Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a one act symbolist opera for two singers based on a French folk tale.  It’s scored for a large orchestra and uses quite a lot of dissonance and it’s a famously tough sing for the singer (soprano or mezzo) singing Judit.  It’s been recorded a lot.  Wikipedia lists 32 audio or video recordings, not including this new one from Gabor Brertz, Rinat Shaham and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karina Cavellakis.

It’s pretty good.  Bretz is absolutely solid; lots of power but lyricism too.  Shaham has lots of interesting colours but is occasionally a bit strident as she competes to be heard with the orchestra in the most dramatic passages.  Cavellakis gets some rather lovely delicate playing from the orchestra but can also conjure up high drama.  This is helped by a very clean high resolution recording.  A good place to hear it is the climax at the opening of the Fifth Door which is loud and dramatic but very clean.

The recording was made at Studio 5 in the Muziekcentrum van der Omroep in Hilversum in June last year.  It’s being released as a physical CD, MP3 and ALAC/FLAC/WAV in 44.1/16, 96/24 and 192/24 resolutions and Dolby Atmos, DXD/DSD64.  I listened to the 192/24 version and, as mentioned it’s excellent.  There’s a comprehensive booklet with full Hungarian text and English translation.

Catalogue information: Pentatone PTC5187225 (due for release 4th April)