«Il tuo castello sanguina». Spazio organico e necrospazio nel Barbablù di Béla Bartók e Pina Bausch

The essay explores the complex evolution of the “forbidden room” in domestic spaces within the rewritings of the Bluebeard fairy tale, focusing on the tension between physical protection and disturbing unease (Unheimlichkeit). The author proposes an innovative spatial analysis based on the concepts of organic space and necrospace: the latter, understood as a liminal, “in-between” threshold, where the body, deprived of transcendence, is reduced to waste material in a process of biodegradation. The core of the research lies in the intertextual and intermedial comparison between Béla Bartók’s opera, A kékszakállú herceg vára (1911), and its choreographic-theatrical adaptation by Pina Bausch, Blaubart (1977). The analysis highlights how the architecture of the castle in Bartók is configured as an “open wound,” a living organism, but in a state of necrosis where every environmental element is contaminated by traces of blood and suffering. In parallel, the study investigates how Bausch’s Tanztheater and Rolf Borzik’s set designs transform the stage into an Aktionsraum (action space), where the sonic manipulation of the tape recorder and the interaction of bodies with natural materials (such as dead leaves) resemanticise the scenic space. The result is the creation of an unprecedented and disturbing domestic dimension, in which the dialogue among verbal, visual, and acoustic elements manifests a shared, deeply organic agentive capacity.