Lliam Paterson on Bluebeard's Castle & The 8th Door

Ahead of a new collaboration with Glasgow's Vanishing Point, Scottish Opera’s composer-in-residence Lliam Paterson tells us about reviving and reinventing a seminal Hungarian opera

Preview by Amy Taylor | 27 Mar 2017

Lliam Paterson is working in previously unchartered territory. Tasked with creating a companion piece to one of his favourite operas, Béla Bartók’s dark and unsettling Bluebeard’s Castle, he has joined forces with the Vanishing Point theatre company to create an innovative double bill: a revival of Bartók’s piece, directed by Vanishing Point’s Matthew Lenton, and an all-new piece, The 8th Door, which he composed himself.

“I think they [Scottish Opera] had approached Matt to direct Bluebeard’s Castle,” begins Paterson when we ask him how the collaboration came about.  “They wanted him to create a first half of the show – because Bluebeard’s Castle is quite short – that would reflect his own theatrical practice and style, so that it would be a genuine exploration of what Vanishing Point and Scottish Opera do. ”

The opportunity to create a new piece undoubtedly caused Paterson some nerves, as he readily admits: “It would be slightly foolish to try and write a companion opera to Bluebeard’s Castle!” But the creation of The 8th Door, a piece of musical theatre for six voices and full orchestra, has offered another opportunity for Paterson, who had only seen productions of Bartók’s opera on film.

“It was only a few years ago I started watching films of it, mainly online. The interesting thing is: this will be the first time that I’ll actually see it live!”

Premiering in 1918, Bartók’s only opera tells the story of newlyweds Judith and Bluebeard arriving at the dark and isolated castle of the title. Inside, they discover a series of seven doors, which Bluebeard opens one by opened to reveal their increasingly mysterious and horrific contents.

The piece is renowned for its unsettling (if ambiguous) story, but for Paterson the meaning of the opera and its continuing appeal lie in its simplicity: “Ultimately, it’s a really powerful piece of drama about two people, a couple, who essentially try to communicate and totally fail.”

Fittingly, the art of communication was a key part in the development of the piece, with Lenton and Paterson finding themselves agreeing on a number of vital elements to each of the two pieces. During the work shop process, both Paterson and Lenton agreed that while Bluebeard was an important character, it is his bride Judith who is the real focus of the opera, and it therefore seemed appropriate that this should be replicated in The 8th Door.

“The more we discussed it, the more this idea of everything in some ways being about the trauma of Judith, other than about Bluebeard, seemed really interesting. I like to think of Judith as the main character – in trying to get inside the mind of this guy, her partner, I think it’s almost a way for her to confront something that’s happened to her in her own past.”

Paterson's companion piece is more of a prequel than a sequel to the original opera, he explains. The title is a reference to the castle entrance, which he views as both a physical and a psychological portal to Judith’s mind, indicating her perspective as regards the realities of living in her new husband’s castle.

The 8th Door is basically from the woman’s point of view. Essentially, she has a very dark past; she suffered trauma. At the end of our new piece, she decides to face up to what has happened to her, and go inside her own subconscious to tackle it. That portal within herself is the eighth door, and so Bluebeard’s castle becomes her interior world.”

But after a year in development, what does how does Paterson feel about co-writing a companion piece to one of his favourite operas?

“I’m personally very glad that we’ve created something that is interested in opera, but is not an opera – I think it’s more interesting to explore what the themes of Bluebeard’s Castle can mean in a simple piece of theatre, but not to try and write something that is close in form or in content, which I think we’ve done.”


Bluebeard’s Castle and The 8th Door plays at The Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 28 Mar-1 Apr, and Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 5-8 Apr

http://scottishopera.org.uk/shows/bluebeard-s-castle-the-8th-door