Duke Bluebeard’s Castle & Erwartung

An ingenious pairing of two intensely emotional love stories, and the first time either one of these seminal 20th century works has ever been professionally staged in Chicago! Both operas represent the influence of the European preoccupation with Freudian and Jungian psychology in the early 20th century. COT Resident Conductor Alexander Platt returns in 2007 after his triumphant turn leading the sold-out Nixon in China. Award-winning stage and opera director Andrei Serban reveals the complex, subconscious emotions of Bluebeard, sung by the world-famous Samuel Ramey, and his wife Judith, played by the acclaimed Krisztina Szabó, as she seeks to unlock the seven doors of his dark and violent past. Erwartung, a monodrama performed by Vienna State Opera star and Evanston native Nancy Gustafson, explores a woman’s psychological stress of searching for a lost love.