{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3494/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3494","id":"gutenberg_3494","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3494","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Music -- Humor"],"text":"Ver.05/20/01*END*[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart\nand may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.]\n[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales\nof Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or\nsoftware or any other related product without express permission.]\n\n\n\n\n\nThis etext was prepared by A Elizabeth Warren MD, Sacramento,\nCA; aewarren2@aol.com\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTE from AEWarren: I am not able to reproduce the themes\n(\"_Motivs_\" or \"_Motive_\")\n\n\n\n\nBLUEBEARD\n\nA Musical Fantasy\n\nby Kate Douglas Wiggin\n\n\n\n\nDedication: To my friend Walter Damrosch\nMaster of the art form so irreverently treated in these pages.\nKate Douglas Wiggin\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nMore than a dozen years ago musical scholars and critics began to\nilluminate the musical darkness of New York with lecture-recitals\nexplanatory of the more abstruse German operas. Previous to this era no one\nhad ever thought, for instance, of unfolding the story, or the \"_Leit_\n_motive_\" (if there happened to be any!), in \"The Bohemian Girl,\"\n\"Maritana,\" or \"Martha.\" These and many other delightful but thoroughly\nthird-class works unfolded themselves as they went along, to the entire\nsatisfaction of a public so unbelievably care-free, happy, thoughtless,\nchildlike, uninstructed, that it hardly seems as if they could have been\nour ancestors.\n\nWagner changed all this at a single blow. One could no longer leave one's\nbrains with one's hat in the coat-room when the \"Nibelungen Ring\"appeared!\nLearned critics, pitifully comprehending the fathomless ignorance of the\npeople, began to give lectures on the \"Ring\" to large audiences, mostly of\nladies, through whom in course of time a certain amount of information\npercolated and reached the husbands--the somewhat circuitous, but only\npossible method by which aesthetic knowledge can be conveyed to the\nAmerican male. Women are hopeless idealists! It is not enough for them that\ntheir brothers or husbands should pay for the seats at the opera and\naccompany them there, clad in irreproachable evening dress. Not at all!\nThey wish them to sit erect, keep awake, and look intelligent, and it is\nbut just to say that many of them succeed in doing so. The art-form known\nas the lecture-recital, then, has succeeded in forcibly educating so large\na section of the public that immense audiences gather at the Metropolitan\nOpera House, one-half of them at least, in a state of such chastened\nsusceptibility and erudition that the Tetralogy of Wagner has no terrors\nfor them.\n\nThe next move was in behalf of the more cryptic, symbolic, hectic, toxic\nworks of the ultra-modern French school, which have been so brilliantly\nilluminated by their protagonists that thousands of women in the larger\ncities recognize a master's voice whenever one of his themes is played upon\nthe Victrola.\n\nI shall offer my practically priceless manuscript of \"Bluebeard\" for\nproduction in French at the Metropolitan, and in English at the Century\nOpera House; meantime Mr. Hammerstein is so impressed with its originality,\naudacity, and tragic power that he is laying the corner-stone for a\nmagnificent new building and will open and close it with \"Bluebeard\" in\nGerman, if no unforeseen legal complications should prevent.\n\nIt is in preparation for all this activity that I issue this brief but\nepoch-making little work.\n\n      KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.  NEW YORK, February, 1914.\n\n\n\nCAST OF CHARACTERS\n\nBluebeard (_baritone_). Man of enormous wealth but dubious morals. Pioneer\nof the trial-marriage idea.\n\nFatima (_singing_actress_). Innocent, romantic, frivolous blonde type, rich\nin personal charm, weak in logic and a poor judge of men.\n\nSister Anne (_soprano_). Impulsive, magnetic, ambitious, highly\nmarriageable brunette.\n\nThe Mother (_contralto_). Impecunious, mercenary widow, determined to\nsettle her daughters in life without any regard to eugenic principles.\n\nMustapha (_robust_tenor_). Elder brother; the one who has the fat acting\npart since he rescues Fatima and slays Bluebeard.\n\nOther Brothers (_falsettos_). Of no account save to show the size of the\nfamily  to which Fatima belongs and her mother's sound convictions on the\nsubject of race suicide. The other brothers have nothing to do except to\nslay sheep (by accident) when attempting to destroy Bluebeard's tiger and\nelephant.\n\nThe  Tiger (_throaty_baritone_). Comic character.\n\nThe  Elephant & The Dragon (_basses_). Introduced simply as corroborative\n   detail.\n\nChorus of Bluebeard's Vassals (_baritones_and_basses_).\n\nChorus of Headless Wives (_sopranos_and_contraltos_).\n\nChorus of Sheep (_tenors_).\n\n\nBluebeard\n\n(Lecture-Recital)\n\nWE are proceeding on the supposition that this music-drama of \"Bluebeard\"\nis a posthumous work of Richard Wagner. It is said (our authority being a\nlate number of the musical and Court Journal, _Die_Fliegende_Bla'tter_)\nthat a housemaid, while tidying one of the rooms in a villa formerly\noccupied by the Wagner family in summer, perceived an enormous halo shining\npersistently over a certain bedstead standing against the wall, the said\nhalo absolutely refusing to remove itself when attacked with a feather-\nduster. The housemaid thought at first that it was simply an effect of the\nsunlight, but observed subsequently that the halo was just as large, fine\nyellow, opaque, and circular on dark days as on bright ones; consequently,\non a certain morning when it was so huge and glaring as to be positively\noffensive to the eye, inasmuch as it did not hang over a Holy Family, but\nover an ordinary and somewhat uncomfortable article of furniture, she\nadopted the courageous feminine expedient of looking underneath the bed,\nwhere she found this priceless legacy of the master reposing in a hat-box\nin which it had lain for nearly half a century, unsuspected, undisturbed.\n\nIf this incident is true it is exquisitely pretty and touching; if not, it\nis highly absurd and ridiculous, but the same may be said of many\nhypothetical historical incidents. At all events, the financial\narrangements which followed upon the discovery of the MS. and the price\ndemanded for it by the Wagnerian housemaid convinces me absolutely of its\nauthenticity.\n\nTo me it is not strange that Wagner should choose to immortalize the story\nof Bluebeard, for the interesting and inspiring myth has been used in all\nages and in all countries. It differs slightly in the various versions. In\nsome, the shade of the villain's beard is robin's-egg and in others indigo;\nin some the fatal key is blood-stained instead of broken; while in the\nmatter of wives the myth varies according to the customs of the locality\nwhere it appears: In monogamous countries the number of ladies slain is\ngenerally six, but in bigamous and polygamous countries the interesting\nvictims mount (they were always hung high, you remember) to the number of\none hundred and seventeen.\n\nI ought, perhaps, to confess to you that there are critics who still deny\nthe authenticity of this work, although they concede that it is full of\nWagner's spirit and influence and may have been produced by some ardent\nfollower or pupil; one steeped to the eyebrows in mythologic lore and\ncapable of hurling titanic tonal eccentricities against the uncomprehending\near-drum of the dull and ignorant herd. There are those, too, who think\nthat some disciple of Richard II.,--Strauss, not Wagner,--had a hand in the\norchestration, simply because his \"Sinfonia Domestica\" occupies itself with\nthe same sweet history of the inglenook which is the basis of the Bluebeard\nlibretto. Strauss's symphony is worked out along more tranquil lines, to be\nsure, but it is only the history of a single day of married life and a day\narbitrarily chosen by the composer. It is conceivable that there may have\nbeen other days!\n\nThe incredulous ones urge that Wagner would never have been drawn to the\nBluebeard myth as a foundation for a libretto; but for myself I regard its\nselection as a probable reaction, violent, no doubt, from the composition\nof Parsifal. In Parsifal the central themes and the unavoidable conclusion\nare derived from outgrown beliefs that have long since ceased to influence\nthe heart of mankind. Parsifal is medieval, mystic, rapt, devout. Its\nideals are those of celibacy and asceticism, the products of an age whose\ntheories and practices as regards sex-relationships can have no echo in\nmodern civilization. What more natural than that Wagner should fling\nhimself, for mental and emotional relief, into a story throbbing with human\nlove and marriage? Neither would some calm domestic drama serve, some story\nof the nursery or hearth-stone, dealing with the relations of one fond\nhusband and father, one doting mother and child. As a contrast to the\nasceticism and celibacy of Parsifal we have in Bluebeard rampant and\ntropical polygamy; fervent, untiring connubialism. The ardent and\nsusceptible Solomon might have been a more dignified hero, one would think;\nbut, although he could furnish wives enough to properly fill the stage, his\ndomestic life was not nearly as varied, as thrilling, and as upset as\nBluebeard's, whose story makes a well-nigh invincible appeal to manager,\nartists, and subscribers alike; and, for that matter, is as likely to be\npopular with box-holders as with the gallery-gods.\n\nThis master work enunciates the world law that Woman (symbolized by Fatima,\nSeventh Wife, singing actress) is determined to marry once at any cost; and\nthat Man (symbolized by Bluebeard, baritone) is determined, if he marries\nat all, to marry as thoroughly and as often as possible. It holds up to\nscorn the marriage of ambition and convenience on the one hand, but on the\nother, pursues with wrath and vengeance the law-breaker, the indiscriminate\nlove-winner, the wife-collector and wife-slayer; and, although women still\nhave a strange and persistent fancy for marriage, they might sometimes\navoid it if they realized that a violent death were the price.\n\nWe must first study the musical construction of the overture with which the\nmusic-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares\nthe spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the\nleading motives appear in this _Vorspiel_ and must be appreciated to be\nunderstood. First we have the \"_Blaubart_motiv_\" (Bluebeard Motive). This\nis a theme whose giant march gives us in rhythmic thunders the terrible\npower of the hero.\n\n[\"_Blaubart_motiv_\"]\n\nThe \"_Blaubart_motiv_\" should be constantly kept in mind, as it is a clue\nto much of the later action, being introduced whenever Bluebeard budges an\ninch from his doorstep. We do not hear in it the majestic grandeur of the\nWotan or Walsungen motifs, and why? Simply because it was not intended to\nillustrate godlike power, but _brute_force_.\n\nNow if this were all, we had no more to say; but listen!\n\n[Immer-wieder-heirathen Motiv]\n\nWhat does this portend--this entrance of another theme, written for the\ntreble clef, played with the right hand, but mysteriously interwoven with\nthe bass? What but that Bluebeard is not to be the sole personage in this\nmusic-drama; and we judge the stranger to be a female on account of the\noverwhelming circumstantial evidence just given.\n\nBluebeard, when first introduced--you remember the movement, one of somber\ngrandeur leading upward to vague desire was alone and lonely. Certainly the\nfirst, probably the second. If his mood were that of settled despair,\ntypical of a widower determined never to marry again no matter what the\nprovocation, the last note of the phrase would have been projected\n_downward_; but, as you must have perceived, the melody terminates in a\ntone of something like hope. There is no assurance in it--do not\nmisunderstand me; there is no particular lady projected in the musical\ntext--that would have been indelicate, for we do not know at the moment\nprecisely the date when Bluebeard hung up his last wife; but there _is_ a\ngroping discontent. At the opening of the drama we have not been informed\nwhether Bluebeard has ever been married at all or only a few times, but we\nfeel that he craves companionship, and we know when we hear this\n\"_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_\" (Always About to Marry Again Motive)\nthat he secures it. The sex created expressly to furnish companionship will\ngo on doing so, even if it has to be hung up in the process.\n\nLook again at the second theme, the \"_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_\"\n(Always About to Marry Again Motive). Do you note a mysterious reflection\nof the first theme in it? Certainly; it would be evident even to a\nchattering opera-party of the highest social circles. But why is this, asks\nthe sordid American business man, who goes to the music-drama absolutely\nunfitted in mind and body to solve its great psychological questions. Not\nbecause Wagner could not have evolved a dozen _Leit-Motive_ for every\nmeasure, but for a more exquisitely refined and subtle reason. The wife is\noften found to be more or less a reflection of her husband, especially in\nGermany, therefore an entirely new and original motive would have been out\nof place. It is this extraordinary insight into the human mind which brings\nus to the feet of the master in reverential awe; and it detracts nothing\nfrom his fame that his themes descriptive of average femininity would have\nbeen quite different had he written them for the women of this epoch. The\nworld moves rapidly. This motive slips with a series of imperceptible\nmusical glides into the \"_Siebente-Frau_Motiv_\" (Seventh Wife Motive):\nBluebeard enters well in advance; Fatima, contrapuntally obedient, coming\nin a little behind.\n\n[Siebente-Frau Motiv]\n\nThis Fatima, or Seventh Wife Motive seems to be written in a curiously low\nkey if we conceive it to be the index to the character of a soprano\nheroine; but let us look further. What are the two principal personages in\nthe music-drama to be to each other?\n\nIf _enemies_, the phrase would have been written thus: [separation of 5\noctaves]\n\nIf _acquaintances_, thus: [separation of 3 octaves]\n\nIf _friends_, thus: [separation of 1 octave]\n\nIf _lovers_, thus: [separation of less than one octave]\n\nthe ardent and tropical treble note leaving its own proper sphere and\nnestling cozily down in the bass staff. But the hero and heroine of the\nmusic-drama were husband and wife; therefore the phrases are intertwined\nsufficiently for propriety, but not too closely for pleasure. We might also\nsay, considering Fatima's probable fate, that we cannot wonder that she\nsings in a low key; and the exceedingly involved contrapuntal complications\nin which the motive terminates hint perhaps at Wagner's opinion on the\nmomentous question,\"Is marriage a failure?\"\n\nNext we have the \"_Bruder_Hoch_zu_Ross_Motiv_\" (Brothers on a High Horse\nMotive), announced by sparkling Tetrazzini chromatics, always at sixes and\nsevens, darting and dashing, centaur-like, in semi-demi-quavers, like\nhorses' manes and tails mounting skyward, whinnyingly. Fatima's brothers\nhave come to make a wedding visit to their beloved sister, whom they\nbelieve happily united to a nobleman of high degree. They have also come\nbecause in a music-drama action is demanded and choruses are desirable;\nbeing noisy, impressive, popular, comparatively cheap, and the participants\nless temperamental in character than soloists, therefore more easily\nmanaged.\n\n[Bruder Hoch zu Ross Motiv] (with devil-may-care speed.)\n\nIf you miss some of the wonderful sinuosity, some of the musical curvatures\nof the similar \"Horses in a Hurry Motive\" in \"Die Walku're,\" I can only\nsuggest that the Brothers' mounts were not as the fleet steeds of the gods.\nFatima's people were living in genteel poverty, and the family horses were\ndoubtless some-what emaciated; therefore the musical realist could not in\nhonesty depict them other than in an angular rather than curved movement.\n\nThe overture next takes up the arrival of the Brothers, who, as the music\nplainly assures us, dismount, feed their steeds, perform a simple toilette\nat the stable-yard pump, and then come suddenly upon Bluebeard, whose\nfrenzy for disposing of fresh wives is as sudden and as all-absorbing as\nhis desire to annex them. At the moment of the Brothers' opportune arrival\nBluebeard is on the point of severing Fatima's relations with the world.\nThe Brothers advance. A cloud of dust envelops them; they rush forward,\ndealing telling blows, and the frantic bleating of fleeing sheep is heard\nin a wild double-tonguing of the united brass instruments, very effective,\nespecially in the open air, though a little trying to nervous ladies in the\nfront rows of an opera-house. This is the celebrated\n\"_Kilkennische_Katzen_Motiv_\" (Motive of Mortal Combat). It is a syncopated\nmovement, and when given at the piano, is to be played furiously, first\nwith one hand and then with the other, till the performer is quite weary.\n\n[Kilkennische Katzen Motiv] (ad infinitum, until one is deceased)\n\nWe find all through these measures most peculiar phrases, introduced by\nhalf-formed musical rhythms, which are a presentiment of the mental unrest\nand nervous prostration of Fatima, who does not know whether Bluebeard will\nkill the Brothers or the Brothers will kill Bluebeard. She has never been\nan opera-goer and does not realize that there are inexorable laws in these\nmatters and that the villain always dies; that he agrees in his contract to\ndie, no matter how healthy he may be, no matter how much he dislikes it nor\nhow slight the provocation. However, this scene is made notable by the\nfamous \"Suspense Motive,\" one hundred and seven-teen bars of doubt given by\nthe big brasses and contra-bassoons.\n\nThere is much in this sort of programme music that is not easily\nintelligible to a young man who, having purchased an admission ticket, is\nwandering from back to back of one opera-box after another; but when fully\ncomprehended, these special phrases are replete with emotion and insight.\nSeveral motives are so dexterously woven into one gush of melody that they\ncannot be disentangled by any ordinary method, and have to be wrenched\napart by the enthusiast, who employs, when milder means fail, a sort of\nintellectual dynamite to extricate the meaning from the score. With the aid\nof this lecture, which is better than an ear-trumpet and a\nmagnifying-glass, we can, however, trace a \"_Schwert_Motiv_\" (Sword\nMotive), showing the weapons used in the combat; the \"_Glu'ckseligkeit_\n_Motiv_\" (Felicity Motive), well named, for we must remember that Fatima is\nwitnessing the duel from the castle window, her heart beating high at the\nprospect of widowhood; and, toward the end, the famous\n\"_Ausgespielt_Motiv_\" (Motive of Spent Strength and Spilled Blood).\n\n[Glu'ckseligkeit Motiv]\n\n[Ausgespielt Motiv]\n\nThe \"_Ausgespielt_Motiv_\" is written in four flats, but as a matter of fact\nonly one person is flat, viz.: Blue-beard, who has just been slain by\nMustapha. The other three flats must refer to the sheep accidentally hit by\nthe younger brothers, who aim for Bluebeard, but miss him, being\nindifferent marksmen.\n\nWhy does the union of these _motive_, \"_Bruder_Hoch_zu_Ross\" (Brothers on a\nHigh Horse), \"_Kilkennische_Katzen_\" (Mortal Combat), \"_Schwert_\" (Sword),\n\"_Glu'ckseligkeit_\" (Felicity of Fatima), and \"_Ausgespielt_\" (Spent\nStrength and Spilled Blood), when blended in one majestically discordant\nwhole, produce upon us a feeling of profound grief mingled with hysterical\nmirth?\n\n[Ensemble Motiv Blaubart-Schwert-_Glu'ckseligkeit_-Leichen]\n\nAnd why do the measures grow more and more sad as they melt into the\ntouching \"_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_\" (Blood-on-the-Moon Motive)?\n\n[Blut auf dem Mond Motiv] (slowly and with infinite pathos)\n\nSimply because in a mortal combat somebody is invariably wounded and\nsometimes killed. Wagner sang of human life as it is, not as it might,\ncould, would, or should be. From the \"_Blut_auf_dem_Mond_Motiv_\"\n(Blood-on-the-Moon Motive) we glide at once into a dirge, the \"_Leichen_,\"\nor Corpse, Motive, one of those superb funeral marches with which we are\nfamiliar in the other music-dramas of Wagner; for the master, though not an\nIrishman, is never so happy as on these funeral occasions.\n\n[Leichen Motiv]\n\nIf any brainless and bigoted box-holder should ask why the \"_Blaubart_\n_Motiv_\" is repeated in this funeral march, I ask him in return how he\nexpects otherwise to know who is killed? Will he take the trouble to\nreflect that these are the motives of the _Vorspiel_, and that the curtain\nhas not yet risen on the music-drama?\n\nBut why, he asks, do we hear an undercurrent of mirth pulsating joyously\nthrough the prevailing sadness of this \"Leichen_Motiv_,\" or funeral march?\nSimply because we cannot be expected to feel the same unmixed grief at the\ndeath of a wife-murderer as at the death of a wife-preserver! Ah, where\nshall we find again so subtle a reading of the throbbing heart of humanity!\n\nThe \"_Schwert_Motiv_\" mingles again with the haunting strains of the\nhalf-sad, half-glad \"_Leichen_Motiv_,\" until the _Vorspiel_ ends abruptly\nwith a single note of ineffable meaning, thus:\n\n[Tod und Ho'lle Motiv] (off the keyboard to the left)\n\nThis is very interesting to the student, and means much, if it means\nany-thing. The sword of the elder brother, Mustapha, has gone through\nBluebeard, if not the swords of the other Brothers. This, you say, might\nnot have been necessarily fatal, since those hardy ruffians of a bygone age\nwere proof against many a stab; but in this case the sword of the heroic\nMustapha was accompanied by the killing \"Schwert Motiv,\" consequently the\nvillain is dead.\n\nBut what has become of him? We have the one clue only, which will be known\nby all students in future as the \"_Tod_und_Ho'lle_ _Motiv_,\" just given\nabove: Bluebeard has gone where we will not follow him unless we are\nobliged. Is this asserting too much? Alas, it is only too evident. If it\nhad been Wagner's intention to refer to the glorious immortality of a\ngodlike hero, we should have had the exquisite strains of a heavenly harp,\nthus:\n\n[rising arpeggios]\n\nor the whir of angels' wings, thus:\n\n[trills off the right-hand end of the keyboard]\n\nAnd a final significant note, thus:\n\n[a good 1 \u00ab inches above the treble staff] (Stretch the keyboard a little\nif necessary and play a half, if there is not room for a whole note.)\n\nwhose piercing sweetness and dizzy altitude would have symbolized Heaven,\nor at least _Walhalla_.\n\nAlas, it is all too plain. We have this:\n\n[1 inch below the bass staff]\n\nenough in itself to show his whereabouts; and as if that were not enough,\nthis:\n\n[_Verdammungs_Motiv_] (Allegro frantico.) [2 dissonances, \u00ab and 1 inches\nbelow the bass staff]\n\nto show that he is uncomfortable!\n\nIt will be interesting for the student to note the difference between the\n\"_Verdammungs_Motiv_\" of \"Bluebeard\" and the\" Damnation Motive\" of Wagner's\nearlier opera, \"Tannha'user.\"\n\n[Damnation Motive]\n\nBoth are strong, tragic, and powerful, but the sins of Bluebeard are gross\nand those of Tannha'user subtle; consequently the peril of each is\nforeshadowed in its own way, it being very clear that Bluebeard's fate is\nfinal, while Tannha'user, as we know, is saved by the spiritual influence\nof Elizabeth, a very different lady indeed from the frivolous and mercenary\nFatima.\n\n\nThe plot of this music-drama itself is made beautifully clear by this\n_Vorspiel_ and lecture-recital, so that even a mother and child at a\nmatine'e can follow the tone-pictures without difficulty; but the libretto,\nwhich is a remarkable specimen of Wagner's alliterative verse, only helps\nthe more to rivet attention and compel admiration. I have given you an idea\nof the brief overture, and the opera itself opens with a somber recitative,\ndescriptive or symbolic of the Dark Ages of Juvenile Literature.\n\n\nRECITATIVE\n\n\"The Dark Ages of Juvenile Literature do not afford a chronicle of greater\natrocity!\n\n\"Than that furnished by a very glum, grim, gruesome, gory, but\nconnubially-minded gentleman, whose ugly blue beard was a perfect\nmonstrosity!\n\n\"He also had an unfortunate predilection for leading unattached ladies to\nthe altar, constantly marrying wives, six wives, successively one after\nanother, on a regular railroad of matrimonial velocity!\n\n\"But, finding them _in_toto_, all very so-so, determined to turn each one\nof them into a good woman by cutting off her head!\n\n\"As a punishment for the most unmitigatedly determined and persevering\nfemale curiosity!\"\n\n(With naivete') \"But to our tale!\"\n\nThe \"tale\" introduces the lovely, luckless Fatima, sitting at her cottage\nwindow, dreaming the dreams of girl-hood. She has received Bluebeard's\nmessage of love, and is awaiting his coming as the hero of her heart's\nromance. This \"_Traum_\" theme is almost precisely like the \"Guileless Fool\nMotive\" of \"Parsifal,\" and the application to Fatima is unmistakable.\n\nARIA\n\n\"Within sight of his castle, a short hour's ride,\n\"An impecunious old lady lived, two marriageable and impecunious daughters\nbeside,\n\"Whom Bluebeard had seen and at love's highest pitch\n\"Sent to say he would marry, he didn't care which!\n\"Sent to say he would marry, he didn't care which!\"\n\nWe now have Bluebeard's triumphal journey toward Fatima's cottage, from\nwhence he is to bring her as his bride. If this brutal bigamist had any\npreference it was for Anne, Fatima's younger sister, but he knew that it\nwas only a matter of a few weeks anyway, so there is not the slightest hint\nin the music of anything but the tempered joy with which the accustomed\nbridegroom approaches the familiar altar.\n\nWe have the \"Blaubart Motiv\" again here, and we must not be disturbed to\nfind it heralded thus:\n\n(noisily and fussily: Repeated deep notes)\n\nWe find the same thing later on. This is merely an introductory phrase, the\n\"_Losgehenlassen_Motiv_\" (See Me Getting Ready to Go Motive). Here we note\nWagner's sublime regard for truth and realism. Does Bluebeard go--does\nanybody go--without getting ready to go? Certainly not; yet they have gone\nfor years when-ever they liked, in the shiftless operas of the Italian\nschool, without the least preparation. They would even come back before\nthey went, if it were any more pleasing, pictorial, or melodious. It took a\nheroic genius like that of Wagner to return to the simple, eternal truth of\nthings. We have a striking example here of Wagner's power of modifying and\ninverting a motive, carrying it from key to key, giving it forwards and\nbackwards, upside down and other-end-to, according to the feeling he wishes\nit to express, whether it be love, rage, desire, impatience, ardor, or what\nnot. The \"_Losgehenlassen_Motiv_\" is simplicity itself when it first\nappears in C major (see motive). But Bluebeard's exits are many --partly\nbecause his entrances are so numerous--and for every exit this motive\nconveys a new meaning. Blue-beard is always getting ready to go, but with\nwhat different purposes in mind! He goes for pastime and for passion; he\ngoes for wooing and for wantoning; for marriage and for murder. He goes in\nD sharp with pomp, pride, and power, and we can distinguish the tread of\nhis servants' feet, the clatter of arms, and the hurrying together of his\nescort and retinue. He goes again in B flat minor, stealthily and\nunattended, the orchestra giving the motive with muted violins and subdued\nbrass. We seem to hear naught but the soft pad-pad of his felt bedroom\nslippers on the marble steps, and we murmur to one another: \"What does he\npropose to do now?\n\nWe have next the \"Dragon,\" \"Elephant,\" and \"Tiger\" _motive_: the \"Dragon\nMotive\" being intentionally reminiscent of the one in \"Siegfried.\"\n\nThere is not in the entire range of modern music anything more impressive\nthan this splendid journey of a barbaric prince toward his chosen victim.\nNo stage picture could be more dazzling than the one brought before the\nmind's eye in the majestic, munificent measures that herald the pageant:\n\nARIA\n\n\"And true to his message the lover did come\nWith cymbals and horns and a big Indian drum!\n\nThe measures that follow these describe the tiger swinging on behind the\ntriumphal cab. This is a delicious whimsicality, and the music is as gay\nand sportive as anything in \"Die Meistersinger.\"\n\nARIA\n\n\"And an elephant, huge, to his cab... was confined.\"....\n\nHow the character of Bluebeard stands out in these passages--Bluebeard,\nmorbid, erotic, megalophonous megalomaniac, with his grandiose air and\noutlandish accoutrements!\n\nIt seems odd that rumors of his matrimonial past had not reached Fatima,\nfor the libretto tells us (authorized opera-house edition, not the one sold\non the sidewalk) that his castle was only an hour's ride distant. In any\nevent, one would think the sight of the lover's approach, with lions and\nelephants in attendance and a tiger hanging on behind the chariot, might\nhave shown Fatima that, although Bluebeard might be admirable as an advance\nagent for a menagerie, he would hardly be a pleasant fireside companion.\nHowever, it was the old story! Moved by love, ambition, poverty, ennui, or\nwhat not, Fatima lost her head, as all Bluebeard's previous wives had done,\nboth before and after marriage, and left the humble home of her childhood\nfor the unknown castle. Simple chords give us this information thus:\n\n(Semplice, piano for the Humble Home; Agitato, fortissimo for the Unknown\nCastle.)\n\nThen comes the \"_Liebesgruss_Motiv_\" (Love's Greeting Motive). No single\ninstrument can give this exquisite theme. The whole symphony of human\nnature seems to rise and spread its wings in a glorious harmony of pairs\nand twos of a kind melting in passionate octaves and triplets.   The\ngroping, ardent, distracted, thwarted, but ever protesting bass, set\nagainst a coquettish, evasive, yet timidly yielding treble; the occasional\nintroduction of a mysterious minor in the midst of a well-authenticated\nmajor, gives us an intimation that wooing is not an exact science.\n\nNext come the \"_Hochzeitsreise_und_Flitter_Wochen_Motive_\" (The Bridal Tour\nand Honeymoon motives). Here are harp _glissandos_; here are voices\nsoaring, voices roaring, voices darting, voices floating, weaving an\naudible embroidery of sound. They make up the most exquisitely tender scene\nof the opera, and arc especially interesting to us in America, since they\nare built upon one of our national songs. This can only be regarded as a\nflattering recognition of our support of German opera in this country.\n\nARIA\n\n\"Midst the treasures of his palaces, dee-lighted to roam,\n\n\"Sister Anne with fair Fatima explored their new home!\n\"Home! Home! Sweet, sweet Home!\n\"There's no place like home when a maid's too poor to roam!\"\n\nIt is later on in this act that we have the celebrated \"Hope Motive,\" a\nmarvelous series of tone-pictures so novel and sensational that many box-\nholders are expected to drop in at ten-thirty for the excitement of this\none brief scene. The motive wanders from key to key, hoping that in the end\nit will hit off the right one. Fatima is hoping to find her ideal in\nBluebeard. Sister Anne is hoping to get a handsomer husband than Fatima's;\nBlue-beard is hoping that Sister Anne will be his eighth spouse, and hoping\nthat there will be room to hang her in the hidden chamber, in which his\ndeceased wives are already pressed for room. All this is reflected in the\nvoices of the singers, together with many other emotions. They hope that\nthey will be able to come in just enough after or enough before, the usual\ntime of entrance, to rivet the conductor's attention; that they will be\npreserved from falling into one another's parts; that they will not be\ndrowned by the orchestra; that they will be able to mount the dizzying\nheights of a precipitous chromatic scale and manage an unrehearsed descent\nin fifths on the half-notes--something that always causes intense joy in an\nuneducated audience, especially when it is unsuccessful.\n\nThis scene runs the gamut of human emotion. The universe is mirrored in it.\nFirst, one of the themes which we have noted, and then another, is sounded,\nbringing to the bearer's mind all the crucial moments of Bluebeard's\nstrange, perverted, wife-pursuing life, as well as all the aspirations and\ndisappointments of Fatima's ambitious but checkered career. All the while\nthat this complicated web of motives is being woven out of unresolved\ndissonances, the thirty first violins keep on playing the same three notes\nin ever-precipitated rhythms. This is radical, audacious, and effective.\nThe notes are G flat, A sharp, and B natural, and the world reels as we\nhear them. Everything is ours in this scene--orchestration, vocalization,\ndramatization, characterization, gesticulation, auditory inflammation,\ncacophonation, demoralization, adumbration.\n\nThere is an abrupt change of key after the \"Honeymoon Motive\" from sweetest\nmajor to a piercing minor. This is exquisitely sincere and symbolic, though\nit is a point too delicate to be perceived save by musicians who have\nmarried but have not been able to hang up their wives. The libretto goes on\nto say:\n\n\"The honeymoon passed when a letter one day\n\"Upon urgent affairs called Lord Bluebeard away--\n\"To inspection, sweet love, all my castle I leave,\n\"But remember with this key be on the _qui_vive_!\n\"It is not a natural key--think of that!\n\"My sword's in the key of one sharp, and that's flat!\n\"(Then he half drew his blade, and it was sharp and flat.)\"\n\nFrom this point the music-drama hastens tragically to a close. We have\nBluebeard's sudden (and feigned) journey, introduced by a pompous march of\ngreat originality:\n\nMARCH (Pomposo. Decrescendo.....sempre p pp ppp)\n\nThen we have the fatal curiosity of Fatima and her sister Anne. We must\nextenuate here, nor aught set down in malice, remembering that Wagner knew\nonly the women of his own day, before the sex was uplifted and purified by\nthe vote, and he naturally depicted them with the man-engendered vices that\nwere then a part of their unhappy heritage. This \"_Neugierde_Motiv_\"\n(Curiosity Motive) is made up of agitated, sharply accentuated sixteenth\nnotes played with incredible vivacity and culminating in a terrifying\norchestral crash where entrance is made into the hidden chamber, with its\nfamous tableau so eloquent of the polygamous instinct of man; an instinct\nonly kept in subjection by the most stringent laws and the most militant\ndomestic discipline.\n\nANTI-FEMINIST ARIA\n\n\"But Fatima said, 'To the keyhole let's creep,\n\"There can be no harm just in one little peep!\n\"We are women--besides, there are none to behold us!\n\"If he wished us to leave it, he shouldn't have told us!'\"\n\nIt is these inexcusable lines which have caused the Feminist party to\nboycott (and perhaps rightly) any opera-house in which this drama is given,\nurging that they contain an insult which can be wiped out only with blood\nor ballots. I sympathize with this feeling, yet, as I said before, there\nare extenuating circumstances. Wagner was born a hundred years ago. In his\ntime the hand of woman, though white, was flabby and inert from years of\ndarning, patching, stirring the pot, buttoning and unbuttoning, feeding and\nspanking man's perennial progeny. He had no conception how that frail hand\nwould be steadied and strengthened by dropping the ballot into the box; how\ncuriosity, vanity, parasitic coquetry, lack of logic, overweening interest\nin millinery and inability to balance a check-book--how these weaknesses\nwould vanish under the inspiring influences of municipal politics;\ntherefore I feel disposed to forgive him, and to attribute to him, not\nabsolute and deliberate insult, so much as a kind of patronizing\npersiflage. In this case, however, feminists will say that the great Wagner\nundoubtedly and regrettably overreached himself.\n\nHere is just a hint of the theme; a paltry, parasitic, mid-Victorian\nmotive.\n\nCURIOSITY ARIA\n\nCuriosity conquer'd, the Key was applied,\nAnd with  thunder most awful the door opened wide.\n\nNow comes the much discussed \"Chorus of Headless Wives,\" which is a\ndistinct prophecy of Debussy. You have noted in late musical criticisms\nallusions to the \"ghosts of themes\" used in \"Pelleas and Melisande,\"--\n\"Sound-wraiths wandering in air.\" Here we have the same thing and employed\nwith exquisite appropriateness. The ladies hanging in the secret chamber\nare mere bodies, their heads being decidedly off stage. When the door is\nopened the wives begin to sing _a_la'_ Debussy, the ghostly effect being\nsecured by the fact that it is not, of course, the _present_bodies_, but\nthe _absent_heads_ that are supposed to be singing. The melodic wraiths\nfloat from the key of G flat--I use \"key\" in the old-fashioned sense, for\nthe word, like the thing itself, is fast disappearing--through one and four\nsharps back to two and three flats, employing all signatures but that of C\nmajor. Six sets of severed vocal organs meandering in space would hardly\nuse the natural key!\n\nThen we have the opening of the mysterious door; the unexpected return of\nBluebeard; the hysterics of the ill-fated sisters, with plenty of shrieking\nand swooning motives; and then the celebrated \"_Hammelfleisch_\" or \"Mutton\"\nmotive, where Sister Anne, from her post in the high tower, observes for a\nlong time nothing but sheep.\n\n\"But, alas! Sister Anne, only saw a few sheep, then, nothing!\"\n\nNow  there is the thrilling and opportune arrival of the Brothers on their\nhigh horses; the mortal combat; the death of the villain by the\n\"_Schwert_Motiv_\"; the joyous funeral march; and then the superb duet\nbetween Mustapha, the eldest brother, and Fatima, the ill-fated heroine. We\nget astonishing color contrasts in the last scene, as each character is\nallotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment. Bluebeard has six\nsackbuts, a trumpet, a _viol_d'amore_, and a Chinese temple gong; Fatima,\nthree lutes, an arch-lute, and a pianola; Mustapha a bass-drum and a\nharpsichord; and Sister Anne a pair of virginals. (An exquisite touch,\nthis!) To Bluebeard's servants are allotted barrel-organs, accordions,\njews'-harps, mandolins, bagpipes, and triangles. All this gives a tonal\nsplendor that simply beggars description.\n\nWhen the combat is over and Bluebeard's immense body is prone and lifeless\nin the dust, Wagner suddenly leaves tragedy and gives us a melodious duet\nbetween the brother and sister on the theme: \"What can equal a brother's\nlove?\" This duet and _finale_ unite to form a masterpiece; a deserved\nrebuke to any cynic who may consider that Wagner could not adopt the\nenervating methods of the Italian school if he desired. His cadenzas here\nare miracles of compressed technique, and, although the melody is\nconventional, the music itself is never for a moment simple or\nintelligible.\n\n\n--------Suggested arrangement of orchestra for presentation of Bluebeard------\n==============================================================================\nFirst violins (union)       Prompter's Private       First violins (non-union)\n                                Parlour\n                          _____________________\n                                Conductor\n______________________________________________________________________________\nOrgan                       Horns  Flutes Harps                       Pianola\n                                Second Violins\n______________________________________________________________________________\nLutes                                                          Mandolins\nArch Lutes            Kettledrums         Battery              Zithers\nMouth Organs            Megaphones        Chinese Temple Gong  Guitars\nDouble Bassoons                                                Banjos\n______________________________________________________________________________\nTuba  Trombones                Woodwinds                       Drums\nBagpipes                       Sackbuts                        Triangles\nVirginals                      Viol d'Amore                    B-flat Cornet\nExit to Fire Escape                                           Accordions\n==============================================================================\n\nFatima, singing actress (whose part here is written almost entirely in\nappoggiaturas), and Mustapha, baritone, hold the stage; the one who draws\nthe largest salary occupying the center and the other standing wherever he\ncan find room. Mustapha, taking care to descend as low in his scale as\nFatima ascends high in hers, and vying with her in exceeding the\nspeed-limit, sings \"Oh ra-ha-ha-hap-ture !\" several times, varied by \"What\ncan e-he-he-he-qual a brother's love?\" Then, using the same words, they\nsing as much as possible in unison to the end of the scene, which closes\nwith a fantasy of capricious arabesques and a series of trills on notes\nseldom heard from any but the high-est-priced human lips.\n\nAh! What joy!.....What rap---ture! What can e---qual a brother's love?\nOh joy!........Oh joy!.........Oh, joy!........\n(Cadenza according to the skill of the performer.)\n\nWhether Wagner followed the Italian school in this case in sarcasm, or\nbecause he believed it was fitting, considering the subject, can never be\nknown (though we remember that he was at one time a great admirer of\nBellini); but the result is a melodious and restful ending to a tragedy\nwhich, were it carried to the end in unbroken gloom, mystery, and carnage,\nwould be too terrible and too vast for human endurance and human\ncomprehension. Yet let us be just! The libretto is full of barbaric\nbrutalities; it is replete with blood and carnage; but, although Bluebeard\nwas emphatically not a nice person, and his vices cannot be condoned, and\nalthough Fatima was wrong in marrying for an establishment and most\nculpable in yielding to her curiosity, still, virtue triumphs in the end.\nThe story, as a whole, is fairly murmurous with morality, sending young men\nand women to their homes impressed with the risks and snares involved in\nbigamy and polygamy, and giving them an added sense of the security and\ngravity of the marriage tie when sparingly used.","title":"Bluebeard; a musical fantasy","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":6641}