| What: Béla Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle When: On as part of Cape Town Opera’s Shorts: A Festival of Pocket Operas March 7-16, 2025 (see Webtickets for performance dates) Where: The Wave theatre on 44 Long Street, Cape Town Director: Victoria Stevens Design: Allegra Bernacchioni Cast: Includes William Berger (Bluebeard) and Siphamandla Moyake (Judith) Musical director and accompaniment at piano: Jan Hugo Tickets: Webtickets |
“Each of us is alone in the end.”
That is in the prologue to Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle – the opera – which is on as part of Cape Town Opera’s Opera’s Shorts: A Festival of Pocket Operas – March 7-16, 2025 at the Wave Theatre in Long Street. The cast includes William Berger and Siphamandla Moyake, playing Bluebeard and Judith and is accompanied on piano by Jan Hugo, who is also the musical director.
This production is directed by Victoria Stevens. The South African born stage director is based in Mannheim, Germany.
This was my first time seeing Bluebeard’s Castle. With preconceptions of the misogynistic Bluebeard story in my head, on Sunday March 9, before the performance, I chatted to William Berger who told me that the opera, under the direction of Victoria Stevens has been upended. In this interpretation of the opera, Bluebeard is not positioned as the baddie. It is a toxic relationship and Bluebeard is staying, despite an unhinged Judith. There were children but they are no longer there. Where are the children? What happened to them? Watch and see.
It is a psycho-thriller as William muses – I would say – psycho-thriller on steroids. Awesome performance, voice (would have liked surtitles, battled to hear at times) and brilliant design by Allegra Bernacchioni. Instead of doorways, imaged in the Bluebeard story, she uses black garbage bags, filled with memories. A lot to process in this toxic relationship. At the end, they are alone in grief and loss with bags of memories – physical and emotional to unpack. It is a psychotic trip, they go through, with blood and violence. Judith is utterly unhinged and I am not sure about Bluebeard as her partner in what has occurred. Has he enabled her or protected her? Unsettling but mesmerizing theatre.
I loved the bookending of the production with refrains from Thula Baba, a lullaby, lament, howl. Catch Bluebeard’s Castle on March 15 and March 16 at 5pm. For pics and pop up interview with William Berger, see https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DAC4XpsRz/
❇ Siphamandla Moyake (Judith) in Bluebeard’s Castle, staged as part of Cape Town Opera’s Shorts: A Festival of Pocket Operas March 7-16, 2025 (see Webtickets for performance dates). Pic: Kim Stevens.
