Bluebeard's Castle-Comp Opera

Non fatevi spaventare dalla data di incisione (1965)! Non è un disco per collezionisti, ma un'occasione straordinaria per chi desidera un'esecuzione emozionante dell'opera di Bartok. Perfetta resa acustica.

A few years ago I would say probably 2015 or so maybe earlier I was at a local Goodwill. I was looking through all their vinyl records since I do collect vinyl and at this point only 33 and 45 and I ran across this opera on vinyl. I did not know anything about Opera at the time yet just looking at the cover of this Opera for this specific vinyl release and seeing that it said Orchestra I thought this to be some really cool and interesting classical Style music. When I got home with that record set and a few others I instantly had to put this one on to check it out. What I heard at first confused me and then upon further listening it excited me and caused me to fully understand and accept what is greatly known as Opera. A few years later down the road 2016 to be exact late 2016 I decided to pick up this CD copy of this amazing version of this amazing Opera. To this day this Opera and Opera and general stuns me with the amazingness and the ability to create something that sounds so massive and so brooding or so powerful. If you are into Opera and you do not have this Opera in your collection then you are totally incomplete in your collection. I'm still building my Opera CD and vinyl collection but this is one Opera that I am so glad to have in my collection and this may even be my favorite Opera this one or Ivan susanin by Mikhail glinka slightly unsure exactly what my favorite is. But one thing is for sure I truly and heavily love this Opera and its really speaks to me because it is so dark and so powerful. The vinyl copy I have is really nice because it comes with a booklet that again has the libretto in English and Hungarian but I believe it explains a little bit about the Opera too I'm not sure. At any rate this is a great Opera and I highly highly highly suggest you getting this version and listening to it lights out a glass of wine or your favorite drink and just sit in your favorite chair and enjoy.

bis zum heutigen Tage so gut wie unerreichte Referenz-Studio-Aufnahme, des damalien "Dream-Ehepaar-Teams" Ludwig/Berry unter dem kongenialen Kertesz.!! superb! auch klanglich ungemein präsent und vokal und orchestral in herrlicher Balance!

Une excellente version de cet opéra de Bartok en un acte. L'enregistrement est précis, spacialisé quand il le faut; les chanteurs sont parfaits et dramatiques. La musique de Bartok est prenante et très belle. Un livret de l'opéra malheureusement sans version française permet de suivre cependant l'intrigue.

ケルテスという指揮者の演奏は本アルバムを通して初めて体験しました。リマスター版とはいえ、これが1965年に録音された演奏？ほぼ５０年経った今でも曲に対する解釈の斬新さは色あせる事がなく、どこまでも暗く青く深遠な世界に最後の一音まで引き込まれる演奏です。古い録音にありがちな音の響きの貧弱さを感じる事もありません。素晴らしい１枚だと思います。

I have just had my first deep, start to finish communion with the glorious music of this short but immense opera. In earlier listenings I have warmed to the obvious highlights in the music. I have learned to relish the inherent passion of the Hungarian language in which it is sung. I have come to marvel at the psychoanalytic perspicacity of Béla Balázs unfathomably enigmatic poem which provides its libretto, observing how seldom libretto and music are so closely intertwined as in this masterpiece of operatic form. But this time I put the libretto down and let myself luxuriate in the grandeur of the music. The hugely expressive artistry of the two singers, Ludwig and particularly Berry. Then there's Kertész reading of the score that maintains a knife-edge balance between two threads of opposing tension, without let up, from start to end. On the one hand there is the gathering momentum towards the ineffable terror of the inevitable climax. Against this is pitched the dragging reluctance with which he tries to protect his young and too curious bride from the hidden forces of his soul, over which he has no more control than she, and whose consequences he dreads but which he cannot resist. In broad architecture this work is as close to the Romantic tradition as Bartok comes. However, careful inspection of the details shows it to be full of the characteristic devices that mark him out as the arch modernist, which he surely was. Moreover, a modernist not so much by virtue of iconoclasm, as say were Schoenberg and Stravinsky, but more because his musical spirit came from another place that only grazed the arc of Western musical evolution tangentially.The synopsis and significance of the plot line I leave for the prospective listener to draw their own conclusions. Suffice it to say that the title I have given the review is one of any number of interpretations that the listener might arrive at as to the meaning of this strange and profoundly total work of art. I know no other versions of this opera (yet) but this is one of Decca's key releases in terms of both recording and performance. That this is a 1965 recording is frankly unbelievable. All I can say is that while there may be versions of the same quality out there I cannot conceive of any that might be better.