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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.05/20/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was prepared by A Elizabeth Warren MD, Sacramento, +CA; aewarren2@aol.com + + + + + +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 + diff --git a/3494.zip b/3494.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..575547e --- /dev/null +++ b/3494.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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