Attending the Metropolitan’s double bill of Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle the same week as the Academy Awards and reflecting upon that, I regret that the opera world has no similar awards — because Mariusz Trelinski’s production deserves recognition for the Best Concept of the year and Best Execution of a Concept.

The Polish movie and stage director has persuadingly linked these two fairy-tale stories and presented them in the style of film noire. Trelinski explained in an interview that “both operas depict controlling relationships. In one, a possessive father uses his daughter's blindness as a pretext to protect her and keep her for himself; in the other, a sadistic man takes the lives of women who love him.”

“Judith (in Bluebeard) continues the story of Iolanta,” Trelinski said. “She returns to her traumatic relationship with a very strong man. The happy ending was not an end at all — often our addictions are stronger than us. There’s the classic repetition compulsion.”

There are some parts in Iolanta that didn’t seem logical but, overall, this was great music theater. I saw the production a few days earlier in HD on a cinema screen with another conductor and an alternate cast, and there were significant differences. The live performance of February 18 was clearly superior.

When attending other productions twice each, both live and on screen, I’ve observed trade-offs. In the house you get a full stage picture and the gratifying sound of real voices and instruments; on screen you get close-ups of the singers and you can see subtle dramatic details. In this particular case, the in-house experience was much more emotionally involving. All lovers of opera should try mightily to see it in person.

The projected images and lighting effects are spectacular. At the start of Iolanta we see deer loping across the stage in front of a cabin in the middle of a forest. Later we see leaves rustling in the wind. This three-dimensional effect is mesmerizing—and you don’t need to wear 3-D glasses. In Bluebeard the journey of Judith as she explores her lover’s castle gains power when we see her walk down long corridors which recede into the distance.

The sonic experience is different too. In Bluebeard, Trelinski has included the usually-cut prologue, inviting the audience into this dark tale. A disembodied bass voice seems to whisper in our ears, in Hungarian: “The eyelid’s curtain rises. Wherever we come from, we gaze at each other and tell our stories. Let us begin. The eyelid’s curtain is raised. Watch carefully until it drops.”

At the Met, that creepy voice (recorded in Warsaw) reverberates from the side and rear walls and we sense the menace coming at us from behind and from beside us. The sound of rattling chains and of echoing footsteps adds additional terror. At cinemas we hear stereophonic sound but it’s all in front of us.

Trelinski’s concept is that both legends relate to light. Iolanta sees too little, Judith in Bluebeard sees too much. In Iolanta the heroine moves from the darkness of blindness into the light of love. In Bluebeard the heroine tries to open Bluebeard’s windows to allow light in, yet she also insists on traveling down long and dark corridors to see what’s at the end of the tunnel. She has heard rumors that Bluebeard killed his previous wives but she chooses to follow their footsteps.

In her craving for torture and death she reminds us of Fifty Shades of Grey with its sadomasochistic tale of submission to dominance. As she demands that Bluebeard open his doors, we see an armory of weapons that are dripping with blood, a torture chamber with bloodstains on the floor, and a horde of jewels, also with blood upon them. The question is, why does Judith not flee from all this evidence of Bluebeard’s sadism? 

In Trelinski’s concept, Iolanta’s father is almost as cruel as Bluebeard because he withholds truth from his daughter. He forbids all of his servants from telling her that she’s blind. They never let her know that there is such a thing as sight. So she does not learn until late in this opera what vision is. At one point she wonders “Does God give us eyes only so we can cry?” An especially touching moment is when the tenor asks Iolanta to hand him a red rose from a multi-colored bouquet and she confesses that she does not know what “red” is.

Readers may have observed that I normally am critical of concept productions. For example, Falstaff belongs in the era of knighthood and is ill-served when re-set in a modern kitchen. And L'elisir d’amore suffers when a village farm girl wears couturier clothing and a black top hat.

In the case of these two operas, they are fairy tales and that opens the door (pun intended) to imaginative, fantastical visions. Bartok and his librettist, Béla Balázs, intentionally told us nothing about their protagonists, neither their biographies or backgrounds, not even how they met.

For the HD telecast, which will be shown in cinemas on various dates around the world and later on public television, the conductor was Valery Gergiev. The performance I attended in New York had Pavel Smelkov on the podium. He brought a singing quality to Iolanta and a very lush, almost erotic intensity to Bluebeard’s Castle.

Smelkov revealed more of the wonders in Bartok’s great score than did Gergiev. Much of it is quiet and subtly unsettling, and then there’s the fortissimo climax at the opening of the fifth door as we glimpse the vast expanse of Bluebeard’s kingdom and perhaps discover what attracts Judith to him. The music might seem atonal to conservative listeners but it actually is polytonal, with multiple key centers running simultaneously.

The HD Judith was Nadja Michael; at the Met I saw Michaela Martens. The Bluebeard on both occasions was Mikhail Petrenko who gave creepingly understated performances. It’s impossible to say which of the two women was more attractive because that’s a subjective judgement. Michael is a lean woman, Martens is full-figured. I believe it is fair to say that the curvaceous Martens gave off more of an erotic persona. Michael has a brilliant and steely voice, Martens’s is a melting mezzo (and is also fine on her top notes.) Combining her charisma with the orchestra’s voluptuous tones, the result was a hotter overall performance.   

In Iolanta the blind young princess in both instances was Anna Netrebko, and she sounded more relaxed and natural than when she portrayed a steamy Lady Macbeth or fiery Manon or flirty Adina in L’elisir d’amore. In close up on a big screen she does not resemble a teenager but from the 19th row in the opera house she appears convincing.

Piotr Beczala was marvelous as her suitor, Vaudémont. His acting was ardent, his voice ringing. Aleksei Markov was his compatriot Robert in HD, while Maxim Aniskin made his debut the night I saw him in the house. Both of them are fine baritones. As Iolanta’s father, King René, Ilya Bannik revealed a smooth bass voice in the HD performance while Alexei Tanovitski in the house lacked power.