Cisjordanie / 2014
© Philippe Chancel
Ariane et Barbe-Bleue
Opera Festival
Paul Dukas
- Opéra de Lyon
-
2 hours 30 minutes
whose1 intermission (s) 35 min
- In French
Modern and flying the flag for liberty, Ariane et Barbe-Bleue by Paul Dukas turns Perrault's story into a true hymn to women’s liberation and discovering the truth. Terribly current.
-
20:00
-
20:00
-
20:00
-
16:00
-
20:00
-
20:00
-
20:00
About
Synopsis
What is Bluebeard, accused by the crowd of having killed his first five wives, hiding? From the moment she arrives at his gloomy castle, Ariane, his new wife, is determined to discover her husband's secret. She ends up freeing his first five wives but they prefer captivity to freedom. Ariane, however, decides to take hers.
More than feminist
A pupil at the Paris Conservatory, Dukas, a friend of Debussy and former music critic, was a gifted and atypical musician, perhaps best known for The Sorcerer's Apprentice (immortalized by Disney in the film Fantasia). It was in 1907 that Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, his only opera, was successfully staged at the Opéra Comique, based on a text by Maurice Maeterlinck, who was also the librettist for Debussy - denounced by some as a somewhat too visible influence and with whom Dukas shared a similar taste in orchestration. In fact, Dukas adapts one of Wagner’s techniques, the leitmotiv, which allows him to depict his characters in the music, using his own language. Rich in tone and colour, this is very effective when it comes to making the listener feel the atmosphere in Bluebeard’s castle. Long forgotten, the work strikes a very contemporary chord: composed principally for women's roles, it is more than simply feminist, posing the question of freedom as a universal concept.
New production
A co-production with the Teatro Real of Madrid
Cast
Stage Director
Àlex Ollé/ La Fura dels Baus
Sets
Alfons Flores
Lighting
Urs Schönebaum
Costumes
Josep Abril
Bluebeard
Tomislav Lavoie
Ariane
Ambur Braid
Mélisande
Hélène Carpentier
Nurse
Enkelejda Shkoza
Selysette
Adèle Charvet
Ygraine
Margot Genet
Bellangère
Amandine Ammirati
Orchestre, Chœurs et Studio de l'Opéra de Lyon
My Evening
Why we love it
Paul Dukas is a composer who is crying out to be (re)discovered.
Why we love it
Messiaen called Ariane etBarbe-Bleue a "masterpiece". Pure and simple.
Why we love it
More than a century after its creation, this liberating work still seems resoundingly contemporary.