Herzog Blaubarts Burg
I often wonder what qualifies a film for this site. As you may all know, I am a completist and strive to blog everything I watch, but what does “everything” mean? I blog anime when it’s a more or less standalone film (like the amazingly fantastic “Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya”), I blog TV films like Ingmar Bergman’s fascinating “Welt am Draht”, I also blog films that have multiple parts (I would have blogged Kieslowski’s “Decalogue” if I didn’t end up dropping the series in the 10th film), but I don’t blog TV series. When I ask myself if I will blog a certain film, I tend to look at my previous decisions. In this case, this is an opera adaptation made for TV, and there is another precedent in my blog for this, namely Ingmar Bergman’s “Trollflöjten”. So here we are.
However, this little film is nothing to write home about. I care little for this adaptation which looks kind of lackluster and aesthetically a little weird. I actually enjoy some of its weirdness, but it reminded me of “Secretary” in the sense that I thought the aesthetics were a little off. Nevertheless, the characters have no chemistry whatsoever, and the adaptation completely ignores how utterly erotic the opera is, both in its libretto and its music. I have never seen Michael Powell film before, but I am curious in “Peeping Tom” and “The Tales of Hoffmann”. I suspect that this film is actually nothing like his other films and that it probably tells me nothing about them. So my curiosity remains.
As a result, my main motivation to write this blog posting (besides trying to be consistent with my decision to blog “Trollflöjten”) is my desire to simply write about the opera. I don’t blog operas, but sometimes I actually feel like it when one blows my mind as much as this Bartók gem did. I have never been a big fan of the Bluebeard topos, so this opera surpassed my expectations. When I saw it the first time at the Komische Oper in a production by Calixto Bieito (yeah, I know, a hit or miss), I perceived the production as bleak, dark and a little too bloody, but oh man, I adored the lady who played Judith. She had such incredible energy that she felt equivalent to Bluebeard who was towering over her so much that she had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him. This opera is everything I have always wished for: A smart libretto for a chamber piece of only two people, an incredibly intense and erotic relationship drama (which is ultimately murderously dysfunctional) and, uh, a female main character I can identify with. Judith is not just an ignorant victim like the women in the Bluebeard stories often are, but she ruthlessly fights for her love and the curiosity that comes with it. No matter how questionable her actions are, I am struck by how passionate her forcefulness is. I almost suspect that Bartók called her Judith because she is just as strong-willed as the biblical one, and in her story, she is the one who acts.
When I looked up the opera awhile ago, it was played together with Poulenc’s “La Voix Humaine” (while I have seen it together with “Gianni Schicchi” which is a weird combination). I can totally see the parallels: Both are dysfunctional love stories full of devastating obsession, both are chamber operas with only two characters and both have a libretto that touched me to the core. It is surprising to me that an almost lifeless feeling production can take out of it so much, and it makes me curious for other versions of the opera. I strongly suspect that Powell’s “Tales of Hoffmann” will be better than this (because that opera can get pretty far with spectacle and costumes alone).