"Love me, be silent, ask no questions!" begs Bluebeard. But young Judith, entering the sombre home of her lover, does not listen to him. Fascinated by the dark and murderous side of love, succumbing to the mad illusion that she can save the man she loves from the tragedy she suspects, consumed by curiosity and jealousy, she opens the seven doors of the seven rooms dripping with blood and tears to which she wanted the keys. Béla Bartók's only opera, first performed in Budapest in 1918, is strongly inspired by Debussy's only opera Pelléas et Mélisande. There is no trace of psychological realism here: "Let the music speak", the prologue tells us.
Ukrainian director Andriy Zholdak, who trained at Anatoli Vassiliev's school in Moscow, also designed the stage and lighting. He has chosen to give two successive interpretations of the opera, like two hypotheses about the unconscious at work, the two faces, redeeming and murderous, of love.