Bluebeard’s Castle / Erwartung (The Met)

This filmed presentation pairs two intense, one-act operas that probe fear and inner disturbance. In Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, Judith arrives at her new husband Bluebeard's fortress and insists on opening chamber after chamber, each door revealing more unsettling secrets and testing her courage and curiosity. Schoenberg's Erwartung gives us a lone woman wandering through night and forest, speaking in a frantic, fragmented vocal line as she searches for a lost presence and confronts terror and longing. The film keeps the action concentrated and theatrical, relying on voice, orchestral color, and stark stage imagery to carry the psychological weight without revealing unexpected twists of plot.

Directed by Brian Large for a Metropolitan Opera production, this 1989 release stars Jessye Norman as Judith and the Woman, with Samuel Ramey as Bluebeard, and sets Bartok and Schoenberg's scores within a filmed operatic format rather than a conventional movie adaptation.

As a Met presentation filmed for broadcast and home viewing, it helped bring demanding modernist opera into living rooms and specialist cinemas, reaching audiences who couldn't attend live performances, and reinforcing Jessye Norman's association with major 20th century repertoire.

Critics and aficionados have tended to note the singers' portrayals and the score-driven intensity, praising vocal control, orchestral textures, and the stark, sometimes uneasy atmosphere. The pairing highlights themes of secrecy, desire, and fragmented consciousness, with music guiding emotional shifts more than elaborate staging does.

This release didn't make waves on mainstream film award circuits, and it's not known for big-screen box office returns, but it has remained a reference point in recordings and televised opera archives. For listeners who study vocal and psychological repertory, the performances and filmed staging continue to be discussed and revisited.