“Each language has its own sound world, its own focus, a different tempo, and when I compose, I think very carefully in which language direction I will compose the notes.” - Peter Eötvös

Peter Eötvös composed his opera Senza Sangue, based on the short story of the same title by Alessandro Baricco, to be performed together with Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle: the same orchestration, a comparable theme and only two characters.

In both stories, there is a psychological struggle between the woman and the man, past and present, hope and despair. But where in Senza Sangue both characters come out of the struggle purified, Bluebeard’s last wife ends up in the dark past of her spouse.