Surveying a primary source of Dukas' Ariane et Barbe-Bleue

Word-Music transformations and interrelationships are explored within the opera, Ariane et Barbe-Bleue. Paul Dukas (1865-1935) took the libretto of Maurice Mæterlinck's Ariane et Barbe-Bleue and adapted, edited and in some cases, rewrote the text. Acknowledging Dukas' annotated copy of Mæterlinck's text, and the differences between that and the published scores, this article assesses what alterations made in Dukas' appropriation of the text. It strives to explicate how ambiguities between sensual secularity and social expectation are deliberately used to produce what Dukas termed a 'dramatic effect' within theater.