Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s castle

 Opera 11

Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castleloists

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Anja Bihlmaier

This was a live performance at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham.  I had heard the opera years ago but didn't remember much about it.

Hearing it live really brought out the extraordinary power of the orchestral writing. Bartók uses a large orchestra, including organ, 2 harps and offstage brass. The effect when they are playing - such as when the fifth door opens - is highly impressive. With all of the orchestra on stage the singers here did struggle a bit to be heard over the weight of the orchestra, 

The vocal writing here does seem secondary to the orchestra. Indeed I can’t imagine that is a particularly satisfying work to perform as a singer. These is very little in the way of extended arias - much of the vocal writing consists of small fragments of arioso often with phrases repeated several times over. I suppose that Pelleas was an important influence here, though the music is a long way away from Debussy. Indeed it didn’t seem entirely characteristic of Bartók either - I think of him mainly in terms of complexity of rhythm and folk-based melodic inspiration and neither of these were I think particularly apparent in this work.

I certainly was glad to hear it again after a very long gap. I didn’t get the sense that Bartók was a natural opera composer and it is perhaps significant that he never returned to opera.