Search - Bartok, Solti, Lpo :: Bluebeard's Castle

Best spoken intro

Joseph Magil | Cerritos, CA USA | 09/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bluebeard's Castle isn't really complete without the spoken intro, which clues the audience into the symbolic nature of the opera, and on this disc, Istvan Sztankay delivers the intro brilliantly, really grabbing the listener's attention. The rest of the performance is very good too, though no one has yet equalled the insight and cumulative emotional impact of Decca's recording of the husband and wife team of Walter Berry and Christa Ludwig, conducted by Istvan Kertesz."

A fine version with the Prologue, but Kertesz still leads

Ralph Moore | Bishop's Stortford, UK | 05/01/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Has there ever been a bad recording of this opera, I wonder? It seems to have been fortunate on disc and there is great merit in all of the four I own and play. I acquired this one not only to hear the artists concerned but particularly because it features the spoken Prologue in Hungarian from the poem by Béla Bàlasz, chillingly recited in a mesmeric half-voice by Istvan Sztankay. I think this enormously helps to set the right atmosphere for the tale to come; the only other version I know of which does this is the BBC Music magazine live recording in English from 1992, in which again the Prologue is intoned in a whisper and gradually an English translation, movingly delivered by a woman actor and evidently from a later, different section of the poem, overlays the Hungarian - again,to telling, atmospheric effect. It surprise me that so many otherwise good recordings do not see the dramatic possibilities of the inclusion of at least the Prologue if not some of the original poem; it gives this one a distinct advantage - although it is not the best of all, musically speaking; that honour goes to the rivetingly sung and played Kertesz recording with an incomparably vivid Walter Berry and Christa Ludwig, in grand, spacious Decca sound (see my review).



Still, this has much to offer, not least a comparatively rare chance to hear Sylvia Sass in a successful recording made before a brief ten years at the top and too committed and reckless a devotion to dramatic conviction took their toll and she retired. She does not hold the top C in the Fifth Door section with the same thrilling abandon that Ludwig for Kertesz or Marton for Fischer manage, but otherwise she is a superb vocal actress who finds nuances in her native tongue of which others are unaware. Kolos Kovats has a big, rich bass in the Ramey mould and of course he, too, fully appreciates how to colour the words. Strangely, given his reputation, I did not find Solti as thrilling as Kertesz in his control of dynamics and momentum, but his is still a more energised interpretation than that of the oddly restrained Adam Fischer, even though the latter has the advantage of the Hungarian State Orchestra. Both Solti and Kertesz get more out of the two best London orchestras, but I still want to hear Ramey and Marton together in a very passionate partnership.



What a fascinating opera this is, and what a good range of recording options are open to us. Others favour celebrated recordings by Ferencsik and Dorati, but there is some slightly less successful casting in their versions - you really need the grandest voices for music which is so declamatory and melodramatic. I would especially like to hear another English version conducted by Ormandy with Jerome Hines and Rosalind Elias but this has never made the leap from LP to CD (although someone has provided a substantial clip from the opening on YouTube which makes me want to hear more). Time to release it, Sony. Meanwhile, the BBC live radio recording, originally available as a freebie with the magazine but now occasionally to be found on Amazon Marketplace and eBay, is a pleasing alternative, especially if you like the distinctive bass of Gwynne Howell."