Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945)
Opera in one act
Libretto Béla Balázs First performed in 1918 in Budapest
In Hungarian. With German supertitles.
Kurt Weill (1900 - 1950)
.Satire with song in seven pictures
Libretto Bertolt Brecht First performed in Paris in 1933
In German. With supertitles.
Duke Bluebeard's Castle
.The symbolistically charged fairy tale material and Bartók's impressionistic music, rising to the violent, immediately captivate. Bluebeard's enigmatic taciturnity, Judit's merciless questions drive the couple inexorably towards a bitter end. Behind each of the castle's seven doors, a new sound world opens up, outdoing the previous one with expressive, glittering and ultimately cripplingly sad music.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Are paradise and hell still opposites today? Are the seven deadly sins not rather modern norms of behaviour? For seven years, Anna travels through seven cities and must resist seven sins: Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Gluttony, Lust, Greed, and Envy. She must earn money and abstain from feelings and desires so that her family - musically including her mother a male quartet (!) - can afford a cottage.
Brecht and Weill teamed up after »Mahagonny« teamed up once again to produce a play in Paris in 1933 that characterized and parodied the mechanics of profit maximization - with chorale, waltz, blues, foxtrot and shimmy.
Source and further information: http://www.staatstheater-wiesbaden.de/programm/spielplan/2019-03/herzog-blaubarts-burg-die-sieben-todsuenden-2018-2019/4475/
