László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48, Op. 11 (2003/2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48, Op. 11 (2003/2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:25 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Decca

“Bartók’s wrote his only opera, the one-act Duke Bluebeard’s Castle in 1911, but it didn’t receive its premiere until May 24, 1918 in a concert shared with the composer’s The Wooden Prince. Bluebeard’s plot is about the ill-fated Judith who, in spite of warnings, marries Duke Bluebeard and goes with him to his ominous castle where she finds seven locked doors. Judith insists on unlocking each one, finding behind them a torture chamber, an armoury, a treasury, a garden, Bluebeard’s empire, a lake of tears and, behind the seventh door, Bluebeard’s three previous wives, not dead, but immortal. Judith then joins the other wives behind the seventh door. Bluebeard’s Castle had undergone a number of revisions before the premiere and contains some of the composer’s most imaginative music. There have been many superb recordings, particularly Ferenc Fricsay’s slightly-cut stereo version from 1958, Istvan Kertész’ 1965 Decca recording, and, most recently, Bernard Haitink’s with the Berlin Philharmonic on EMI. Audio buffs always have treasured this score for its grand opening of the Fifth Door with its smashing high ‘C’ for the soprano accompanied by heavy brass, percussion and organ. This new Philips recording is magnificent in every way. Conductor Ivàn Fischer reads the brief Prologue (in Hungarian, of course), and both singers are outstanding. The Bartók archives in Budapest have discovered some errors in the printed score all of which have been corrected in this recording, and the Budapest State Opera loaned the very rare keyboard xylophone which is heard to great effect in the torture chamber sequence. Hein Dekker was recording producer. He and his staff did a magnificent job in creating a totally natural, rich concert hall perspective with a perfect balance between singers and orchestra.”

This is an important re-release of a 2003 recording that originally appeared on Philips. Iván Fischer (who speaks the opera’s prologue quite beautifully and poetically) is certainly one of the preeminent Bartók conductors today, and this release fills out his discography of the composer’s works. Most of those other recordings still languish on Philips, but since other releases for that label have reappeared on Channel Classics, hopefully his previous Bartók titles will also.

Bluebeard’s Castle, as has often been said, employs three characters: Bluebeard, Judith, and the castle. Laszló Polgár is a magnificent Bluebeard: proud, dark-toned, steady throughout his range (after a somewhat edgy start), and very moving in his final apostrophe to his various wives. As Judith, Ildikó Komlósi has a powerful voice, which makes her emotional outbursts very exciting: her demands for the keys, for example, and the high C at the opening of the fifth door hold no terrors for her. But the basic timbre of the voice isn’t particularly attractive, and like so many singers today she has a vibrato that at times becomes distracting.

Fischer and his team, of course, portray the castle, as it were, and they are magnificent. The velvety strings at the opening, the spooky clarinets, the keyboard xylophone borrowed for this recording to capture the sound of Bluebeard’s armory–all are wonderfully evocative, and the playing and pacing are just about perfect. So is Channel Classics’ engineering, capturing plenty of detail while retaining ideal balances between the orchestra and the singers. I don’t know what they did to the original sonics, but the disc sounds much better now than it did back in 2003. This is a very fine recording, an important addition to the Bartók discography. Channel Classics provides the original Hungarian text plus an English translation. –David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Tracklist:

01. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Prologue (01:37)
02. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Opening Scene. ‘Megérkeztünk’ (12:36)
03. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 1. ‘Jaj!’ ‘Mit látsz? Mit látsz?’ ‘Láncok, kések’ (04:01)
04. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 2. ‘Mit látsz?’ ‘Százkegyetlen szörnyü fegyver’ (03:56)
05. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 3. ‘Oh, be sok kincs! Oh, be sok kincs!’ (02:09)
06. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 4. ‘Oh! virágok! Oh! ilatoskert!’ (04:32)
07. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 5. ‘Ah!’ ‘Lásdez az én birodalmam’ (05:55)
08. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 6. ‘Csendes fehér tavat látok’ (11:57)
09. László Polgár, Ildiko Komlosi, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer – Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz. 48 (Op.11) – Door 7. ‘Lásd a régi aszszonyokat’ (08:37)

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