We have next the "Dragon," "Elephant," and "Tiger" motive: the "Dragon
Motive" being intentionally reminiscent of the one in "Siegfried."
There is not in the entire range of modern music anything more impressive than this splendid journey of a barbaric prince toward his chosen victim. No stage picture could be more dazzling than the one brought before the mind's eye in the majestic, munificent measures that herald the pageant:
ARIA
"And true to his message the lover did come
With cymbals and horns and a big Indian drum!
The measures that follow these describe the tiger swinging on behind the triumphal cab. This is a delicious whimsicality, and the music is as gay and sportive as anything in "Die Meistersinger."
ARIA
"And an elephant, huge, to his cab… was confined."….
How the character of Bluebeard stands out in these passages—Bluebeard, morbid, erotic, megalophonous megalomaniac, with his grandiose air and outlandish accoutrements!
It seems odd that rumors of his matrimonial past had not reached Fatima, for the libretto tells us (authorized opera-house edition, not the one sold on the sidewalk) that his castle was only an hour's ride distant. In any event, one would think the sight of the lover's approach, with lions and elephants in attendance and a tiger hanging on behind the chariot, might have shown Fatima that, although Bluebeard might be admirable as an advance agent for a menagerie, he would hardly be a pleasant fireside companion. However, it was the old story! Moved by love, ambition, poverty, ennui, or what not, Fatima lost her head, as all Bluebeard's previous wives had done, both before and after marriage, and left the humble home of her childhood for the unknown castle. Simple chords give us this information thus:
(Semplice, piano for the Humble Home; Agitato, fortissimo for the Unknown
Castle.)