Bartok: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

   in Opera Now (Jun, 2014)
Recorded live in Vienna in 2011 with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen and featuring John Tomlinson in the opera’s title role, this disc promises much on paper. Apart from a handful of intense dramatic moments, however, most of which are down to the orchestra, the result is disappointing. Its weak point is language: the opening narration is delivered in English while the rest of the opera is sung in Magyar, highlighting the fact that this disc has been made for an English-speaking market. Tomlinson and his Judith, Michelle DeYoung, both have wonderful voices, but their understandable handicap when it comes to colouring the subtler linguistic nuances of Bela Balazs’ libretto …
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