Page 124 - FINAL_Theatre of Sound Coverage Book

Memory is thus where Evans begins. Finley’s Bluebeard—he uses the name with a ruefully
irony—is a man whose wife is suffering from symptoms of advancing dementia. Their musty
home is a full of old photos and faded furniture, surrounded by a plethora of lamps that flash,
flicker, and fade like the damaged synapses inside a deteriorating brain. We discover him
stowing a solitary photo in an old trunk before leaving to reappear with Bullock, a fragile
woman clearly confused by her surroundings. In attempting to reorient his wife, Finley will
have to dig up the past and relive events he’d hoped to bury forever.

Moments from their life together are triggered by items taken out of the trunk—a military
great coat, a bridal veil, a child’s toy, etc. Cleverly, each of these seven objects is a parallel
for one of Bluebeard’s seven doors. Bit by bit, a shared life story is revealed, from courtship
and marriage to childbirth and the tragic death of a son. Each reminiscence is accompanied
by the appearance of one of three actors who represent Bullock at important moments in her
life. As she stares confusedly into the eyes of her avatars, a series of tiny, mirrored gestures
convey their mutual affinities.

Pieces of memory

Evans’s contemporary echoes of the visions behind each of Bartók’s doors are deftly chosen.
The greatcoat represents the armory, for example, here symbolizing Bullock’s young husband
going off to war; the veil, which reflects Bluebeard’s treasury, stands for Bullock on her
wedding day; the garden suggests fertility and a first baby. The grandiose fifth door, which
traditionally reveals the extent of Bluebeard’s kingdom, here becomes a happy family
Christmas complete with Santa hats and a pair of boisterous children.

The sixth door—originally called the pool of tears—finds Bullock wrestling with parcel
wrapped in black crepe paper from which spills a collection of birthday cards and other
memorabilia, including a memorial sheet for the couple’s dead son. The final object is a
mirror. As Finley invites Bullock to gaze into its depths, her other selves join her. For this
family, however, there can be no meaningful future, and Finley must wearily close the trunk
of memories forever.

It's powerful stuff, powerfully played. Finley conveys Bluebeard’s outer concern and inner
conflicts in a skillfully drawn portrait of a man who revisits his own traumatic past only to
realize the futility of trying to help a wife who is destined to become just one more painful
memory. Bullock makes a touching, bewildered Judith, her haunted expressions frightened
and despairing by turns. Finley especially is in superb voice, his flawless baritone ringing out
in the resonant yet grateful acoustic of this domed former chapel. He brings every ounce of
experience as one of today’s finest Lieder singers to his penetrating interrogation of the text
in Evans’s effective new English translation. Bullock offers slightly less vocal color, but her
diction is commendable, and she can still summon a ringing high C to accompany the famous
C-major opening of the fifth door.

New orchestrations

The score is played in Stephen Higgins’s new orchestrations by eight members of the London
Sinfonietta. With only a string quartet, two clarinets, horn, and a keyboard (alternating piano,
organ, and celesta), there’s inevitably a degree of color lacking, especially where Bartók calls
for tuned percussion, flutes, and harp. The result is a little monochrome, though by eschewing