Iolanta/Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Met Opera Live, review: enterprising take on two masterpieces

Iolanta / Duke Bluebeard’s Castle 
Met Opera Live

The Met’s antepenultimate relay of the season was an enterprising pairing of two operas, one of which we should see more often, and both of them done with intelligence and care. Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, his last opera, inconveniently lasts about 100 minutes, so is especially hard to find a partner for. It is a strange, touching piece, though it has few of the characteristics we associate with him. There is hardly a memorable melody in it, and little that is overwrought, indeed the colours are pastel. Iolanta is a princess, blind from birth, but skilfully kept in ignorance of her condition, and surrounded in this production by bored maids who treat her sweetly and otherwise bitch. Suitors arrive, the more alluring of whom asks her to give him a red rose, and the bluff is called. All works out well – something else we don’t expect from this composer.

A scene from Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta.