This master work enunciates the world law that Woman (symbolized by Fatima, Seventh Wife, singing actress) is determined to marry once at any cost; and that Man (symbolized by Bluebeard, baritone) is determined, if he marries at all, to marry as thoroughly and as often as possible. It holds up to scorn the marriage of ambition and convenience on the one hand, but on the other, pursues with wrath and vengeance the law-breaker, the indiscriminate love-winner, the wife-collector and wife-slayer; and, although women still have a strange and persistent fancy for marriage, they might sometimes avoid it if they realized that a violent death were the price.
We must first study the musical construction of the overture with which the music-drama opens, as it is well known that Wagner in his Preludes prepares the spectator's mind for the impressions that are to follow. Several of the leading motives appear in this _Vorspiel_ and must be appreciated to be understood. First we have the "_Blaubart_motiv_" (Bluebeard Motive). This is a theme whose giant march gives us in rhythmic thunders the terrible power of the hero.
["_Blaubart_motiv_"]
The "_Blaubart_motiv_" should be constantly kept in mind, as it is a clue to much of the later action, being introduced whenever Bluebeard budges an inch from his doorstep. We do not hear in it the majestic grandeur of the Wotan or Walsungen motifs, and why? Simply because it was not intended to illustrate godlike power, but _brute_force_.
Now if this were all, we had no more to say; but listen!
[Immer-wieder-heirathen Motiv]
What does this portend--this entrance of another theme, written for the treble clef, played with the right hand, but mysteriously interwoven with the bass? What but that Bluebeard is not to be the sole personage in this music-drama; and we judge the stranger to be a female on account of the overwhelming circumstantial evidence just given.
Bluebeard, when first introduced--you remember the movement, one of somber grandeur leading upward to vague desire was alone and lonely. Certainly the first, probably the second. If his mood were that of settled despair, typical of a widower determined never to marry again no matter what the provocation, the last note of the phrase would have been projected _downward_; but, as you must have perceived, the melody terminates in a tone of something like hope. There is no assurance in it--do not misunderstand me; there is no particular lady projected in the musical text--that would have been indelicate, for we do not know at the moment precisely the date when Bluebeard hung up his last wife; but there _is_ a groping discontent. At the opening of the drama we have not been informed whether Bluebeard has ever been married at all or only a few times, but we feel that he craves companionship, and we know when we hear this "_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_" (Always About to Marry Again Motive)that he secures it. The sex created expressly to furnish companionship will go on doing so, even if it has to be hung up in the process.
Look again at the second theme, the "_Immer_-_wieder_-_heirathen_Motiv_"(Always About to Marry Again Motive). Do you note a mysterious reflection of the first theme in it? Certainly; it would be evident even to a chattering opera-party of the highest social circles. But why is this, asks the sordid American business man, who goes to the music-drama absolutely unfitted in mind and body to solve its great psychological questions. Not because Wagner could not have evolved a dozen _Leit-Motive_ for every measure, but for a more exquisitely refined and subtle reason. The wife is often found to be more or less a reflection of her husband, especially in Germany, therefore an entirely new and original motive would have been out of place. It is this extraordinary insight into the human mind which brings us to the feet of the master in reverential awe; and it detracts nothing from his fame that his themes descriptive of average femininity would have been quite different had he written them for the women of this epoch. The world moves rapidly. This motive slips with a series of imperceptible musical glides into the "_Siebente-Frau_Motiv_" (Seventh Wife Motive):
Bluebeard enters well in advance; Fatima, contrapuntally obedient, coming in a little behind.
[Siebente-Frau Motiv]
This Fatima, or Seventh Wife Motive seems to be written in a curiously low key if we conceive it to be the index to the character of a soprano heroine; but let us look further. What are the two principal personages in the music-drama to be to each other?
If _enemies_, the phrase would have been written thus: [separation of 5octaves]
If _acquaintances_, thus: [separation of 3 octaves]
If _friends_, thus: [separation of 1 octave]
If _lovers_, thus: [separation of less than one octave]
