(Posted 1-27-00)
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News Service Contact: Laurie Gengenbach , 336-334-5371

DR. LEAFSTEDT PUBLISHES BOOK ON BARTÓK
 
GREENSBORO —Dr. Carl S. Leafstedt, assistant professor of music at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, has had his book "Inside Bluebeard's Castle: Music and Drama in Béla Bartók's Opera" published by Oxford University Press.
The book is the first book-length examination of the Hungarian composer's 1911 opera, "Duke Bluebeard's Castle," a work Leafstedt describes as "deeply serious and deeply psychological."

"The music is powerful and moving, though it does make for a gloomy evening of theatre. That's one reason the opera never became as popular as works like ‘La Boheme,' or ‘Tosca'", Leafstedt said. The complexity and beauty of its music, however, makes it a suitable subject for a book-length study, he added.

Writing in an engaging style, Leafstedt adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the opera by introducing, in addition to music-dramatic analysis, a number of topics that are new to the field of Bartók studies. These include a detailed literary study of the libretto and a gender-focused analysis of opera's female character, Judith. Leafstedt learned Hungarian in order to research the book, and he makes an annual trip to the Bartók archives in Budapest to continue his research, he said.

The book is written for serious musical scholars, or anyone with an appreciation for opera or Bartók, he said.

Leafstedt will discuss the composer's connection to North Carolina at his free lecture 4 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Recital Hall at the new School of Music Building at the corner of McIver and Market streets. Bartók fled wartime Hungary in 1940 to spend the five remaining years of his life in the United States, and he spent the winter of 1943 in Asheville.

Leafstedt, a violist and pianist, has taught at UNCG since 1998. He received his  Ph.D in musicology from Harvard University in 1994 and plays viola for the Greensboro Symphony. He delivered a lecture, "The Original, Unpublished Ending to Bartók's Opera, ‘Duke Bluebeard's Castle'" at the annual meeting of the  American Musicological Society in Kansas City, Mo. last fall. He is scheduled to deliver a preconcert lecture on "Bluebeard's Castle" at the International Bartók Symposium in Austin, Texas, in March, and he will be teaching a graduate course on Bartók at Duke University during the spring semester.

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