Photo Coverage: Bartok's 'Duke Bluebeard's Castle' Plays Mariinksy, 6/11

In St Petersburg, Russia, on June 11, 2010, singers Willard White and Yelena Zhidkov lead a performance of Bela Bartok's opera 'Duke Bluebeard's Castle' at the Mariinsky Theatre. BroadwayWorld brings you full coverage below.

'Duke Bluebeard's Castle' - Béla Bartók's first and only opera - was written by the young composer in 1911. At two successive opera competitions held in Budapest in 1911 and 1912, 'Castle' was rejected as non-performable. Its time was to come somewhat later, the premiere being held in Budapest on 24 May 1918 under the baton of Egisto Tango. The plot of this one-act opera is based on Maurice Maeterlinck's play ARIANA ET BARBE-BLEUE, where the protagonist's wives symbolise the periods of his life: morning - day - evening - night. An interesting coincidence: it was in the year that Bartók was working on 'Castle' that the playwright was awarded the Nobel Prize. Bartók's work was heavily influenced by another opera on a plot by Maeterlinck - Claude Debussy's 'Pelléas et Mélisande.' The plot unfolds just as unhurriedly, and each and every event has a symbolic meaning, while the orchestration is just as rich and colourful. The protagonist in Bartók's opera is the forbidden castle that Bluebeard shows to his young wife. Behind seven doors and seven seals the secrets of the master's soul lie hidden. For more information about the Mariinsky Theatre, please visit www.mariinsky.ru/en.

Photo Credit: ITAR-TASS/Ruslan Shamukov via Newscom