Last night, arriving home after a late trip back from a marvelous Thanksgiving dinner with friends, I found I couldn’t sleep. It must have been the pecan pie. So I watched the film Callas Forever, directed by Franco Zeffirelli, about the final days of the opera diva Maria Callas. It’s a movie that deserves a much wider audience and reputation. It did not get the fanfare here that it deserved, although it was well-received in Europe and is a popular rental on Netflix. Seeing it again reminded me of a piece I wrote for Opera News back in April 2002, about Zeffirelli and the making of the film. I was able to visit one of the sets at Cinecitta and meet Fanny Ardant and Jeremy Irons. Franco was bouncing back from some physical problems but had not lost any of his legendary zest or zeal.

Meeting him at his home outside Rome was an absolute pleasure as he lived up to his reputation as a prankster and a seductive raconteur. Thanks to Adam Wasserman at Opera News for the link. Click on the link below. And enjoy! And while you’re at it, check out the latest issue of the magazine. It’s terrific.

CLICK HERE: Franco Zeffirelli

On a quiet Sunday morning in March of 1998 in New York City, Broadway’s elegant but somewhat faded Empire Theatre, weighing 7.4 million pounds, was floated on tracks from its location on 42nd Street near Seventh Avenue to its new home, closer to Eighth. The Beaux Arts landmark, designed by architect Thomas A. Lamb in 1912, became the centerpiece of the new AMC Movie Complex, opened in 2000, part of the much bally-hooed redevelopment of Times Square. (In fact, only the lobby and entrance were relocated, the auditorium was razed.) The Empire’s peculiar migration, a unique attempt to preserve the theater district’s heritage while accommodating today’s audiences, gave the media occasion to wax nostalgic for the bygone days of the Great White Way.

Nearly ignored amid the hype was the fact that the Empire had originally been named The Eltinge, after Julian Eltinge, the legendary female impersonator who reigned over Broadway in the 1910s and ’20s. Given the widespread celebration of Disney’s new family-friendly Times Square, it was an ironic oversight, for the Eltinge is a vestige of 42nd Street’s risque roots — in 1942, when it was a burlesque house, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia shut down the Eltinge on morals charges — and a symbol of what one gifted actor, rather than a phalanx of corporations could achieve. “It’s amazing that one of the only theaters still standing on 42nd Street was built by a drag queen,” says Charles Busch, of all of today’s gender illusionists the likeliest heir to Julian Eltinge’s legacy.

Not since Edward Kynaston charmed Elizabethan audiences playing Shakespearean heroines had a man in feminine finery created such a sensation. Jerome Kern composed tunes for Eltinge. Erte designed his sets. King Edward VII of England, after inviting the star for a command performance at Windsor Castle, presented him with a white pit bull as a gift. On the silver screen, too, Eltinge scored in comic silent hits, introducing the joys of cross-dressing to the masses.

In his day, Eltinge was an enormously popular star with a profound impact on show business for decades to come. Long before the Tony Award-winning shows Torch Song Trilogy and La Cage aux Folles set tongues wagging, Eltinge revolutionized the theater with The Fascinating Widow and The Crinoline Girl, the first musical farces to bring “glamour drag” onto the legitimate stage. Eltinge’s more flamboyant vaudeville skits, where he literally let his hair down, had folks from coast to coast rolling in the aisles. Draped in silk from bejeweled head to painted toe, Eltinge spoofed dancer Ruth St. Denis in his exotic “goddess of incense” skit. Dashing across the stage, he would transform himself with lightning speed into a busty jungle queen, a rapturous nun, a spicy Creole, a nimble suffragette, or a brazen Salome. His sinuous Cobra Dance left gentlemen gasping. But Eltinge’s most popular send-up spoofed the venerable Gibson Girl, flooring fashionable ladies with the star’s exquisite refinement and poise.

Not content merely to promenade in lady’s attire, Eltinge also sang and danced, penning lyrics to novelty songs with coy titles such as “Two Heads Are Better Than One,” or “Don’t Trust Those Big Gray Eyes.” Sometimes he was even known to play a blushing young girl in a revealing bathing suit, warbling “Mother, May I Go Out to Swim?” (an act considered too racy for some venues). But whether he was flouncing about in marabou feathers, surrounded by a flock of his scantily dressed chorus girls, the Vampettes, or standing in a spotlight at the proscenium’s edge, blanketed in lace as a bride, it was nearly impossible to tell that Julian Eltinge was a man.

And what a man he was: At 5 feet 8 inches and 180 pounds, Eltinge was far from dainty. But the star’s small hands and feet made the illusion work. So did the lethal corsets that his Japanese dresser, Shima, would help him shimmy into, reducing a 40-inch waist to a 25. Eltinge also knew how to use makeup to his advantage, softening his chin and tapering his robust neck. At the end of each show, lest the audience be taken in by his masquerade, he would doff his wig to remove any lingering doubt.

Extremely popular with female audiences, who in the 1910s were for the first time venturing out to the theater on their own, Eltinge published his own magazine of beauty and fashion tips, Julian Eltinge Magazine. Inside, the genteel modiste posed in full wig, makeup, and gowns for ads selling everything from wardrobe trunks and cold cream to cough drops and girdles. Apparently women of the day found nothing bizarre in taking their cues from a transvestite. “Eltinge represented the perfect girl’s guide of how to behave,” says Leonard Finger, a New York-based casting director and collector of theatrical ephemera. “Onstage, he moved like a dream, his lily white arms covered in rice powder. He was the girl next door, the kind you’d want to bring home to mother. But he was also a gay man’s wish of what a feminine role model would be.” Indeed, some of his tips to male fans can be read as veiled asides to men confused about their sexuality. “When you’re accused of being peculiar, don’t consider it in the light of a slap,” Eltinge advised, oozing subtext. “It’s really the peculiar man — the different man — who wins out.”

Who was this “Gay Deceiver,” as the New York Times dubbed him early on? It’s hard to say, for much of Eltinge’s life is shrouded in mystery. Eltinge’s managers generated reams of copy filled with fanciful half truths about him, and like many dissemblers, Eltinge himself spun stories whenever they suited his needs. By most accounts, he was born William Julian Dalton to Irish-American parents in Newtonville, Massachusetts. But several other sources list his hometown as Butte, Montana (hence his signature stage tune, “The Cute Little Beaut from Butte.”) He adopted the name Julian Eltinge when he debuted in drag, according to one source, so as not to offend his family.

Scholars don’t even agree on the pronunciation of his name. Does it rhyme with fling or fringe? The answer can be found at the opening of the film The Band Wagon starring Fred Astaire. In a scene on 42nd Street, just before the famous “Shoe Shine” number Astaire mentions twice “the Eltinge Theatre.” He clearly pronounces it to rhyme with tinge. And if Fred Astaire didn’t know how to pronounce Julian’s last name, none of us do.

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The Beard

Of all the fairy tales compiled by author Charles Perrault in his Mother Goose rhymes in 1697, it is “Bluebeard” that has lingered most gruesomely in our collective imagination. Three centuries later, the grisly tale of serial spousal murder continues to haunt and mystify new generations. And no wonder: this glimpse into a world of mutilation and blood-soaked chambers hits us where we are most vulnerable — at the point where our yearning for truth yields fatal secrets; where intimacy unleashes betrayal; and love incites death.

Its themes of a locked room, of limitless wealth, of an evil madman have become indelible staples of mystery and horror genres. In its warning about disobeying taboos, Bluebeard also bears similarities to the fables of Elsa in Lohengrin and Eve in Genesis, as well as Eurydice and Pandora’s Box. At its most banal, it can be reduced to the phrase: curiosity killed the cat. At its most uncanny, it is a parable, steeped in our collective unconscious, of man’s obsessive need to penetrate and understand his most primitive impulses.

A vice minister of finance under Louis XIV, Perrault composed these contes for his children (which says a lot about parenting in the age of enlightenment!). Scholars argue over his sources. With Bluebeard, was he simply poking fun at England’s Henry VIII and his six hapless wives (two of which were beheaded)? That scandal had certainly not died down by the time Perrault put pen to paper. But numerous versions of the Bluebeard tale were prevalent in regional folklore, from Brittany to Estonia, and beyond to India (the devious Hindu deity Indra is noted for his striking blue beard). The Grimm Brothers spun their own variation in “The Feather Bird,” about an ogre who imprisons three sisters, only to be outwitted by a cunning young virgin disguised as a chicken.

It became fashionable at the turn of the last century to blame Bluebeard on Gilles de Rais (above), the notorious 15th-century French marshal who allegedly killed over 140 children, most of them boys. A celebrated soldier, Gilles de Rais achieved military reclame as Joan of Arc’s most loyal and fearless supporter. After her execution, he retired to his vast landholdings in Brittany. But like Joan, he would be burned at the stake as a witch. He was only 36 when he died.

At first glance, the characters seem diametrically opposed. How could a pedophile murderer, a medieval John Wayne Gacy, have inspired a legend about a homicidal bridegroom? In fact, Bluebeard has more in common with Comorre, another Breton figure, who preyed on young girls. But upon closer inspection Gilles de Rais is a compelling choice. He was famous for his swallow-tailed beard which turned blue in direct sunlight, for his incredible fortune which he squandered on music (he was known to lug an entire organ along with him into battle) and lavish miracle plays, such as the Saint of Orleans about Joan of Arc. Two of his fiances died before marrying him, inspiring rumors that he had killed them. He eventually did tie the knot, with an even richer noblewoman, and sired a family. But it was his obsession with alchemy and necromancy that led to his downfall, and caused him to withdraw into a private hell of sadistic orgies and spiraling debts. His accusers claimed to have found the skeletons of hundreds of dismembered corpses in a crypt below one of the baron’s castles.

The gory details of Gilles de Rais’ “crimes against nature” were revealed in full at his two simultaneous trials (one ecclesiastical, the other civil). He sodomized his victims and beheaded them after drinking (or bathing in) their blood. By sacrificing boys to black magic, the baron hoped to uncover the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life. Were the charges true? His confession was induced through torture, and is highly suspect. But the legacy of his perversion grew over time and evolved into that of Bluebeard: a man who could not love without resorting to murder. The homosexual aspect became the subtext; the unspoken horror, the underlying cause of aggression. One need look only to a potboiler like Silence of the Lambs – about a transvestite psychopath — to see how such twisted logic is prevalent today.

Even in an age of pop serial killers and mass murderers, of everyday lunatics who slay their wives and kids before embarking on all-too-familiar bloody rampages, Bluebeard still has shock value. In its purest form, the story is about innocence confronting evil, the life force battling Death, light surrendering to darkness. But underneath the allegorical surfaces lurk disturbing truths about conjugal relations, human psychology, sexual repression –what Freud dubbed “civilization and its discontents.” Perhaps this is why the story continues to hold us in its thrall. Bluebeard embodies the essential paradox of the human condition. The need to connect with others while feeling trapped in the No-Exit of existential isolation. No man is an island, but woe to anyone who dares to bridge the gap. The punishment for total intimacy is death.

Bluebeard has thrived in all the arts: painting, pantomime, drama, dance (most memorably in choreography by Fokine and Petipa). There was even an “Ethiopian” minstrel show of Bluebeard that played the vaudeville circuit. Hollywood embraced the libidinous duke early on, with hilarious results. Both Gloria Swanson and Claudette Colbert sent up the myth in the film versions of the comedy, Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife.

Charles Ludlam revamped the legend as high camp. Richard Burton made one of his worst films (now a cult classic), Bluebeard, opposite Raquel Welch and Joey Heatherton. Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux was Bluebeard in modern drag. Not to be outdone, that nimble sleuth Nancy Drew got into the act, plunging “into a dark world of mystery, romance and terror,” by asking too many annoying questions in The Bluebeard Room.

The theme of a sealed room containing vicious secrets was recycled in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and more subtly in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, where the curious new wife fears her husband is a cold-hearted murderer after the corpse of his previous wife is dredged from the bottom of the sea. Among more contemporary authors, Margaret Atwood and Kurt Vonnegut have profited from plying Bluebeard themes in their novels. Perhaps the sliest homage is Sylvia Plath’s eerie poem, “Bluebeard”:

“I am sending back the key
that led me into Bluebeard’s study
because he would make love to me
I am sending back the key,
in his eye’s darkroom I can see
my X-rayed heart, dissected body:
I am sending back the key
that led me into Bluebeard’s study.”

This enigmatic verse took on added significance after Plath’s tragic suicide, leading some to question if “bluebeard” was in fact her husband Ted Hughes.

But it is in opera that Bluebeard really has legs. Jacques Offenbach, above, satirized the duke in his three-act Barbe-bleue (1866), an opera bouffe set to a libretto by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halevy. Here the grotesque is undercut by humor; no one actually dies, they are put away temporarily with sleeping pills. French composer Paul Dukas tackled the subject more soberly in his lushly orchestrated Ariane et Barbe-bleue based on Maurice Maeterlinck’s play. A master of symbolism, Maeterlinck added a chilling note of ambiguity, making Bluebeard’s ex-wives remain loyal to their torturer, turning their back on Ariane’s efforts to free them. Other, more obscure composers, such as Gretry and Reznicek, have also retailed the legend.

Bela Bartok’s unsettling masterpiece Bluebeard’s Castle taps into more profound recesses of the psyche. Some see it as a classical allegory about the soul, of man’s inability and unwillingness to understand his Dionysian self. The inquisitive wife represents the light of Apollonian reason, demanding answers, only to seal her doom when her enquiring mind wants to know too much. A Hungarian, Bela Bartok suffused his opera with a stultifying Transylvanian atmosphere of dread and misery. Yet for all its stock stereotypes — the blanket of red light evoking blood; the subterranean “lake of tears” (shades of LeRoux’s Phantom of the Opera); the ghoulish ex-wives trapped in a limbo of ghostly immortality (reminiscent of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the saga of another Transylvanian ladykiller) — Bartok (and his librettist Bela Balazs) managed to reveal the monster at his most human. Bartok’s brooding study of evil has stood the test of time because his Bluebeard is a sympathetic character: A lonely philosopher who is just as much a victim of his compulsion to kill as his wives are. He and Judith are mirrors of each other, inextricably linked by fate, playing out a danse macabre as old as time.

Balazs was obviously inspired by Maeterlinck’s play. But he simplified the storyline, reducing the plot to one act instead of three. Rather than have Judith be rescued at the end (he changed the wife’s name from Ariane, adding biblical resonances), Balazs lets her die. Bartok was drawn to the libretto’s bittersweet despair, perhaps because it let him fully indulge his fondness for Hungarian folk songs. Some of these are based on actual Transylvanian tunes he recorded and studied. Bartok was eager to paint the two characters entirely through music, as Debussy had in Pelleas et Melisande, another Maeterlinck play. No doubt he was also influenced by Debussy’s lesser known Fall of the House of Usher, based on Poe’s gothic novella.

Bluebeard’s Castle is probably the finest example of an opera that works better in a concert hall rather than on the stage. (Indeed it was rejected when Bartok first submitted it for competition in 1911 because of its static quality, and was not produced until 1918.) Its intrigue lies in its ingenious score. On stage, the opening of the seven doors offers little if any suspense, but musically it is magical. The sensual, Straussian orchestral flourishes create an overwhelming sense of inescapable doom. Bluebeard’s has become part of the repertory, often performed with Schoenberg’s equally somber Erwartung. But it was not always so. In 1955, City Opera staged it with Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole for its New York premiere, while the Met in 1974 paired it with Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi!

It is no surprise that Bluebeard remains a contemporary icon (Charles Ludlam’s camp Bluebeard, above), as well known today as Batman or Beauty and the Beast. The legend plays to our yearnings for ritual and sacrifice, summoning up innate fears of desire and death, wisdom and ignorance, good and evil. Ultimately, like the medieval miracle plays Gilles de Rais himself sponsored, it defies rational comprehension. It was, after all, a tale for children, cautioning us not to ask too many questions.

Note: a slightly edited version of this article appeared in Stagebill magazine.