Bartók wrote at the time of composition [of the opera Bluebeard's Castle]: 'Women should be accorded the same liberties as men. Women out to be free to do the same things as men, or men out not to be free to do things women aren't supposed to do - I used to believe this to be so for the sake of equality...' He does not go on to retract his opinion, but qualifies it as necessary because repressing women's desires constitutes a graver risk than allowing them equal expression. The heroines of twentieth-century stories about marriage to a beast no longer reject him: they are shown welcoming the discoveries the union brings them. The opera dramatizes a ritual of an initiation which can never be fully achieved, and its ultimate import, unlike its predecessor's, stresses surrender: Judith meets the fate that the earlier heroines are spared, but she steps into the void fully aware of what she is doing.
Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
