For a full version of the Barbe Bleue tale please read our original Charles Perrault version.

To read more about our October 30 Hallowe’en spectacular “Le Chateau de Barbe-Bleue” or to book your place, click here.

The Blue Beard story abbreviated

• Blue Beard is a wealthy man who lives in a castle full of silver and gold
• He is als0 considered terrifically ugly, thanks to his blue beard
• A neighbour had two beautiful daughters but neither wished to marry Blue Beard, not least because he had previously been married to several other wives, all of whom had mysteriously disappeared
• In order to win the family’s affection, Blue Beard invites them to an extravagant party at his castle; by the end one of the girls agrees to marry Blue Beard
• Not long after the marriage, Blue Beard tells his new wife that he must go on an extended trip away, but he encourages his wife to invite her friends to the castle to make merry
• Blue Beard gives the girl a bunch of keys providing her access to the castle and all its rooms, plus all his money and jewels.
• At the same time, he gives her a small key to a forbidden chamber, instructing her never to enter it, for if she unlocks the door she will attract his anger and resentment
• Some time after his departure, Blue Beard’s new wife finally looks in the room
• Inside she finds the bodies of Blue Beard’s previous six wives, dismembered and mutilated amidst a lake of flowing blood.
• The wife drops the key in the blood then picks it up and locks the room up
• She tries to wash the blood off the key but it is a magic key and the blood returns as quickly as she can wash it off
• Suddenly Blue Beard makes a surprise re-appearance back from his trip and immediately spots the blood on the key
• Blue Beard threatens to kill his wife so that she can join the other wives in the chamber
• She begs for a few minutes’ grace to say her prayers, a request that Blue Beard grants
• During this time the wife calls on her sister and brothers
• Her brothers appear in the nick of time and kill Blue Beard
• Blue Beard’s wife inherited his estate, gave part of the money to her brothers, part to her sister so that she could marry someone, and the last part as dowry to another man; they lived happily ever after

If this story has interested you, take a look at some analysis from literary critics or the alternative version from the Bela Bartok opera.

To read more about our October 30 Hallowe’en spectacular “Le Chateau de Barbe-Bleue” or to book tickets,  click here.