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Last evening I attended a most intriguing experience at the San Francisco Symphony. If at all possible Bay Area Inmates who love classical music should check it out the performance of Bartok’s “Bluebeard Castle”, a single act opera featuring just two soloists. There is no need to be an opera lover to appreciate this Bartok composition. I was drawn to the performance almost exclusively due to my immense enjoyment of the Ivan Fischer/Philips recording of “Bluebeard” that I find to be among the most exciting and satisfying SACDs in my collection. See my comments at SA-CD.net .
I assumed that the San Francisco performance would be merely the orchestra with the two soloists sans any type of staging. But the playbill described the production as “semi-staged”, so there is no elaborate traditional sets or costumes. And at first glance one would accept the staging, a non-convincing outline of the castle as being merely austere. But it is actually much more which becomes immediately apparent as the production unfolds. The sparse staging is given added dimension with the use of video projections, holographic type imaging, a complex lighting array (critical to differentiating the 7 doors), subtitles, etc. all skillfully (in my humble opinion) choreographed, but perhaps to a fault (see below). The end result, while clearly not a comprehensive substitute for an elaborate traditional set, nevertheless attained a high artistic level.
The orchestra, including eight offstage brass players, under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas, played superbly and explosively as called for in the score. The Rufatti organ, which can sometimes disappoint, came up huge (5th door). And the twin harps were as beautifully played and as relevant to a score as I can remember.
I thought that the soloists, especially the mezzo, surpassed what I heard on the Fischer recording.
One downside is that I recall the music performance on the Fischer recording to be more mysteriously beautiful and more vividly descriptive of the scenes (see comments at SA-CD.net). But this could very well be due to the abundance of technology and special effects that accompanied the live performance that, at times, could be a bit distracting (for me), if only briefly. When listening in the comfort of ones home to a fabulous recording/performance as is the Fischer there are no distractions such as subtitles to follow, video projections to interpret, etc. to preclude one undivided attention from the music.
But make no mistake, I found the San Francisco performance of ‘Bluebeard” to be a most enjoyable music experience.
P.S.
Anyone compare the Channel Classics re-release with the original Philips?
Robert C. Lang
Follow Ups:
You are lucky, you do not have to understand the singers. I am cursed with the language they sing it in. The music is fine, the libretto is horrible. I do not know what possessed Mr Bela when he decided to put that stuff to music. Arguing about keys in operatic singing can get irritating. Even Bartok could not make me vant to listen to opera :), i gladly listen to anything he ever composed, but that one just does not compute.
Besides that i am glad you liked it.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
I love the piece for the music. I must confess that I own recordings that are sung in both Hungarian and Enlish (one of those Chandos Opera in English recordings).
I would think you should find it as easy to NOT understand what they are singing in Hungarian as I do in English. To me, most of opera is music and sound with the words rarely attended to. That's for lieder.In any case, I hope to hear the MTT on disc, eventually. I do enjoy the Fischer/BPO very much and heard them do it in NY a little while back but my favorite modern recorded performance remains the Eötvös/Hanssler disc.
Edits: 06/23/12
Wow - I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who don't understand the language. To me, Bluebeard's Castle is one of Bartok's most atmospheric and interesting works, and I like to think that I know the work pretty well - I played the rehearsals for a production of the opera done at Stanford in the 70's. Sorry I missed the production that Robert saw. I did see the SF symphony do this work sometime in the 80's, but it was strictly a concert performance. The most striking thing about it IMHO was the size of the voice of Katalin Kasza, who sang Judith - very impressive indeed, and I was not prepared for it on the basis of her recording of the role with Ferencsik conducting on a Hungaroton LP.I also used to have the video laser disc with Solti conducting, with Sylvia Sass singing Judith. I think this was a production where they took a pre-existing recording and mimed the action. That didn't bother me in the least - Sass was such a babe in her day!
Edits: 06/22/12
you have non natives singing it :). Bartok, at least for me, is the most interesting composer of the 20th century. I consume large quantities of his music on a regular basis, trust me i tried to like Bluebeard's but i cannot get to the end of it without getting annoyed with the repetitiveness of the lyrics and the story line is not very very entertaining....I felt many times i would have an easier time with this if it was sung in Armenian, maybe .... and also there is this thing; i cannot stand opera as a form of classical music, all is good till they start singing :) then i have to skip those parts, then it is over and i did not enjoy much of it. Based on those two facts you have to take my criticism of this piece with a very very large block of salt.
dee
;-D
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.
quote by Kurt Vonnegut
I don't speak the language either, but I've read the libretto every time I've listened to the BFO Philips SACD, and it affects me each time. The interplay between Judith and Bluebeard throughout the piece, her insisting inquisitiveness, against his guarded passiveness, culminating in her surrender to the inevitable once she went too far. The last scene, with the counterpoint between the two never leaves me dry eyed.
Seiji Ozawa and the BSO preformed Bluebeard in the late 80's, as did Levine four years ago. Seiji's was the much more dramatic interpretation, With 20 additional Brass spread 10 on each side of the hall half way back. I had a friend (my then boss) with me on the rail of the second balcony. I wasn't working at the BSO then. He was mildly board, not watching the concert staged performers through the first four Doors, reading the libretto, when his world of classical music changed forever with Door Five. The enormous crash of the percussion, the huge C major organ cord, Judith screaming, and all that brass right on top of us so shocked him, I thought he was going to go over the balcony rail.
I can't recommend it enough.
. . . even though Robert referred to it in his original post. Like you, I've got the Philips incarnation of it - and you're right, it's very affecting. I also have the Dorati/LSO CD on Mercury, which I also love, even though Székeley was past his prime and Szönyi's voice was a bit too tremulous - still, I'm sorry that 35mm recording was CD only and was not part of the Mercury SACD series.
Thanks for sharing, Robert. I looked in vain for an online review but found the following interview with the production's director instead. Pretty illuminating nonetheless!
Russell
I saw the LA Phil do something similar -- not video projections, but lighting elements were worked in for each room. With the Treasury in particular, the sudden illumination of the whole hall matching the music was quite dramatic.
What SFO did sounds intriguing. Thanks for sharing.
That sounds to have been a great evening - thanks for sharing. We had a similar semi-staged performance by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, a while back when Marin Alsop was still the Principal Conductor. That used a stage extension and just a few simple props but quite a lot of moving around by the soloists - Sir John Tomlinson as Bluebeard I seem to remember. It too was very dramatic and a concert to remember. Fischer is a great performance but nothing quite reaches the visceral impact of a live performance.
Dave
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