Dukas made many attempts to compose operas, and, for his first two projects, he wrote his own libretti. In 1899, he was working on setting a Hindu legend, reflecting the interest in France at the time in Eastern religion. However, only one opera actually survives. This is Ariane et Barbe-Bleue (“Ariane and Bluebeard,
” 1907), Dukas's masterpiece, with a libretto by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck. The libretto was later used in part by
Béla Bartók
for his one-act...