Duke Bluebeard's Castle 1

Duke Bluebeard's Castle
libretto for the Opera in One Act by Béla Balázs

English performing version by
John Lloyd Davies

Images by
Susan Adams

2006

374 x 285 mm
56pp.

ISBN: (978) 0907664741

150 copies signed by Susan Adams and by
John Lloyd Davies
£195 (+p&p £6 UK)

The story of Bluebeard has a long history, from Perrault?s Fairy Tales through Maeterlinck, and is deeply embedded in the dark storytelling of the early twentieth century. Béla Balázs, heavily influenced by the French Symbolists, wrote a play which inspired his fellow countryman Béla Bartók to create a truly Hungarian opera. The music and the libretto in their turn have drawn from Susan Adams a sequence of images. Each page evokes the unfolding pathos of the events that the walls of Duke Bluebeard's castle have witnessed.
The chilling story is of the young bride, Judith, brought to her new home by the Duke. She longs to fling open windows, to let sunlight flood into her castle but gradually she has to face the truth of what may have happened here -- the truth of the destroyed lives of three previous wives. There is structurally simple dialogue between the two, rendered into an English which is direct and accords with Bartok's stark musical lines.
The imagery, however, reflects the complexity of emotion, the psychological shifts. Susan Adams writes 'if certain fearful realities are accessed through the maze of the imagination, at least it allows one to take on these realities'. She has cut large woodblocks allied with computer-generated line blocks to convey the overwhelming power struggle and Judith's progression towards understanding the man she has married and facing the reality of her own inevitable fate.

Susan Adams has a considerable reputation as a printmaker and has worked as artist in residence in the USA and in India as well as in Gloucester Cathedral, Bardsey Island, and Shaftesbury Abbey -- where her work reflects her empathy with the history of a place felt through its stones. Much of her achievement is concerned with the tensions of the realities represented by buildings and human bodies, their outside and inside, body and soul.

The libretto is the English version made by John Lloyd Davies for performances of the opera given by ENO, Scottish Opera, BBC Welsh SO and for a BBC recording. John Lloyd Davies has recently been appointed Head of Opera Development for ROH2 and is closely associated with the Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, London. He has worked worldwide on opera productions.

The paper is BFK Rives, The type is Eric Gill's Joanna. 18 images (34x24cm) use two printmaking techniques, printing directly from woodblocks in black (with two in white) and digitally generated photopolymer line blocks, printed in red.
The book is casebound and covered with red paper printed all over with a woodcut.
The slipcase has grey sides again printed with images by Susan Adams. The binding is by The Fine Bindery, Wellingborough.



		Duke Bluebeard's Castle libretto for the Opera in One Act by Béla Balázs
English performing version by John Lloyd Davies Images by Susan Adams 2006 374 x 285 mm 56pp. ISBN: (978) 0907664741 150 copies signed by Susan Adams and by John Lloyd Davies £195 (+p&p £6 UK)	The story of Bluebeard has a long history, from Perrault?s Fairy Tales through Maeterlinck, and is deeply embedded in the dark storytelling of the early twentieth century. Béla Balázs, heavily influenced by the French Symbolists, wrote a play which inspired his fellow countryman Béla Bartók to create a truly Hungarian opera. The music and the libretto in their turn have drawn from Susan Adams a sequence of images. Each page evokes the unfolding pathos of the events that the walls of Duke Bluebeard's castle have witnessed. The chilling story is of the young bride, Judith, brought to her new home by the Duke. She longs to fling open windows, to let sunlight flood into her castle but gradually she has to face the truth of what may have happened here -- the truth of the destroyed lives of three previous wives. There is structurally simple dialogue between the two, rendered into an English which is direct and accords with Bartok's stark musical lines. The imagery, however, reflects the complexity of emotion, the psychological shifts. Susan Adams writes 'if certain fearful realities are accessed through the maze of the imagination, at least it allows one to take on these realities'. She has cut large woodblocks allied with computer-generated line blocks to convey the overwhelming power struggle and Judith's progression towards understanding the man she has married and facing the reality of her own inevitable fate. Susan Adams has a considerable reputation as a printmaker and has worked as artist in residence in the USA and in India as well as in Gloucester Cathedral, Bardsey Island, and Shaftesbury Abbey -- where her work reflects her empathy with the history of a place felt through its stones. Much of her achievement is concerned with the tensions of the realities represented by buildings and human bodies, their outside and inside, body and soul. The libretto is the English version made by John Lloyd Davies for performances of the opera given by ENO, Scottish Opera, BBC Welsh SO and for a BBC recording. John Lloyd Davies has recently been appointed Head of Opera Development for ROH2 and is closely associated with the Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House, London. He has worked worldwide on opera productions.

	The paper is BFK Rives, The type is Eric Gill's Joanna. 18 images (34x24cm) use two printmaking techniques, printing directly from woodblocks in black (with two in white) and digitally generated photopolymer line blocks, printed in red. The book is casebound and covered with red paper printed all over with a woodcut. The slipcase has grey sides again printed with images by Susan Adams. The binding is by The Fine Bindery, Wellingborough.