A song that will not die: Shifting symbolism in the interpretation of two sanguineous operas

Bartók's well-known opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle has an internationally hardly known parallel in Willem Pijper's opera Halewijn. The Hungarian and the Dutch opera share the same motives; they make use of a historical, a literary and a musical heritage, both from eastern and western Europe, in different ways yet with remarkable similarities. This article is an investigation into the backgrounds of the two operas and into the contexts in which their motives developed - and continue to develop.