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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another excellent recording of a great 20th Century classic,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle ~ Fischer (Audio CD)
I bought this recording as a supplement to the famous Kertész Decca account with the superb Walter Berry and his equally impressive then wife, Christa Ludwig (see my review). I have always admired enormously the voices of both Sam Ramey and Eva Marton and had heard good things about this disc. I love it; it is clearly a glorious account but I do not think that it necessarily surpasses the Kertész version. Ramey is in his prime; his beautiful, keenly focused, inky-dark bass is perfect to encompass Bluebeard's sadness, tenderness and underlying menace. Marton, while not as varied and subtle as Ludwig, is able to refine her big sound to suggest Judith's youth and vulnerability as well as her impetuous, importunate (dare I say very feminine?) stubborness. Some have criticised her vibrato as too broad but it is here very much under control and I love it when she unleashes her voice. In addition to the excellence of the two soloists, I must praise both the sound engineering and the superb orchestral playing; every detail in score emerges and I simply cannot understand those few reviewers who express disappointment with the standard of conducting and the playing of the Hungarian orchestra. Fischer takes a more more restrained approach to the score than the impassioned Kertész but that gives it a dreaminess appropriate to this strange, haunting, Symbolist nightmare. Kertész is more dramatic - particularly in the justly celebrated opening of the fifth door onto Bluebeard's vast kingdom - but there is also room for Fischer's more grandiose and stately interpretation. There should not be any objections to this recording on the grounds of authenticity; contrary to previous assertions that Marton is American, she was born in Budapest in 1943 and is thus echt Hungarian, and Ramey has always had an excellent ear for languages, so he sounds pretty authentic to my untutored ears - and I do love the unexpected, muscular strangeness of the language (part of the Finno-Ugric language group and hence wholly unfamiliar to anyone used to hearing opera sung in a Teutonic, Slavonic or Latinate tongue).
Unfortunately, my older copy which I found on Marketplace, contained no notes, resume or libretto - and the words really are essential to proper appreciation of the drama. (PS: I am informed below that it does in fact come with a full libretto so mine must have been missing.) I could also wish that a recital, or at least the text, of the introductory poem by poet, playwright and librettist Béla Balázs had been included as a preface to the recording; it makes an atmospheric curtain-raiser. I used the booklet from the classic Decca edition, but you really must have have a libretto. Anyone like me who is more of a Strauss lover than a dévoté of twelve-tone composition need not hesitate; this a wholly absorbing performance of a chilling, psychologically penetrating and endlessly fascinating masterpiece.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bartok's Gothic Opera,
By
This review is from: Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle ~ Fischer (Audio CD)
While I cannot repeat what the other review states, I can only say that he seems to be wrong about Samuel Ramey being Hungarian. Soprano Eva Marton is Hungarian and is doing a marvelous job as the newest victim of the devilish Bluebeard. The story is dark and symbolic. Bluebeard (not Bluebeard the Pirate) is a wealthy property owner who lives in a foreboding castle. He has just married wife No. 3. He warns her not to wander to a certain part of the castle. Naturally, curiosity gets the best of her and she searches the forbidden area despite his orders. What she finds there reveals a darker side to her husband. Eva Marton has a huge voice that fully captures every nunance of this character. Ramey has a terrific voice with all the right earthy and devilish tone for the part. Adam Fischer conducts Hungarian forces in Bartok's great work of Gothic and surreal drama.
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bartoks' Masterpiece With Samuel Ramey and Eva Marton,
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle ~ Fischer (Audio CD)
First of all, this album is the most dramatic version of Bartok's opera, whose powerful bass/baritone and soprano leads are the real force of the opera. The drama and dynamic force of the original opera is heightened and the music swells with intensity. The world-renowned bass Samuel Ramey makes a terrific and frightening, diabolical Bluebeard. The equally successful diva Eva Marton makes a dramatic and tormented Wife. The forces of Ramey and Marton are the attraction towards this recording. It is indeed very thrilling to hear them portray the evil Bluebeard and his victim. I think this is a great album but if you want to know a little truth, a lesser known truth at that - Bela Bartok himself would not approve of this. Why ? Because he would have favored authentic, native Hungarians in the two roles and because musically, it must be more toned-down in the intensity and more eerie, slow, haunting and dream-like. Bartok wrote this opera at a time when surrealism and Freudian, psychological nightmarish works were being portrayed in the arts...i.e. The Scream by Munch. This movement towards the nightmarish and surreal reflected the modern period of World War I. For a more true concept of the work get the recording with Antal Dorati conducting. That one features native Hungarians in the duo cast and Dorati himself was trained to be a conductor in Bartok's music by Bartok himself!!!
But this album is very dramatic and attractive. I own this one along with the Antal Dorati version. Samuel Ramey is absolutely frightening as Bluebeard!! The Hungarian voice which he uses is intense, dark and sinister but royal, in the vein of Bela Lugosi. Bluebeard is a wealthy ex-pirate who has become a wealthy lord of a castle. He has married several times but all his wives have been brutally murdered. His current victim is unaware of his dark past but when she starts snooping into forbidden chambers, she becomes his latest prey. The diabolical role becomes supernatural and symbolic in many ways. He is a symbol for evil, he is a dark man, a Devil, and the haunting Gothic imagery- a sea of blood, dead wives buried under the castle a la Edgar Allan Poe style as well as the labyrinth in the garden are all examples of the eerie and chilling effects of a Gothic Opera. Ramey has made a name for himself in portraying nearly al the villains of Opera in the bass/baritone category - the villains in Offenbach's Tales Of Hoffman, the Devil in Gounod's Faust, Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, Iago in Verdi's Macbeth, Boito's own Mefistofele among others. Opposite his devilish Bluebeard is the dramatic victim that is Eva Marton. Though her voice is quite big, Wagnerian even, she uses subtlety and lyricism to evoke innocence and helplessness. I would have preferred that a lighter soprano played the hapless Wife of Bluebeard because artistically it seems more appropirate - a dark and towering Devil next to an angelic and vulnerable heroine. But Eva Marton makes a great performance that can't be ignored. She's up to paar with the charismatic bass singing opposite her. Think of her performance as a diva caught in a dire situation, enough reason to overact dramatically. This is a great album and a fine dramatic take on Bluebeard's Gothic and bloodcurdling opera.
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