The libretto by Béla Balázs, blending the tone of a mystery play with a folk ballad, does not match the quality of Bartók’s music, the text being an abstract story laden with symbolism rather than a psychologically realist plot suitable for the stage. It’s telling that Bartók unsuccessfully entered the work for competitions twice, in 1911 and 1912. It is unlikely the music was to blame, but rather the work’s unsuitability for the stage. Audiences were at a loss what to make of its interiorised events, the fact that Bluebeard’s castle is indeed not the site of any external action but, as Balázs underlined, “the innermost nature of man”. The work, about Woman’s attempt to force an entry into Man’s sanctum, came into being in a very male-centred world. It is no accident that comparisons are made with Wagner’s Lohengrin, because in both operas Woman’s insatiable curiosity offends the love idyll. Asking questions, wishing to know Man’s secrets, leads to her downfall.

We’ve come a long way from that sort of attitude. None the less, as Fischer observes:

It would be hypocritical to suggest to someone that they can ask anything at all; there comes a point where a line must be drawn. Anyone who has a secret should keep secret that he has a secret! In this sense, Duke Bluebeard’s secret isn’t a secret.

The conflict cannot be viewed in simple black and white and it is virtually impossible to perform the opera from two opposing points of view. Wernicke also came to the same conclusion in his own productions. “Bartók’s work is far too many-layered for the question to be simplified in such a way,” Fischer comments, citing German divorce legislation of the 1970s which holds that it does not matter which party is to blame for the marriage breakdown. That comment might be the key to interpreting the performance (Scenes from a Marriage, to steal from Ingmar Bergman).