Page 1073 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Katy Owen in Emma Rice’s Blue Beard. Photograph: Steve Tanner

Bluebeard is having a moment this spring. The ever-inventive Emma Rice will direct
her own version of the legend (Blue Beard, Theatre Royal, Bath; 2 to 10 February), a
music-fuelled feminist revenge on the magician who first seduces, then obliterates:
“With a wink, a stroke and a flick – things just seem to vanish. Cards, coins, scarves…
and women.” ENO will present Béla Bartók’s dark and glorious one-act opera Duke
Bluebeard’s Castle (London Coliseum, 21 to 23 March; first performed in Budapest in
1918) in a semi-staged, hour-long concert performance, sung in the original Hungarian,
with surtitles. Soprano Allison Cook will be Judith and the Canadian bass John Relyea
is Bluebeard. Lidiya Yankovskaya conducts. SCl

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