| Bartók, Béla (1881-1945) | Hungarian Peasant Songs, Sz 100, BB 107 | |
| Bartók, Béla (1881-1945) | Herzog Blaubarts Burg (concert performance) | Libretto von Béla Balázs |
| Budapest Festival Orchestra | |
| Iván Fischer | Musikalische Leitung |
| Márta Sebestyén | Sänger |
| Ildikó Komlósi | Mezzosopran |
| Krisztián Cser | Bass |
The Budapest Festival Orchestra presents Bartók’s dark and disquieting opera, steeped in Hungarian folk tradition.
The combination of this ‘ultra-charismatic’ orchestra and music director Iván Fischer has been described by The Guardian as ‘intoxicating’.
Bartók had a lifetime devotion to folk music and hoped that his Hungarian Peasant Songs, based on authentic Hungarian melodies and orchestrated in 1933, would open up these pretty folk melodies to a wider audience.
Written in Budapest, Bartók’s single opera is a bloodthirsty fairytale with strong psychological and erotic undertones. Featuring just two characters, it’s arresting performed in concert.
Bluebeard brings his new wife Judith home to his castle. She asks him to let light into the gloomy hall by opening its seven doors and discovers a series of troubling mysteries, including a torture chamber and Bluebeard’s treasure horde, dripping with gore. But what will happen when she opens the seventh door?
