Dido and Aeneas/Bluebeard's Castle

Some valuable life advice: if you’re a female character in an opera, do not fall in love. Chances are you’ll end up cursed, dead or trapped forever in your murderous lover’s lightless castle. Tragic trajectories aside, though, Oper Frankfurt’s double bill of briefer-than-usual operas are undoubtedly glorious to behold, as director Barrie Kosky displays both eminent artistic vision and understated elegance in these grandiose epics told through deceptively simplistic stagings.

We open with Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, a Greek myth of grand proportions curtailed cleverly into the space usually left for curtain calls, playing out only on the front third of the Festival Theatre’s stage. Widowed Queen Dido (the entrancing Paula Murrihy, whose vocals are sweet, sharp and sinuous as warmed honey) has vowed never to marry again, but her charismatic courtiers long for merriment and above all, political security. Enter Trojan war hero Aeneas (Sebastian Geyer), handsome and, rather fortunately, utterly besotted with the heroine. Dido ricochets between desire and agonised restraint, as if she foresees the bad end this will all inevitably come to. There’s an intriguing use of silence in this work, these deliberate gaps helps remind us that these are human beings with hopes and fears rather than simply very pretty pictures. The unhappy conclusion is set into motion by three cross-dressing witches, gleefully led by the wonderful Martin Wölfel as the sorceress. Fooled by a false apparition, Aeneas is convinced to leave and the pair’s parting, with Aeneas falling at Dido’s feet, reminds us more of an anguished child about to lose its only safe anchor in the world than a departing lover. The proud Dido rejects Aeneas for his inconstancy, her blooming pink carnation ball gown falling away to reveal a simple shift dress beneath.  As she sings her own piercingly haunting elegy, ‘Remember me, but forget my fate…’ the company and the orchestra leave the theatre. Abandoned by all who loved her in her final moments, it as if we are watching Dido’s heart physically break as her swan song collapses into the desperate sound of her final breaths.

Sung in Hungarian with English surtitles, Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle is an erotically charged and deliriously dark duet that warns of the dire consequences of female curiosity. Katrin Lea Tag’s stunningly restrained revolving set suggests a blank, echoing fortress – a place that is somehow both grand ballroom (where, in our first image, we see the pair in a waltzing, near-asphyxiated embrace) and a desolate prison chamber all at once.  A child’s voice provides the eerie prologue, warning of ancient castles and ghostly tales too terrifying to hear. In their sleek modern formalwear, Judith (Tanja Ariane Baumgartner) and Bluebeard (Robert Hayward) offer an intriguing picture of a privileged, well-to-do couple who, unbeknownst to the outside world, are locked in a impassioned but destructive love affair. Baumgartner’s Judith is a shapeshifting and complex heroine – brazen and curious, then vulnerable and panic-stricken – and it’s difficult to discern the different between her violent attacks and forceful displays of seductive desire. Bluebeard doesn’t appear like an evil villain, instead he’s a somewhat wearied figure; all he wants is Judith’s love, but Judith desires everything he could possibly give her, demanding the seven keys to seven doors guarding seven strange rooms in his castle, ingeniously physicalised by three ambiguous male figures.  The unavoidably repetitive story is tempered by the rich imagery onstage. Still, I often found myself relying on whatever surprising way the next door would be visualised rather than necessary emotional engagement. Blood drips menacingly onto the white floor, handfuls of glitter shimmering through the air suggest Bluebeard’s hoard of riches, trailing vines pulled from shirt sleeves conjure his fragrant but deathly garden. Beauty, yes, but it can sometimes feel like a case of superlative style over substance.

Dido and Aeneas and Bluebeard’s Castle are both works of undeniable artistry. Yet, whilst stark yet gorgeous visuals and blistering vocal performances are the order of the day, I can’t help but feel discomfited by the somewhat bleak portrayal of passionate and therefore inescapably doomed women in two stories that, however sophisticatedly revamped for our aesthetic adoration, remain stubbornly caught up in the constricted gender stereotypes of their respective times.

Dido and Aeneas/Bluebeard’s Castle are playing at the Festival Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival until 25 August. For more information and tickets, please see the Edinburgh International Festival website.