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RECORDINGS
Opera and Oratorio
BARTÓK: BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE
 Zhidkova; White; London Symphony Orchestra, Gergiev. Text and translation. LSO 0685
I am not sure why anyone, save perhaps an audience member indelibly impressed by this live January 2009 concert at London's Barbican Hall, would seek to acquire this recording. Bartók's astonishing one-act 1911 opera is over-programmed in musical centers, as it furnishes an irresistible orchestral showpiece. But not every competent reading merits preservation, and Valery Gergiev's London Symphony Orchestra performance, while not bad, is in no way exceptional. The more percussive and emphatic parts of Bartók's score emerge exciting but lack grandeur. (Compare the recorded treatments under István Kertész or Pierre Boulez of the fortissimo Fifth Door.) Though some solo instrumental contributions are admirably executed, the opera's many quieter conversational passages tend to meander.
Russian mezzo Elena Zhidkova substituted at the last minute at this concert for another artist; she brought stage experience as Judith from a prior engagement at La Scala and supplies some evident dramatic shading. Having read some spectacular reviews of her Barbican showing, however, I can only imagine that the British critics were wowed by Zhidkova's spectacular good looks. Her lone high C more than passes muster, but her timbre is rather anonymous and sometimes strays into shrill hectoring. Veteran bass Willard White, an effective singing actor, orates the opening spoken prologue in English translation with dignity. In Bluebeard's singing, White's voice, though still an expressive and in some ways impressive instrument, betrays via unsteady climaxes his thirty-five years of experience on international stages. At this graying stage, his is not so aptly dark a timbre as some of the classic exponents of the role have offered.
I can only judge the sung Hungarian in relation to recordings by native speakers; it doesn't sound especially convincing from either White or Zhidkova. I doubt Gergiev or his fans at home would be much interested in hearing a Hungarian or Jamaican contralto singing Prokofiev's "Field of the Dead"; why compromise here? If the non-native singers available are as spectacular as Walter Berry and Christa Ludwig were for Kertész, sure; but that's hardly the case on this recording.
DAVID SHENGOLD
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