Bluebeard | Page 9

accustomed bridegroom approaches the familiar altar.
We have the "Blaubart Motiv" again here, and we must not be
disturbed to find it heralded thus:
(noisily and fussily: Repeated deep notes)
We find the same thing later on. This is merely an introductory phrase,
the "LosgehenlassenMotiv" (See Me Getting Ready to Go Motive).
Here we note Wagner's sublime regard for truth and realism. Does
Bluebeard go--does anybody go--without getting ready to go? Certainly
not; yet they have gone for years when-ever they liked, in the shiftless
operas of the Italian school, without the least preparation. They would
even come back before they went, if it were any more pleasing,
pictorial, or melodious. It took a heroic genius like that of Wagner to
return to the simple, eternal truth of things. We have a striking example
here of Wagner's power of modifying and inverting a motive, carrying
it from key to key, giving it forwards and backwards, upside down and
other-end-to, according to the feeling he wishes it to express, whether it

be love, rage, desire, impatience, ardor, or what not. The
"LosgehenlassenMotiv" is simplicity itself when it first appears in C
major (see motive). But Bluebeard's exits are many --partly because his
entrances are so numerous--and for every exit this motive conveys a
new meaning. Blue-beard is always getting ready to go, but with what
different purposes in mind! He goes for pastime and for passion; he
goes for wooing and for wantoning; for marriage and for murder. He
goes in D sharp with pomp, pride, and power, and we can distinguish
the tread of his servants' feet, the clatter of arms, and the hurrying
together of his escort and retinue. He goes again in B flat minor,
stealthily and unattended, the orchestra giving the motive with muted
violins and subdued brass. We seem to hear naught but the soft
pad-pad of his felt bedroom slippers on the marble steps, and we
murmur to one another: "What does he propose to do now?
We have next the "Dragon," "Elephant," and "Tiger" motive: the
"Dragon Motive" being intentionally reminiscent of the one in
"Siegfried."
There is not in the entire range of modern music anything more
impressive than this splendid journey of a barbaric prince toward his
chosen victim. No stage picture could be more dazzling than the one
brought before the mind's eye in the majestic, munificent measures that
herald the pageant:
ARIA
"And true to his message the lover did come With cymbals and horns
and a big Indian drum!
The measures that follow these describe the tiger swinging on behind
the triumphal cab. This is a delicious whimsicality, and the music is as
gay and sportive as anything in "Die Meistersinger."
ARIA
"And an elephant, huge, to his cab... was confined."....

How the character of Bluebeard stands out in these
passages--Bluebeard, morbid, erotic, megalophonous megalomaniac,
with his grandiose air and outlandish accoutrements!
It seems odd that rumors of his matrimonial past had not reached
Fatima, for the libretto tells us (authorized opera-house edition, not the
one sold on the sidewalk) that his castle was only an hour's ride distant.
In any event, one would think the sight of the lover's approach, with
lions and elephants in attendance and a tiger hanging on behind the
chariot, might have shown Fatima that, although Bluebeard might be
admirable as an advance agent for a menagerie, he would hardly be a
pleasant fireside companion. However, it was the old story! Moved by
love, ambition, poverty, ennui, or what not, Fatima lost her head, as all
Bluebeard's previous wives had done, both before and after marriage,
and left the humble home of her childhood for the unknown castle.
Simple chords give us this information thus:
(Semplice, piano for the Humble Home; Agitato, fortissimo for the
Unknown Castle.)
Then comes the "LiebesgrussMotiv" (Love's Greeting Motive). No
single instrument can give this exquisite theme. The whole symphony
of human nature seems to rise and spread its wings in a glorious
harmony of pairs and twos of a kind melting in passionate octaves and
triplets. The groping, ardent, distracted, thwarted, but ever protesting
bass, set against a coquettish, evasive, yet timidly yielding treble; the
occasional introduction of a mysterious minor in the midst of a
well-authenticated major, gives us an intimation that wooing is not an
exact science.
Next come the "HochzeitsreiseundFlitterWochenMotive" (The Bridal
Tour and Honeymoon motives). Here are harp glissandos; here are
voices soaring, voices roaring, voices darting, voices floating, weaving
an audible embroidery of sound. They make up the most exquisitely
tender scene of the opera, and arc especially interesting to us in
America, since they are built upon one of our national songs. This can
only be regarded as a flattering recognition of our support of German
opera in this country.

ARIA
"Midst the treasures of