely to be
+popular with box-holders as with the gallery-gods.
+
+This master work enunciates the world law that Woman (symbolized by Fatima,
+Seventh Wife, singing actress) is determined to marry once at any cost; and
+that Man (symbolized by Bluebeard, baritone) is determined, if he marries
+at all, to marry as thoroughly and as often as possible. It holds up to
+scorn the marriage of ambition and convenience on the one hand, but on the
+other, pursues with wrath and vengeance the law-breaker, the indiscriminate
+love-winner, the wife-collector and wife-slayer; and, although women still
+have a strange and persistent fancy for marriage, they might sometimes
+avoid it if they realized that a violent death were the price.
+
+We must first study the musical construction of the overture with which the
+music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares
+the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the
+leading motives appear in this _Vorspiel_ and must be appreciated to be
+understood. First we have the "_Blaubart_motiv_" (Bluebeard Motive). This
+is a theme whose giant march gives us in rhythmic thunders the terrible
+power of the hero.
+
+["_Blaubart_motiv_"]
+
+The "_Blaubart_motiv_" should be constantly kept in mind, as it is a clue
+to much of the later action, being introduced whenever Bluebeard budges an
+inch from his doorstep. We do not hear in it the majestic grandeur of the
+Wotan or Walsungen motifs, and why? Simply because it was not intended to
+illustrate godlike power, but _brute_force_.
+
+Now if this were all, we had no more to say; but listen!
+
+[Immer-wieder-heirathen Motiv]
+
+What does this portend--this entrance of another theme, written for the
+treble clef, played with the right hand, but mysteriously interwoven with
+the bass? What but that Bluebeard is not to be the sole personage in this
+music-drama; and we judge the stranger to be a female on account of the
+overwhelming circumstantial evidence just given.
+
+Bluebeard, when first introduced--you remember the movement, one of somber
+grandeur leading upward to vague desire was alone and lonely. Certainly the
+first, probably the second. If his mood were that of settled despair,
+typical of a widower determined never to marry again no matter what the
+provocation, the last note of the phrase would have been projected
+_downward_; but, as you must have perceived, the melody terminates in a
+tone of something like hope. There is no assurance in it--do not
+misunderstand me; there is no particular lady projected in the musical
+text--that would have been indelicate, for we do not know at the moment
+precisely the date when Bluebeard hung up his last wife; but there _is_ a
+groping discontent. At the opening of the drama we have not been informed
+whether Bluebeard has ever been married at all or only a few times, but we
+feel that he craves companionship, and we know when we hear this
+"_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_" (Always About to Marry Again Motive)
+that he secures it. The sex created expressly to furnish companionship will
+go on doing so, even if it has to be hung up in the process.
+
+Look again at the second theme, the "_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_"
+(Always About to Marry Again Motive). Do you note a mysterious reflection
+of the first theme in it? Certainly; it would be evident even to a
+chattering opera-party of the highest social circles. But why is this, asks
+the sordid American business man, who goes to the music-drama absolutely
+unfitted in mind and body to solve its great psychological questions. Not
+because Wagner could not have evolved a dozen _Leit-Motive_ for every
+measure, but for a more exquisitely refined and subtle reason. The wife is
+often found to be more or less a reflection of her husband, especially in
+Germany, therefore an entirely new and original motive would have been out
+of place. It is this extraordinary insight into the human mind which brings
+us to the feet of the master in reverential awe; and it detracts nothing
+from his fame that his themes descriptive of average femininity would have
+been quite different had he written them for the women of this epoch. The
+world moves rapidly. This motive slips with a series of imperceptible
+musical glides into the "_Siebente-Frau_Motiv_" (Seventh Wife Motive):
+Bluebeard enters well in advance; Fatima, contrapuntally obedient, coming
+in a little behind.
+
+[Siebente-Frau Motiv]
+
+This Fatima, or Seventh Wife Motive seems to be written in a curiously low
+key if we conceive it to be the index to the character of a soprano
+heroine; but let us look further. What are the two principal personages in
+the music-drama to be to each other?
+
+If _enemies_, the phrase would have been written thus: [separation of 5
+octaves]
+
+If _acquaintances_, thus: [separation of 3 octaves]
+
+If _friends_, thus: [separation of 1 octave]
+
+If _lovers_, thus: [separation of less than one octave]
+
+the ardent and tropical treble note leaving its own proper sphere and
+nestling cozily down in the bass staff. But the hero and heroine of the
+music-drama were husband and wife; therefore the phrases are intertwined
+sufficiently for propriety, but not too closely for pleasure. We might also
+say, considering Fatima's probable fate, that we cannot wonder that she
+sings in a low key; and the exceedingly involved contrapuntal complications
+in which the motive terminates hint perhaps at Wagner's opinion on the
+momentous question,"Is marriage a failure?"
+
+Next we have the "_Bruder_Hoch_zu_Ross_Motiv_" (Brothers on a High Horse
+Motive), announced by sparkling Tetrazzini chromatics, always at sixes and
+sevens, darting and dashing, centaur-like, in semi-demi-quavers, like
+horses' manes and tails mounting skyward, whinnyingly. Fatima's brothers
+have come to make a wedding visit to their beloved sister, whom they
+believe happily united to a nobleman of high degree. They have also come
+because in a music-drama action is demanded and choruses are desirable;
+being noisy, impressive, popular, comparatively cheap, and the participants
+less temperamental in character than soloists, therefore more easily
+managed.
+
+[Bruder Hoch zu Ross Motiv] (with devil-may-care speed.)
+
+If you miss some of the wonderful sinuosity, some of the musical curvatures
+of the similar "Horses in a Hurry Motive" in "Die Walku're," I can only
+suggest that the Brothers' mounts were not as the fleet steeds of the gods.
+Fatima's people were living in genteel poverty, and the family horses were
+doubtless some-what emaciated; therefore the musical realist could not in
+honesty depict them other than in an angular rather than curved movement.
+
+The overture next takes up the arrival of the Brothers, who, as the music
+plainly assures us, dismount, feed their steeds, perform a simple toilette
+at the stable-yard pump, and then come suddenly upon Bluebeard, whose
+frenzy for disposing of fresh wives is as sudden and as all-absorbing as
+his desire to annex them. At the moment of the Brothers' opportune arrival
+Bluebeard is on the point of severing Fatima's relations with the world.
+The Brothers advance. A cloud of dust envelops them; they rush forward,
+dealing telling blows, and the frantic bleating of fleeing sheep is heard
+in a wild double-tonguing of the united brass instruments, very effective,
+especially in the open air, though a little trying to nervous ladies in the
+front rows of an opera-house. This is the celebrated
+"_Kilkennische_Katzen_Motiv_" (Motive of Mortal Combat). It is a syncopated
+movement, and when given at the piano, is to be played furiously, first
+with one hand and then with the other, till the performer is quite weary.
+
+[Kilkennische Katzen Motiv] (ad infinitum, until one is deceased)
+
+We find all through these measures most peculiar phrases, introduced by
+half-formed musical rhythms, which are a presentiment of the mental unrest
+and nervous prostration of Fatima, who does not know whether Bluebeard will
+kill the Brothers or the Brothers will kill Bluebeard. She has never been
+an opera-goer and does not realize that there are inexorable laws in these
+matters and that the villain always dies; that he agrees in his contract to
+die, no matter how healthy he may be, no matter how much he dislikes it nor
+how slight the provocation. However, this scene is made notable by the
+famous "Suspense Motive," one hundred and seven-teen bars of doubt given by
+the big brasses and contra-bassoons.
+
+There is much in this sort of programme music that is not easily
+intelligible to a young man who, having purchased an admission ticket, is
+wandering from back to back of one opera-box after another; but when fully
+comprehended, these special phrases are replete with emotion and insight.
+Several motives are so dexterously woven into one gush of melody that they
+cannot be disentangled by any ordinary method, and have to be wrenched
+apart by the enthusiast, who employs, when milder means fail, a sort of
+intellectual dynamite to extricate the meaning from the score. With the aid
+of this lecture, which is better than an ear-trumpet and a
+magnifying-glass, we can, however, trace a "_Schwert_Motiv_" (Sword
+Motive), showing the weapons used in the combat; the "_Glu'ckseligkeit_
+_Motiv_" (Felicity Motive), well named, for we must remember that Fatima is
+witnessing the duel from the castle window, her heart beating high at the
+prospect of widowhood; and, toward the end, the famous
+"_Ausgespielt_Motiv_" (Motive of Spent Strength and Spilled Blood).
+
+[Glu'ckseligkeit Motiv]
+
+[Ausgespielt Motiv]
+
+The "_Ausgespielt_Motiv_" is written in four flats, but as a matter of fact
+only one person is flat, viz.: Blue-beard, who has just been slain by
+Mustapha. The other three flats must refer to the sheep accidentally hit by
+the younger brothers, who aim for Bluebeard, but miss him, being
+indifferent marksmen.
+
+Why does the union of these _motive_, "_Bruder_Hoch_zu_Ross" (Brothers on a
+High Horse), "_Kilkennische_Katzen_" (Mortal Combat), "_Schwert_" (Sword),
+"_Glu'ckseligkeit_" (Felicity of Fatima), and "_Ausgespielt_" (Spent
+Strength and Spilled Blood), when blended in one majestically discordant
+whole, produce upon us a feeling of profound grief mingled with hysterical
+mirth?
+
+[Ensemble Motiv Blaubart-Schwert-_Glu'ckseligkeit_-Leichen]
+
+And why do the measures grow more and more sad as they melt into the
+touching "_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_" (Blood-on-the-Moon Motive)?
+
+[Blut auf dem Mond Motiv] (slowly and with infinite pathos)
+
+Simply because in a mortal combat somebody is invariably wounded and
+sometimes killed. Wagner sang of human life as it is, not as it might,
+could, would, or should be. From the "_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_"
+(Blood-on-the-Moon Motive) we glide at once into a dirge, the "_Leichen_,"
+or Corpse, Motive, one of those superb funeral marches with which we are
+familiar in the other music-dramas of Wagner; for the master, though not an
+Irishman, is never so happy as on these funeral occasions.
+
+[Leichen Motiv]
+
+If any brainless and bigoted box-holder should ask why the "_Blaubart_
+_Motiv_" is repeated in this funeral march, I ask him in return how he
+expects otherwise to know who is killed? Will he take the trouble to
+reflect that these are the motives of the _Vorspiel_, and that the curtain
+has not yet risen on the music-drama?
+
+But why, he asks, do we hear an undercurrent of mirth pulsating joyously
+through the prevailing sadness of this "Leichen_Motiv_," or funeral march?
+Simply because we cannot be expected to feel the same unmixed grief at the
+death of a wife-murderer as at the death of a wife-preserver! Ah, where
+shall we find again so subtle a reading of the throbbing heart of humanity!
+
+The "_Schwert_Motiv_" mingles again with the haunting strains of the
+half-sad, half-glad "_Leichen_Motiv_," until the _Vorspiel_ ends abruptly
+with a single note of ineffable meaning, thus:
+
+[Tod und Ho'lle Motiv] (off the keyboard to the left)
+
+This is very interesting to the student, and means much, if it means
+any-thing. The sword of the elder brother, Mustapha, has gone through
+Bluebeard, if not the swords of the other Brothers. This, you say, might
+not have been necessarily fatal, since those hardy ruffians of a bygone age
+were proof against many a stab; but in this case the sword of the heroic
+Mustapha was accompanied by the killing "Schwert Motiv," consequently the
+villain is dead.
+
+But what has become of him? We have the one clue only, which will be known
+by all students in future as the "_Tod_und_Ho'lle_ _Motiv_," just given
+above: Bluebeard has gone where we will not follow him unless we are
+obliged. Is this asserting too much? Alas, it is only too evident. If it
+had been Wagner's intention to refer to the glorious immortality of a
+godlike hero, we should have had the exquisite strains of a heavenly harp,
+thus:
+
+[rising arpeggios]
+
+or the whir of angels' wings, thus:
+
+[trills off the right-hand end of the keyboard]
+
+And a final significant note, thus:
+
+[a good 1 « inches above the treble staff] (Stretch the keyboard a little
+if necessary and play a half, if there is not room for a whole note.)
+
+whose piercing sweetness and dizzy altitude would have symbolized Heaven,
+or at least _Walhalla_.
+
+Alas, it is all too plain. We have this:
+
+[1 inch below the bass staff]
+
+enough in itself to show his whereabouts; and as if that were not enough,
+this:
+
+[_Verdammungs_Motiv_] (Allegro frantico.) [2 dissonances, « and 1 inches
+below the bass staff]
+
+to show that he is uncomfortable!
+
+It will be interesting for the student to note the difference between the
+"_Verdammungs_Motiv_" of "Bluebeard" and the" Damnation Motive" of Wagner's
+earlier opera, "Tannha'user."
+
+[Damnation Motive]
+
+Both are strong, tragic, and powerful, but the sins of Bluebeard are gross
+and those of Tannha'user subtle; consequently the peril of each is
+foreshadowed in its own way, it being very clear that Bluebeard's fate is
+final, while Tannha'user, as we know, is saved by the spiritual influence
+of Elizabeth, a very different lady indeed from the frivolous and mercenary
+Fatima.
+
+
+The plot of this music-drama itself is made beautifully clear by this
+_Vorspiel_ and lecture-recital, so that even a mother and child at a
+matine'e can follow the tone-pictures without difficulty; but the libretto,
+which is a remarkable specimen of Wagner's alliterative verse, only helps
+the more to rivet attention and compel admiration. I have given you an idea
+of the brief overture, and the opera itself opens with a somber recitative,
+descriptive or symbolic of the Dark Ages of Juvenile Literature.
+
+
+RECITATIVE
+
+"The Dark Ages of Juvenile Literature do not afford a chronicle of greater
+atrocity!
+
+"Than that furnished by a very glum, grim, gruesome, gory, but
+connubially-minded gentleman, whose ugly blue beard was a perfect
+monstrosity!
+
+"He also had an unfortunate predilection for leading unattached ladies to
+the altar, constantly marrying wives, six wives, successively one after
+another, on a regular railroad of matrimonial velocity!
+
+"But, finding them _in_toto_, all very so-so, determined to turn each one
+of them into a good woman by cutting off her head!
+
+"As a punishment for the most unmitigatedly determined and persevering
+female curiosity!"
+
+(With naivete') "But to our tale!"
+
+The "tale" introduces the lovely, luckless Fatima, sitting at her cottage
+window, dreaming the dreams of girl-hood. She has received Bluebeard's
+message of love, and is awaiting his coming as the hero of her heart's
+romance. This "_Traum_" theme is almost precisely like the "Guileless Fool
+Motive" of "Parsifal," and the application to Fatima is unmistakable.
+
+ARIA
+
+"Within sight of his castle, a short hour's ride,
+"An impecunious old lady lived, two marriageable and impecunious daughters
+beside,
+"Whom Bluebeard had seen and at love's highest pitch
+"Sent to say he would marry, he didn't care which!
+"Sent to say he would marry, he didn't care which!"
+
+We now have Bluebeard's triumphal journey toward Fatima's cottage, from
+whence he is to bring her as his bride. If this brutal bigamist had any
+preference it was for Anne, Fatima's younger sister, but he knew that it
+was only a matter of a few weeks anyway, so there is not the slightest hint
+in the music of anything but the tempered joy with which the accustomed
+bridegroom approaches the familiar altar.
+
+We have the "Blaubart Motiv" again here, and we must not be disturbed to
+find it heralded thus:
+
+(noisily and fussily: Repeated deep notes)
+
+We find the same thing later on. This is merely an introductory phrase, the
+"_Losgehenlassen_Motiv_" (See Me Getting Ready to Go Motive). Here we note
+Wagner's sublime regard for truth and realism. Does Bluebeard go--does
+anybody go--without getting ready to go? Certainly not; yet they have gone
+for years when-ever they liked, in the shiftless operas of the Italian
+school, without the least preparation. They would even come back before
+they went, if it were any more pleasing, pictorial, or melodious. It took a
+heroic genius like that of Wagner to return to the simple, eternal truth of
+things. We have a striking example here of Wagner's power of modifying and
+inverting a motive, carrying it from key to key, giving it forwards and
+backwards, upside down and other-end-to, according to the feeling he wishes
+it to express, whether it be love, rage, desire, impatience, ardor, or what
+not. The "_Losgehenlassen_Motiv_" is simplicity itself when it first
+appears in C major (see motive). But Bluebeard's exits are many --partly
+because his entrances are so numerous--and for every exit this motive
+conveys a new meaning. Blue-beard is always getting ready to go, but with
+what different purposes in mind! He goes for pastime and for passion; he
+goes for wooing and for wantoning; for marriage and for murder. He goes in
+D sharp with pomp, pride, and power, and we can distinguish the tread of
+his servants' feet, the clatter of arms, and the hurrying together of his
+escort and retinue. He goes again in B flat minor, stealthily and
+unattended, the orchestra giving the motive with muted violins and subdued
+brass. We seem to hear naught but the soft pad-pad of his felt bedroom
+slippers on the marble steps, and we murmur to one another: "What does he
+propose to do now?
+
+We have next the "Dragon," "Elephant," and "Tiger" _motive_: the "Dragon
+Motive" being intentionally reminiscent of the one in "Siegfried."
+
+There is not in the entire range of modern music anything more impressive
+than this splendid journey of a barbaric prince toward his chosen victim.
+No stage picture could be more dazzling than the one brought before the
+mind's eye in the majestic, munificent measures that herald the pageant:
+
+ARIA
+
+"And true to his message the lover did come
+With cymbals and horns and a big Indian drum!
+
+The measures that follow these describe the tiger swinging on behind the
+triumphal cab. This is a delicious whimsicality, and the music is as gay
+and sportive as anything in "Die Meistersinger."
+
+ARIA
+
+"And an elephant, huge, to his cab... was confined."....
+
+How the character of Bluebeard stands out in these passages--Bluebeard,
+morbid, erotic, megalophonous megalomaniac, with his grandiose air and
+outlandish accoutrements!
+
+It seems odd that rumors of his matrimonial past had not reached Fatima,
+for the libretto tells us (authorized opera-house edition, not the one sold
+on the sidewalk) that his castle was only an hour's ride distant. In any
+event, one would think the sight of the lover's approach, with lions and
+elephants in attendance and a tiger hanging on behind the chariot, might
+have shown Fatima that, although Bluebeard might be admirable as an advance
+agent for a menagerie, he would hardly be a pleasant fireside companion.
+However, it was the old story! Moved by love, ambition, poverty, ennui, or
+what not, Fatima lost her head, as all Bluebeard's previous wives had done,
+both before and after marriage, and left the humble home of her childhood
+for the unknown castle. Simple chords give us this information thus:
+
+(Semplice, piano for the Humble Home; Agitato, fortissimo for the Unknown
+Castle.)
+
+Then comes the "_Liebesgruss_Motiv_" (Love's Greeting Motive). No single
+instrument can give this exquisite theme. The whole symphony of human
+nature seems to rise and spread its wings in a glorious harmony of pairs
+and twos of a kind melting in passionate octaves and triplets.   The
+groping, ardent, distracted, thwarted, but ever protesting bass, set
+against a coquettish, evasive, yet timidly yielding treble; the occasional
+introduction of a mysterious minor in the midst of a well-authenticated
+major, gives us an intimation that wooing is not an exact science.
+
+Next come the "_Hochzeitsreise_und_Flitter_Wochen_Motive_" (The Bridal Tour
+and Honeymoon motives). Here are harp _glissandos_; here are voices
+soaring, voices roaring, voices darting, voices floating, weaving an
+audible embroidery of sound. They make up the most exquisitely tender scene
+of the opera, and arc especially interesting to us in America, since they
+are built upon one of our national songs. This can only be regarded as a
+flattering recognition of our support of German opera in this country.
+
+ARIA
+
+"Midst the treasures of his palaces, dee-lighted to roam,
+
+"Sister Anne with fair Fatima explored their new home!
+"Home! Home! Sweet, sweet Home!
+"There's no place like home when a maid's too poor to roam!"
+
+It is later on in this act that we have the celebrated "Hope Motive," a
+marvelous series of tone-pictures so novel and sensational that many box-
+holders are expected to drop in at ten-thirty for the excitement of this
+one brief scene. The motive wanders from key to key, hoping that in the end
+it will hit off the right one. Fatima is hoping to find her ideal in
+Bluebeard. Sister Anne is hoping to get a handsomer husband than Fatima's;
+Blue-beard is hoping that Sister Anne will be his eighth spouse, and hoping
+that there will be room to hang her in the hidden chamber, in which his
+deceased wives are already pressed for room. All this is reflected in the
+voices of the singers, together with many other emotions. They hope that
+they will be able to come in just enough after or enough before, the usual
+time of entrance, to rivet the conductor's attention; that they will be
+preserved from falling into one another's parts; that they will not be
+drowned by the orchestra; that they will be able to mount the dizzying
+heights of a precipitous chromatic scale and manage an unrehearsed descent
+in fifths on the half-notes--something that always causes intense joy in an
+uneducated audience, especially when it is unsuccessful.
+
+This scene runs the gamut of human emotion. The universe is mirrored in it.
+First, one of the themes which we have noted, and then another, is sounded,
+bringing to the bearer's mind all the crucial moments of Bluebeard's
+strange, perverted, wife-pursuing life, as well as all the aspirations and
+disappointments of Fatima's ambitious but checkered career. All the while
+that this complicated web of motives is being woven out of unresolved
+dissonances, the thirty first violins keep on playing the same three notes
+in ever-precipitated rhythms. This is radical, audacious, and effective.
+The notes are G flat, A sharp, and B natural, and the world reels as we
+hear them. Everything is ours in this scene--orchestration, vocalization,
+dramatization, characterization, gesticulation, auditory inflammation,
+cacophonation, demoralization, adumbration.
+
+There is an abrupt change of key after the "Honeymoon Motive" from sweetest
+major to a piercing minor. This is exquisitely sincere and symbolic, though
+it is a point too delicate to be perceived save by musicians who have
+married but have not been able to hang up their wives. The libretto goes on
+to say:
+
+"The honeymoon passed when a letter one day
+"Upon urgent affairs called Lord Bluebeard away--
+"To inspection, sweet love, all my castle I leave,
+"But remember with this key be on the _qui_vive_!
+"It is not a natural key--think of that!
+"My sword's in the key of one sharp, and that's flat!
+"(Then he half drew his blade, and it was sharp and flat.)"
+
+From this point the music-drama hastens tragically to a close. We have
+Bluebeard's sudden (and feigned) journey, introduced by a pompous march of
+great originality:
+
+MARCH (Pomposo. Decrescendo.....sempre p pp ppp)
+
+Then we have the fatal curiosity of Fatima and her sister Anne. We must
+extenuate here, nor aught set down in malice, remembering that Wagner knew
+only the women of his own day, before the sex was uplifted and purified by
+the vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that
+were then a part of their unhappy heritage. This "_Neugierde_Motiv_"
+(Curiosity Motive) is made up of agitated, sharply accentuated sixteenth
+notes played with incredible vivacity and culminating in a terrifying
+orchestral crash where entrance is made into the hidden chamber, with its
+famous tableau so eloquent of the polygamous instinct of man; an instinct
+only kept in subjection by the most stringent laws and the most militant
+domestic discipline.
+
+ANTI-FEMINIST ARIA
+
+"But Fatima said, 'To the keyhole let's creep,
+"There can be no harm just in one little peep!
+"We are women--besides, there are none to behold us!
+"If he wished us to leave it, he shouldn't have told us!'"
+
+It is these inexcusable lines which have caused the Feminist party to
+boycott (and perhaps rightly) any opera-house in which this drama is given,
+urging that they contain an insult which can be wiped out only with blood
+or ballots. I sympathize with this feeling, yet, as I said before, there
+are extenuating circumstances. Wagner was born a hundred years ago. In his
+time the hand of woman, though white, was flabby and inert from years of
+darning, patching, stirring the pot, buttoning and unbuttoning, feeding and
+spanking man's perennial progeny. He had no conception how that frail hand
+would be steadied and strengthened by dropping the ballot into the box; how
+curiosity, vanity, parasitic coquetry, lack of logic, overweening interest
+in millinery and inability to balance a check-book--how these weaknesses
+would vanish under the inspiring influences of municipal politics;
+therefore I feel disposed to forgive him, and to attribute to him, not
+absolute and deliberate insult, so much as a kind of patronizing
+persiflage. In this case, however, feminists will say that the great Wagner
+undoubtedly and regrettably overreached himself.
+
+Here is just a hint of the theme; a paltry, parasitic, mid-Victorian
+motive.
+
+CURIOSITY ARIA
+
+Curiosity conquer'd, the Key was applied,
+And with  thunder most awful the door opened wide.
+
+Now comes the much discussed "Chorus of Headless Wives," which is a
+distinct prophecy of Debussy. You have noted in late musical criticisms
+allusions to the "ghosts of themes" used in "Pelleas and Melisande,"--
+"Sound-wraiths wandering in air." Here we have the same thing and employed
+with exquisite appropriateness. The ladies hanging in the secret chamber
+are mere bodies, their heads being decidedly off stage. When the door is
+opened the wives begin to sing _a_la'_ Debussy, the ghostly effect being
+secured by the fact that it is not, of course, the _present_bodies_, but
+the _absent_heads_ that are supposed to be singing. The melodic wraiths
+float from the key of G flat--I use "key" in the old-fashioned sense, for
+the word, like the thing itself, is fast disappearing--through one and four
+sharps back to two and three flats, employing all signatures but that of C
+major. Six sets of severed vocal organs meandering in space would hardly
+use the natural key!
+
+Then we have the opening of the mysterious door; the unexpected return of
+Bluebeard; the hysterics of the ill-fated sisters, with plenty of shrieking
+and swooning motives; and then the celebrated "_Hammelfleisch_" or "Mutton"
+motive, where Sister Anne, from her post in the high tower, observes for a
+long time nothing but sheep.
+
+"But, alas! Sister Anne, only saw a few sheep, then, nothing!"
+
+Now  there is the thrilling and opportune arrival of the Brothers on their
+high horses; the mortal combat; the death of the villain by the
+"_Schwert_Motiv_"; the joyous funeral march; and then the superb duet
+between Mustapha, the eldest brother, and Fatima, the ill-fated heroine. We
+get astonishing color contrasts in the last scene, as each character is
+allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment. Bluebeard has six
+sackbuts, a trumpet, a _viol_d'amore_, and a Chinese temple gong; Fatima,
+three lutes, an arch-lute, and a pianola; Mustapha a bass-drum and a
+harpsichord; and Sister Anne a pair of virginals. (An exquisite touch,
+this!) To Bluebeard's servants are allotted barrel-organs, accordions,
+jews'-harps, mandolins, bagpipes, and triangles. All this gives a tonal
+splendor that simply beggars description.
+
+When the combat is over and Bluebeard's immense body is prone and lifeless
+in the dust, Wagner suddenly leaves tragedy and gives us a melodious duet
+between the brother and sister on the theme: "What can equal a brother's
+love?" This duet and _finale_ unite to form a masterpiece; a deserved
+rebuke to any cynic who may consider that Wagner could not adopt the
+enervating methods of the Italian school if he desired. His cadenzas here
+are miracles of compressed technique, and, although the melody is
+conventional, the music itself is never for a moment simple or
+intelligible.
+
+
+--------Suggested arrangement of orchestra for presentation of Bluebeard------
+==============================================================================
+First violins (union)       Prompter's Private       First violins (non-union)
+                                Parlour
+                          _____________________
+                                Conductor
+______________________________________________________________________________
+Organ                       Horns  Flutes Harps                       Pianola
+                                Second Violins
+______________________________________________________________________________
+Lutes                                                          Mandolins
+Arch Lutes            Kettledrums         Battery              Zithers
+Mouth Organs            Megaphones        Chinese Temple Gong  Guitars
+Double Bassoons                                                Banjos
+______________________________________________________________________________
+Tuba  Trombones                Woodwinds                       Drums
+Bagpipes                       Sackbuts                        Triangles
+Virginals                      Viol d'Amore                    B-flat Cornet
+Exit to Fire Escape                                           Accordions
+==============================================================================
+
+Fatima, singing actress (whose part here is written almost entirely in
+appoggiaturas), and Mustapha, baritone, hold the stage; the one who draws
+the largest salary occupying the center and the other standing wherever he
+can find room. Mustapha, taking care to descend as low in his scale as
+Fatima ascends high in hers, and vying with her in exceeding the
+speed-limit, sings "Oh ra-ha-ha-hap-ture !" several times, varied by "What
+can e-he-he-he-qual a brother's love?" Then, using the same words, they
+sing as much as possible in unison to the end of the scene, which closes
+with a fantasy of capricious arabesques and a series of trills on notes
+seldom heard from any but the high-est-priced human lips.
+
+Ah! What joy!.....What rap---ture! What can e---qual a brother's love?
+Oh joy!........Oh joy!.........Oh, joy!........
+(Cadenza according to the skill of the performer.)
+
+Whether Wagner followed the Italian school in this case in sarcasm, or
+because he believed it was fitting, considering the subject, can never be
+known (though we remember that he was at one time a great admirer of
+Bellini); but the result is a melodious and restful ending to a tragedy
+which, were it carried to the end in unbroken gloom, mystery, and carnage,
+would be too terrible and too vast for human endurance and human
+comprehension. Yet let us be just! The libretto is full of barbaric
+brutalities; it is replete with blood and carnage; but, although Bluebeard
+was emphatically not a nice person, and his vices cannot be condoned, and
+although Fatima was wrong in marrying for an establishment and most
+culpable in yielding to her curiosity, still, virtue triumphs in the end.
+The story, as a whole, is fairly murmurous with morality, sending young men
+and women to their homes impressed with the risks and snares involved in
+bigamy and polygamy, and giving them an added sense of the security and
+gravity of the marriage tie when sparingly used.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Bluebeard, by Kate Douglas Wiggin
+
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