Bartók: Duke Bluebeard's Castle / Kertész, Ludwig, Berry

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Bartók's lone opera has fared well on disc, and the Kertész is one of the best, even if it lacks the full bite and snap of singers emoting in their native language. Ludwig, a mezzo Judith, is convincing as a loving bride wishing to share her husband's innermost secrets, and Berry is a patient Bluebeard, saddened by her inevitable consignment to oblivion behind the seventh door. They capture the private, intimate horrors at the core of the story. Kertész conducts brilliantly, drawing full, warm sounds from the LSO aided by Decca's spectacular demonstration-quality engineering. Doráti (on Mercury, also with great sound but with native singers) may get closer to the spirit of Bartók's sharp-edged score, but Kertész is in the same league. --Dan Davis

Bartók: Duke Bluebeard's Castle / Kertész, Ludwig, Berry, Music, Bela Bartok, Istvan Kertesz, London Symphony Orchestra, Christa Ludwig, Walter Berry, Classical, Classical Music, Hungarian 20th/21st Century Opera, Opera, Opera / Operetta / Oratorio, Opera/Operetta

Average customer rating:

One of the GREATEST Recordings Ever Made.

Hauntingly Beautiful

Brilliantly sung "Bluebeard's Castle"

OPENING DOORS

Spell-Binding!

Bartók: Duke Bluebeard's Castle / Kertész, Ludwig, Berry

Manufacturer: Decca
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00001IVQX
Release Date: 1999-09-14

Tracks:

Duke Bluebeard's Castle BB 62 (Op.11): Opening
DOORS: Door 1
DOORS: Door 2
DOORS: Door 3
DOORS: Door 4
DOORS: Door 5
DOORS: Door 6
DOORS: Door 7

Amazon.com

Bartók's lone opera has fared well on disc, and the Kertész is one of the best, even if it lacks the full bite and snap of singers emoting in their native language. Ludwig, a mezzo Judith, is convincing as a loving bride wishing to share her husband's innermost secrets, and Berry is a patient Bluebeard, saddened by her inevitable consignment to oblivion behind the seventh door. They capture the private, intimate horrors at the core of the story. Kertész conducts brilliantly, drawing full, warm sounds from the LSO aided by Decca's spectacular demonstration-quality engineering. Doráti (on Mercury, also with great sound but with native singers) may get closer to the spirit of Bartók's sharp-edged score, but Kertész is in the same league. --Dan Davis

Customer Reviews:

One of the GREATEST Recordings Ever Made........2007-07-09

Decca Records....The very name seems to bring warm thoughts and feelings to one's body and mind...

What a "richer" place the world is, because of Decca, RCA, EMI (and of course, also, Philips, Deutsche Grammophone, and Columbia Records). These companies pioneered sound (and recordings) for us, and through their efforts, we have, currently, little silver discs (formerly, of course, Shiny Black LP's), that document and preserve both their technical achievements and those of the artists/participants of these recordings.

So, "Thank You Very Much" of course deserves to go to these companies for making our lives so much richer.

The Review...

One of these Pioneering Achievements, make no doubt about it, is this Magnificent recording of Bela Bartok's lone opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle (A kékszakkallú Herceg Vára). The sonic achievement of this recording, for clearness, spaciousness, and simply breadth and range will amaze you if you are not famaliar already with it. This recording will probably forever stand as one of the greatest achievements in sound ever done, as it has from it's release right up until today. There is one KnockOut rival*, but it DOES NOT replace it! (see below)

If you are unfamiliar with this work, you are in for a REAL TREAT. If you do not understand it, that's ok, wait a couple days, and play it again! (I'm sure you know how this works, if you have experience with Classical Music and Opera).

Christa Ludwig, let's face it, was simply one of the towering dramatic sopranos of the 20th century, bar none. Her then husband, at the time of this recording, Walter Berry, was a baritone who also certainly held his own on the stages throughout Europe for many many years, and those in America, also, though to a lesser degree.

This opera is a very psychologically powerful work, as is Richard Strauss' "Elektra"........both of them grip one and take you to places that, while you are uncomfortable with it, you willingly allow yourself to be taken there. Both of these operas seem to have a "magnetism" that you cannot shake loose until the final bar/resolve of the work.

Istvan Kertesz, unfortunately, did not live long enough to become "golden" in the eyes of the public like Bohm, Maazel, or Levine, etc., so few know of him today. He was simply one of the most gifted conductors of his time, as was Michael Tilson Thomas. This man immediately takes control over his forces, and Bartok's "blue-black" score, and brings it up to the point that you are mesmerized or locked into it and are not willing to pull yourself out of it. This is powerful music.

Ludwig, of all the people to tackle this role, has NEVER been overshadowed by Anyone Else's performance or rendition of Judith. The shining sense of innocence of the world comes with her into the dark, damp and hopelessly depressing castle. As the doors open, she traverses the "darknesses" that they each hold, and becomes a "world wise" and weary woman as the last door closes into total blackness. Crista Ludwig makes you believe this is a real girl taking this journey, and you believe her progression as she makes the trip to the end, hanging on to her every breath. Few can do this type of role where you have the stage "to yourself" for the duration of an opera and you don't "flag" at any point.

The same can be said for Walter Berry's Duke Bluebeard. His baritone is just captivating. His voice, rich and dark, just draws you in, willingly. You hang onto his every word, and like Judith, you "have to know more".

At the end of this hour's passing, you find that you are astounded that you have been so deeply engrossed or enveloped by this story. So many times I have sat afterwards and wondered "What would a three act version of this opera have been like?"

I realize I have, again, rambled on. Sometimes, when you're wound up in something, it's not possible to express what you want to convey in short clipped sentences. This is a "felt"(as much as any other aspect of it) work.

Trust my judgement from listening to many recordings of this special work over the years (since the 60's) this recording needs to be on your shelves FIRST before any other recording of it. ~operabruin

*That said, I will now make a comment on the rival recording. The EMI release with Anne Sophie von Otter, John Tomlinson, and Bernard Haitink also belongs on your shelves, if you can justify owning two versions of this great great work. (I have 7 recordings of it, and consider all 7 of them viable in one form or another). (see my review of this recording on Amazon here, for more information.) It does not "knock out" the Kertesz recording just reviewed, but it "BELONGS BESIDE IT."

Hauntingly Beautiful.......2007-01-25

I normally don't seek out an experience that is dark and disturbing. Now, this is a dark opera, to be sure, but I am astonished at what a beautiful and powerful opera it is. The music is perfect - the chords, the way the melody supports the vocal lines, the mood that is so perfectly established. This is essentially a psychological tale, in fact the prologue asks us to ponder if this is a story of within (psychological) or without. It is the story of a man who begs his wife not to dig too deep, but she can't help it, she continues to push, until... it is too late. The singing is fantastic. The orchestra playing is lush, the sound quality first rate. Now that I have heard this piece I think the biggest tragedy is that Bartok didn't write more operas. He shows tremendous compositional skill and a great sense of how to unfold the drama that I feel sometimes composers miss. Get your hands on this CD.

Brilliantly sung "Bluebeard's Castle".......2006-04-14

.
Source: Studio recording made in Kingsway Hall, London, November 1965.

Sound: State of the art analogue stereo that received high praise when it was issued in 1966. The second digital remastering, done in 1999, has been very successful. More acute ears than mine have noted the sound of the occasional tape join and some slight hiss. I do not go searching for such things and I certainly have not heard them on my copy.

Text: The work is performed in Hungarian as "A Kekszkallu herceg vara." [Sorry about the forms of the vowels, but Amazon has not been accepting my properly spelled foreign words recently.] The 28-line spoken verse prologue has not been recorded.

Documentation: Libretto in Hungarian joined with the standard, very loose, English singing translation by Christopher Hassall. Brief memoir on the origin of this recording. Short record of a conversation between Kertesz and Ludwig in which the conductor provides his interpretation of some aspects of the story. Track list shows timings.

Format: One disk - eight tracks; 59:30.

Cast: Bluebeard - Walter Berry; Judith - Christa Ludwig. Conductor: Istvan Kertesz with the London Symphony Orchestra.

In 1911, the thirty year-old Bartok began setting the libretto of "A Kekszkallu herceg vara" ["Duke Bluebeard's Castle"] by his friend, Bela Balasz. It was not performed until 1918. Because it is performed in opera houses and involves two people singing over an orchestra, the piece is casually lumped into the category of opera. To me, though, an opera is a sung drama or comedy--and "Duke Bluebeard's Castle" most assuredly is neither. It is at most a ritual, or perhaps no more than a mere reverie.

Just as Beethoven did a century earlier with "Fidelio," Bartok came to opera as a man of the concert platform, not of the theater. He provided little or no real drama for his singers; their characters have neither choice nor conflict. All the drama, all the color of the work, and Bartok crammed in a great deal of both, are to be found in his orchestra. The orchestra embarks on a impressive tonal voyage, but the singers merely utter their symbolic words on pitch.

And the symbolism? Well, let's face it, even for 1918 the symbols were absurdly simple-minded. Their simplicity, however, does not make them unambiguous. Here is how Kertesz is quoted: This "Bluebeard story is quite different from the fairy tale. The point is that all the blood is his blood. It means his suffering. Everything happens in the imagination". Being clearly on Bluebeard's side, he goes on to say that Judith is "horrible to him. She does not want him; she just wants to open his doors." Ludwig, naturally, is quoted as holding quite a different view.

Christa Ludwig and her then husband, Walter Berry were operatic aristocracy. They sing brilliantly here, particularly in light of the thin stuff provided by Bartok. That is not a matter of debate. Do they sing authentically? I haven't the slightest idea. The good, grey Gramophone Magazine says they lack the "texture and tang of native Hungarian singers". That may be so, although I can only wonder if a London-based English reviewer is any better judge than I am on the point.

The orchestra sounds terrific. Kertesz's approach is a little more subtle and inner-directed than is to be found in other recordings I have heard which are given more to the boom and bang approach.

On the whole, this is an excellent and classic recording. I can't vouch for its authenticity but I can assure you that it will give any sympathetic listener a full hour of pleasure.

Five stars.

(For those who find this work particularly appealing, I suggest that it might be worth your while to look into Korngold's much-underrated Twentieth Century masterpiece, "Die Tote Stadt," which traverses some of the same territory.)

OPENING DOORS.......2004-11-11

For 1965 the sound-quality on this disc is quite extraordinarily good - it would be that in 2004 - and Decca have every right to be proud of it. Everyone concerned has a right to be proud of the performance too. Ludwig and Berry are not only in superb voice, they seem to me to have penetrated to the heart of this dark and wonderful allegory. In the discussion that forms part of the liner-note Ludwig interrupts at one point to disagree with a certain view of Judith that she hears being expressed. No harm in that - this particular story is full of mystery. Only so much certainty is possible, and the ambiguity is essential to its power and magic.

For any music-lover struggling with Bartok - say with the quartets or the first piano concerto - this, or maybe the better-known violin concerto, would be the doors through which I would suggest approaching him. Purely at the musical level the idiom is modern without being forbidding or particularly challenging. Indeed the orchestration in Bluebeard is among the most thrilling I have ever heard, and Kertesz and the LSO (then at its very peak) do it proud. This is a short drama - a story like this can only be stretched out for a finite length - and the dark and sinister sense of fear and foreboding must never relax in performance, nor do they in this performance. The story is a powerfully convincing one to me, and I do not know how many of my own sex I can speak for, although I suspect it's most of us. In my view, which is a totally impressionistic and unscientific one as far as this is concerned, a man has a mental and emotional hinterland that nobody should try to trespass on. `Nobody' means not wife, not parent, not child, not the closest friend. It is irrespective of the most intense love that may be involved, and it can come up against an equally deep-seated female urge to know the man in her life as deeply as she can. It will not, in many cases, involve anything particularly dark, dramatic or seeming to demand secrecy, but I sense rightly or wrongly that it is a basic part of the male psyche. What this whole story dramatises with intense effect is the self-destructive power of the clash between these basic male and female tendencies. Bluebeard and Judith are not individuals in my view but types, and nowhere could provide a more atmospheric background for this modern morality-play than the seemingly `transylvanian' castle where Bluebeard and Judith open the doors that should perhaps not have been opened.

It all lasts not quite an hour, and far from leaving me emotionally drained as I might have expected it left me even exhilarated by the sheer truthfulness of it, to say nothing of the quite wonderful music and the quite wonderful way it is enacted. The English version of the libretto struck me as slightly odd with its stilted idiom, thou's thine's and similar nonsense until I saw who it was by - Christopher Hassall, the man who killed Walton's Troilus and Cressida at birth or before. I suppose he was responsible for the English version of the stage-directions too, as I took leave of the drama with the wives of Bluebeard progressing along a beam of `moonshine'. As well as the main liner-note, Decca have understandably and very helpfully included a technical leaflet on the recording technology which, as I have said, is something they are very entitled to preen themselves on. I only wondered why with so much top technology at their disposal they could not have got the leaflet to fit the box a bit more exactly.

Spell-Binding!.......2003-09-16

I am not a Bartok fan. I generally do not listen to Bartok. Neither have I listened to any other Bluebeard - this is the only one I have. The only reason I bought this set is that I heard it was good and since I managed to get a dirt cheap price for the set, why not try and listen. I was pleasantly surprised. Once I started listening, I was spell-bound!! The music is good. But even more importantly, the singing is superb!! It's unbelievable how good Christa ludwig and Walter Berry are. In fact, even if the music did not sound nice (which is not the case), just listening to Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry vocalizing would be worth the purchase. The two of them have such gorgeous voices that I could just sit there and listen to them all day long. Furthermore, both singers sing with a lot of dramatic sense and make this experience a really thrilling one. I've had experiences where I listen to a favorite piece by a mediocre performer, and I simply get bored even though the music is nice because the performers spoils the piece. Similarly, there are pieces which I am not too enthusiastic about, but some performers imbue them with so much beauty, power and life that I become fanatic about these pieces. This recording is one of those that fall into the latter category. It goes to show that the performers matter a lot!! And this is a fantastic performance which I highly recommend to all. It is worthy of being in the Decca Legends series. To borrow the quote on the cover (which is completely accurate in this case), "Astonishingly evocative and full of atmosphere ... Must count as one of Decca's great operatic recordings .. This is a thrilling recording of a great work. Gramophone." Don't just believe it, experience it yourself!!

Average customer rating:

Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle

Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Hungarian | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000E2XD
Release Date: 1990-10-25

Average customer rating:

Magnificent Singing.
Berry and Ludwig are wonderful

Bartok: Bluebeard's Castle / Kertesz

Manufacturer: Polygram Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Hungarian | Languages | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Ludwig, Christa | Divas | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0000041K3
Release Date: 1997-07-15

Tracks:

Bluebeard's Castle: Opening
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 1
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 2
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 3
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 4
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 5
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 6
Bluebeard's Castle: Door 7

Customer Reviews:

Magnificent Singing........2003-04-09

This is a justifiably famous recording.
The sound, when released over thirty years ago, was breathtaking.
On CD it is, if anything, even more so today.

A few may find the iterpretation by Kertesz to be a bit too refined. I don't. He stresses Bartok's traditional roots while never losing sight of his 20th Century core.

And the singing! Christa Ludwig and Walter Berry at the absolute pinnacles of their respective monumental vocal and dramatic powers.

There can be no doubt this is the best sung recording of Bartok's masterpiece ever committed to record.

Berry and Ludwig are wonderful.......2000-02-15

There isn't a more satisfying recording of this opera for me than this; the sound is great, Berry and Ludwig are electric (Ludwig's simply fabulous).

Music Review: