Composed in 1911, Bluebeard's Castle is BÃ©la BartÃ³k's only opera - a radical masterpiece which has secured a place alongside the other innovative music dramas of the same period, from Debussy's PellÃ©as et MÃ©lisande to Berg's Wozzeck. Planning to write a one-act opera, BartÃ³k settled on a libretto by BÃ©la BalÃ¡zs with the kind of surreal and/or macabre themes that would soon feature in his two ballets, The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin. The main source for the libretto text was a play by Maeterlinck, a retelling of Perrault's gruesome tale of Barbe-Bleue, the sinister yet strangely seductive wife-killer. BalÃ¡zs turned the drama into what he called a 'mystery play', however, and his stylization of the story throws the weight of the drama onto stage-setting and music. The single act centers on the successive opening of the castle's seven doors, and BartÃ³k's music brings across the horrors of the blood-drenched torture chamber, the steely power of the armory and the glitter of jewels in the treasury as well as the interplay of increasingly feverish questionings from Judit and defiant responses from Bluebeard. Susanna MÃ¤lkki and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra have already proved their BartÃ³k credentials with a disc of his ballet scores which was chosen as Record of the Week in BBC Radio 3 Record Review and earned top marks in Diapason and on the website Klassik-Heute. Joined by Mika Kares as Duke Bluebeard and his Judit, the Hungarian mezzo-soprano Szilvia VÃ¶rÃ¶s, the team here performs BartÃ³k's darkly glittering, shimmering and threatening score in a live recording from 2020.

Tracklist:

Prologue: Haj rego rejtem (Once upon a time) (Bard)
Jaj! - Mit lÃ¡tsz? (
Ajto) (Woe! What seest thou? (Door 1))
Mit lÃ¡tsz? - SzÃ¡z kegyetlen szÃ¶rnyu fegyver (
Ajto) (What seest thou? Piles of cruel arms and armour (Door 2))
Oh, be sok kincs! (
Ajto) (Mountains of gold! (Door 3))
Oh! VirÃ¡gok! (
Ajto) (Ah! Tender flowers! (Door 4))
Ajto) (See, this is my domain! (Door 5))
Ajto) (I can see a sheet of water (Door 6)) 1
Ajto) (Hearts that I have loved and cherished (Door 7))

UPC: 7318599923888
Label: Bis
Release Date: 3.19.21
Format: CD

Bela Bartok / Kares / Malkki - Bluebeard's Castle (CD)