ARIANA ET BARBE-BLEUE "Ariana et Barbe-Bleue " or "Ariana and Blue Beard," an opera in three acts, the text arranged by Maurice Maeterlinck with music by Paul Dukas was produced in Paris at the Opera Comique in March, 1907.
Ariana.
The nurse. Selysette, Melisande, Ygraine, the five wives.
Bellangere, Alladine (pantomime role), Blue Beard.
An old peasant.
Second peasant.
Third peasant.
The crowd.
The first act shows how Ariana, the sixth wife, opened the forbidden door. A sumptuous apartment in Blue Beard's castle is disclosed. It is in the form of a semicircle. At the rear there is a great door and on each side of this are three smaller doors of ebony with locks and ornamentations of silver. Above the six smaller doors are six tall win dows, which are open. It is evening and the chandeliers are lighted. Through the windows come the cries of an excited and indignant crowd below. From their disjointed utterances, it may be gathered that a beautiful, smiling young woman has just been conveyed in a coach to Blue Beard's castle. They say that she should be warned before the fatal doors close upon her forever. There have been five before her. That is too many! Some say that she knows all and that she is coming into the trap with her eyes open. But she is too lovely to die, so lovely that twenty lovers have followed her from her city and are weeping in the streets.
As the crowd discourses, the windows close quite of themselves and Ariana, the sixth wife, and her nurse enter the apartment. The nurse is full of fears about this new husband of whom such terrible things are rumored. Ariana assures her that she does not believe the wives are dead. At any rate she is going to know the secret. Her husband has given her the keys which open the bridal treasure. The six silver keys are to use, the golden key is forbidden. But that is the only one which counts with Ariana and she throws the others disdainfully upon the marble floor. The nurse hastily gathers them up and with the permission of her mistress unlocks one of the doors. It swings upon
its hinges and a perfect shower of amethyst jewelry rains upon her. There are collars, aigrettes, bracelets, rings, buckles, girdles, diadems. Distracted, she plunges her arms deep into the purple treasure and fills her mantle to overflowing.
" They are beautiful," agrees Ariana. " Open the second door." Breathless the nurse turns the key; the doors swing apart; and a dazzling eruption of sapphires falls about them. The third door is opened to release a milky rivulet of pearls; the fourth to emit a deluge of emeralds ; from the fifth comes a tragic cascade of rubies, like a bloody warning; from the opened sixth flows a marvelous, bewildering cataract of diamonds. Only for a moment does the young wife gaze at the splendor. Now for the seventh forbidden door with the hinges and locks of gold! Disregarding the protests of the nurse she turns the key and throws open the door. Nothing but a dark opening is seen but from it issues, weirdly, the song of the five daughters of Orlamonde who have wandered through three hundred halls searching for the light. They see the great ocean through the window and fear to die; they knock upon the closed door but do not dare to open it.
Blue Beard comes quietly into the room and regards Ariana. " You, too," he observes, dryly. " I especially," says Ariana. " How long have they been there?" she asks.
" Some many days, some many months, the last a year. It was a very little thing that I asked." " You asked more than you gave," returns Ariana.
" But you lose the happiness I wished for you," says Blue Beard looking sadly at his wife. " Only give up know ing and I shall yet pardon you." But Ariana has no such idea. Blue Beard seizes her by the arm and involuntarily she utters a cry. The listen ing crowd below hear it; a stone crashes through the win dow. In a moment, the angry people rush into the house but Ariana advances calmly toward them.