Bartok - Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
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Label: Pentatone
Cat No: PTC5187225
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Opera
Release Date: 4th April 2025
Contents
Artists
Rinat Shaham (mezzo-soprano)Gabor Bretz (bass-baritone)
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor
Karina CanellakisWorks
Bluebeard's Castle, op.11 Sz48Artists
Rinat Shaham (mezzo-soprano)Gabor Bretz (bass-baritone)
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
Conductor
Karina CanellakisAbout
The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and its chief conductor Karina Canellakis continue their Bartók journey with the composer’s only opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, starring mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham (Judith) and bass-baritone Gábor Bretz (Bluebeard). One man, one woman, and a dark castle with seven mysterious doors are all it takes to create a psychological thriller full of suspense and intense emotion. Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra received a Grammy nomination for their recording of Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra and 4 Orchestral Pieces, which BBC Music Magazine praised as “enticing and brilliantly engineered”, while Gramophone lauded how orchestra and conductor “paint the soundscapes with both finesse and fire.” For Canellakis, Bartók’s opera recorded here is “an homage to life itself, to life’s brevity and fleeting beauty, to being human, to love, and to death.”
Internationally acclaimed for her emotionally charged performances, technical command and interpretive depth, Karina Canellakis has become one of the most in-demand conductors of her generation. She returns to PENTATONE as Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra continuing their Bartók cycle that began with the aforementioned Concerto for Orchestra in 2023. Rinat Shaham and Gabor Bretz are sought after by the world’s greatest opera houses and have longstanding experience performing Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle with various orchestras and conductors around the world.
Internationally acclaimed for her emotionally charged performances, technical command and interpretive depth, Karina Canellakis has become one of the most in-demand conductors of her generation. She returns to PENTATONE as Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra continuing their Bartók cycle that began with the aforementioned Concerto for Orchestra in 2023. Rinat Shaham and Gabor Bretz are sought after by the world’s greatest opera houses and have longstanding experience performing Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle with various orchestras and conductors around the world.
Sound/Video
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1Prologue. Haj regő rejtem – Introduction. Megérkeztünk
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2First Door, the Torture Chamber. Jaj! – Mit látsz? Mit látsz? – Láncok, kések, szöges, karók
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3Second Door, the Armoury: Mit látsz? – Száz kegyetlen szörnyű fegyver
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4Third Door, the Treasury. Oh, be sok kincs!
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5Fourth Door, the Garden. Oh! Virágok! Oh! Illatos kert!
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6Fifth Door, Bluebeard’s Kingdom. Ah! – Lásd ez az én birodalmam
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7Sixth Door, the Lake of Tears. Csendes fehér tavat látok
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8Seventh Door, Bluebeard’s Former Wives. Lásd a régi asszonyokat
Europadisc Review
It starts (after a spoken prologue) in an atmosphere of oppressive gloom, ends in blackest night, and at its centre is an eruption of powerful C major brilliance. Though it failed to win either of the two competitions in which Bartók originally entered it, and was slow to be accepted in the repertoire, Bluebeard’s Castle is now recognised – along with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Berg’s Wozzeck – as one of the defining masterpieces of early 20th-century opera. Béla Balázs’s libretto, published in 1910 and set by Bartók the following year, is drenched in the Symbolism of the period, to which the music brings a highly individual combination of Debussyesque sophistication, edgy post-Romantic harmonies and the scales and cadences of Hungarian folk music. While the Symbolist treatment of the well-known folk legend seeps into the staging (particularly the use of coloured lights as each of the forbidden doors is opened by Bluebeard’s new bride, Judith), this is primarily a psychological drama: how well do we know ourselves, and how well are we willing/able to allow others to know us?
For the emotionally reticent Bartók, this was a subject that was particularly close to home, and from the opera’s brooding opening to the spine-tingling brilliance of the castle’s Treasury and the exquisite fragrance of its Secret Garden he clothed it in music of unsurpassed vividness. No wonder, then, that Bluebeard’s Castle has been so well-served on disc, from classics like Doráti and Kertész to more recent recordings by Gardner and Mälkki. Now American conductor Karina Canellakis and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (RFO) follow up on their 2023 album of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Pieces for Orchestra with a compelling new account of Bluebeard, a work for which Canellakis clearly has a deep affinity.
Sung in Hungarian, the performance opens with the spoken Prologue (‘Once upon a time...’) which always seems to be the most effective context against which the opening lower-string octaves creep in. No separate credit for the spoken lines is given, but it’s probably the Hungarian bass-baritone, who takes on the role of the mysterious Duke of the title. Unlike most protagonists on disc, this Bluebeard cuts a more sympathetic, at times even benign figure, a character whose expressive reserve arguably makes more sense of his repeated pleas to Judith not to press further with her explorations behind his castle’s locked doors. He certainly doesn’t lack vocal power where needed, but his underlying tenderness subtly shifts the usual darkness-light dichotomy at the heart of the story to something rather more nuanced.
His new bride is sung by mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham, not a native Hungarian speaker but with extensive on-stage experience of the role. Her vocal security throughout the part’s wide range, and particularly in the lower register, is formidable – as at 13'32" in the opening scene when she remarks upon the castle’s ghostly (and eerily realised) sighs. Shaham may not ride so imperiously over the orchestra at the climactic opening of the fifth door as, say, Jessye Norman on Boulez’s second recording, but her cry to herself at the opening of the first (the Torture Chamber) is one of a number of goose-bump moments in this performance. Hers is a portrayal that combines frailty with an underlying strength and determination, as well as abundant musicality.
The third character in this static yet powerful drama is, of course, the castle itself, as represented by the vast orchestra. Under Canellakis’s steady but purposeful direction, the RFO produces a fabulous array of colours and textures, with an unforced brilliance and delicacy but with considerable power where needed (the thunderous timpani chords before the Lake of Tears behind the sixth door). The upper strings occasionally have a hint of shrillness above the stave, but the all-important middle registers (solo clarinet, violas, etc.) are wonderfully expressive, while the biting dissonances of the recurrent ‘blood’ motif hit home without over-exaggeration.
The opening of the fifth door (Bluebeard’s Kingdom, with a succession of mighty root-position chords) is properly thrilling, underpinned by organ; but it is in the latter stages of the score – the Lake of Tears and the appearance Bluebeard’s Former Wives – that Canellakis and her forces prove their real class as the mood darkens to one of fatalism and resignation (and, at a deeper level, self-knowledge and acceptance). It is here, too, that the carefully-shaded nuances of both Bretz and Shaham really pay off, leaving the listener unsettled, yes, yet also wiser. This is one of the most thoughtful traversals of Bartók’s landmark score on record, its echoes lasting long after the disc has stopped spinning.
Reviews
Hungarian bass Gabor Bretz brings an impeccable nobility to Bluebeard, more ardent vigour that some of the most intimidating Dukes, while mezzo Rinat Shaham has an engaging curiosity and confidence as she goes exploring in the castle... Canellakis seems to have such sympathy for the intensity of Bartók’s orchestral writing at ever dynamic level, which is why this is my Record of the Week. Andrew McGregorRecord Review (BBC Radio 3) 5 April 2025
Bretz’s almost conversational delivery certainly avoids overt villainy, though it is clear enough from the increasing horror in Rinat Shaham’s voice that Bluebeard’s latest amour is not too pleased with her tour of the castle amenities.However one interprets the libretto’s spin on the original French folk tale, Canellakis, her expressive singers and the feisty Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra definitely give value for money...
The Times
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