Haunting sounds: Opera Southwest to perform 'Bluebeard's Castle,' 'Doctor Atomic Symphony'

Oct. 17—Opera Southwest is ushering in Halloween by pairing a psychological thriller with a symphony about the horrors of the bomb.

The musicians will perform Béla Bartók's chilling one-act opera "Bluebeard's Castle" with John Adams' "Doctor Atomic Symphony."

The concert is slated for three performances on Sunday, Oct. 22, Friday, Oct. 27, and Sunday, Oct. 29, at the National Hispanic Cultural Center.

"Bluebeard's Castle" is the story of Judith, the young new wife of the menacing Duke Bluebeard, who unlocks the seven forbidden doors in her husband's castle, only to be confronted by the women he has already loved and murdered.

The libretto is based on a French fairy tale.

"Bluebeard is a wealthy older duke who has married a much younger wife," said Tony Zancanella, executive director of Opera Southwest. "He's brought her to the castle for the first time. She asks him all these questions about what's behind each door. He says, 'Don't ask me.' "

"It's kind of a metaphor for the internal dialogue between the prototypical masculine and feminine sides of the brain."

Or it could form a message warning women not to ask their husbands about former lovers.

"It's more symbolic than operatic," Zancanella said. "The orchestra is quite big, and it uses a lot of color. The orchestra can't fit into the pit of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, so the orchestra will be on the stage."

Meow Wolf installation artists Lance Ryan McGoldrick and David Cudney are designing works to appear behind the doors. This marks the opera's third collaboration with the two artists; the first was in Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" in 2019.

Bartók composed his Symbolist opera in 1911 with a Hungarian libretto by his friend and poet Béla Balázs.

"The music underneath is doing something intimate and unique," Zancanella said.

"Bartók is a master of color and orchestration."

Adams wrote the "Doctor Atomic Symphony" based on his opera "Doctor Atomic," the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb. Adams lifted music from the overture with various interludes and orchestral settings, including arias like Oppenheimer's signature "Batter My Heart."

Zancanella sees some historic threads tying "Bluebeard's Castle" to "Doctor Atomic."

"It almost kind of bookends the 20th century," he said. "Bluebeard comes out of this pre-World War I Viennese milieu. So much of that world has disappeared. At the end, you reach modernism in the second half, with World War II modernism bracketed together. There are parallels going on between the two things. The castle itself is a major driver of the drama — it breathes; it makes noise. Similarly, the bomb is active in the music."