Welsh National Opera opened its 80th season with a challenging double bill featuring Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex at the Millennium Centre. The performances, staged by Joe Hill-Gibbins, offered a gripping and intense exploration of dark psychological themes, including serial murder, patricide, and incest.

Bluebeard’s Castle, Bartók’s only opera, adapts the Perrault fairy tale into a claustrophobic psychological drama through Béla Balázs’s libretto. Hill-Gibbins’s production, originally premiered at the English National Opera in 2024, sharpened the metaphorical significance of the castle’s doors and keys, heightening the sense of looming horror. The roles of Judith and Bluebeard were performed with notable intensity by Christine Rice and Nathan Berg, respectively, who conveyed an intimate atmosphere amid the unfolding dread. The opera’s concluding word, “darkness,” expressed through a tritone interval traditionally associated with the devil, underlined the finality and inescapability of Bluebeard’s fate.

Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex was presented as a new production that utilized the full breadth of the Millennium Centre stage. A 35-strong male chorus contributed to the monumental scale, reflecting Stravinsky’s vision of classical grandeur. The staging employed stark black scenery punctuated by a large half-globe of light, which at times made surtitles difficult to read. The vivid costumes included Christine Rice’s striking portrayal of Jocasta and Peter Hoare’s blood-red suit as Oedipus. Hoare delivered a commanding vocal performance that convincingly depicted the gradual unraveling of Oedipus’s regal composure, culminating in the character’s self-inflicted blindness.

Despite the ritualistic solemnity inherent in Oedipus Rex, the production incorporated considerable movement, with some critics suggesting there was occasionally excessive activity on stage. The musical direction of Lidiya Yankovskaya, who conducted both works, was widely praised for emphasizing the expressive qualities of Bartók’s score and balancing the grave and lighter moments in Stravinsky’s score.

Together, the two works formed a powerful evening of opera that delved deeply into themes of fate, darkness, and human psychology, setting a compelling tone for Welsh National Opera’s milestone season.