Bartok Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Berg 3 Fragments from Wozzeck : Dorati / London Symphony Orchestra, Szekely, Szonyi, Pilarczyk (1962 Stereo)

Bela Bartok (1881-1945)
Bluebeard’s Castle
Opera in one act. Libretto by Bela Balazs

Bluebeard......Mihaly Szekely
Judith......Olga Szonyi

Alban Berg (1885-1935)
Three Fragments from Wozzeck
Marie......Helga Pilarczyk

London Symphony Orchestra / Antal Dorati, conductor

Stereo Recordings: 1962

Bartok showed little interest in opera, until the libretto for Bluebeard’s Castle by Bela Balazs arrived on his desk. Something about the character of Bluebeard, and his intense loneliness, appealed to him. When Bartok completed the work in 1911 it was banned by the Hungarian Commision of Fine Arts. It wasn’t until 1918 that the Italian conductor Egisto Tango disinterred the score and realised its worth. The work was then performed in Berlin in German, and in Hungarian in Florence. Kodaly described the work as the ‘Hungarian Pelleas’, and the dual between Romantic and impressionistic influences certainly links the two works.

Berg’s Wozzeck was premiered in 1925 conducted by Erich Kleiber, then banned by the Nazis as decadent in the 1930s. Since then though it has become recognised as one of the masterpieces of 20th-century opera. Structured as a normal opera, but without arias and recitatives, the second act is in effect a fourmovement symphony. The opera also has significant symphonic interludes. Berg made a concert suite from material from the opera in 1924, and it met with instant success.