Bluebeard´s Castle Concert Version

Bluebeard's Castle – Béla Bartók | Opera IC Audiophile series

Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes without intervals

Language: Hungarian

Surtitle: Hungarian, English

There are evenings when our Opera House cannot perform because rehearsals are ongoing on stage until the evening. There are audience members who can only afford to hear their favourite pieces with a discount. And there are works that, although very popular, cannot be staged every season due to the congestion of productions. All these issues can be solved at once by the Hungarian State Opera’s new IC series, whose name carries the of iron curtain, but which may also gain popularity with the speed of an express train. Even though it will feature in the programme as a regular series beginning only with the next season, we are already presenting this new, semi-staged operatic format that offers more than concert performances on selected evenings during the current one as a preview. The titles are major works by great composers, requiring smaller choruses but offering fewer but particularly significant soloist roles.

A mere hour after a stage rehearsal, visitors having purchased their ticket with a 20% discount find the iron curtain of the Opera House lowered. The massive double steel plate, covering a surface of 170 m², does not only conceal the set of the next production behind it but also serve as an acoustic reflector meeting audiophile standards. Onto this enormous surface, decorated with architect Miklós Ybl’s engravings, we project a unique video installation, with Hungarian and English surtitles displayed at the top. The orchestra takes its usual place in the pit, while the hand-picked, first-rate singers step through the door in the iron curtain to take a seat at the front of the stage, then step into the limelight when it is their turn to sing.

The form is quasi-concert-like, but the soloists do not use sheet music, they appear in period costumes, and can use their faces, hands, and bodies for dramatic gestures. The participating chorus performs from various points of the building to astonish the audience with a powerful 3D sound. From all this, a single, significant, shared experience can emerge: the wonder of sound that feels much closer to the audience, magnifying gestures and offering a far more intense, truly record-quality experience in an auditorium that is thus transformed into one with the best acoustics in Hungary, the concert hall of the Opera House.

In the 2026/27 season, audiophile concert performances of Bluebeard's Castle, Don Giovanni, Rigoletto, and Tosca continue the series started in 2025.

Parental guidance: The performance is not recommended for children under 12 years of age.

Synopsis

The protagonists of Béla Bartók and Béla Balázs’s symbolist opera are Bluebeard and his wife, Judith, who has left her family and her betrothed in order to follow her love. However, Bluebeard’s castle – that is, his soul – contains seven closed doors. Judith persuades her husband to open them, one after the other.

Behind the first door is the torture chamber, while the second leads to the armoury. Still unsatisfied, Judith wants to open the other doors in order to fill her beloved’s castle with light. Bluebeard gives her three more keys: the third is for the treasury, the fourth opens the door to the hidden garden. The treasure and the flowers, nevertheless, are bloody. At her husband’s bidding, Judith also opens the fifth door, where Bluebeard’s realm shines with brilliant light. The clouds, however, cast dark shadows.

Judith now wishes to look behind the “innermost” doors, but she asks Bluebeard in vain: she must not ask, but instead simply love him. Judith receives the sixth key, which opens the door to the lake of tears. From behind the final door emerge the three former wives. All goes dark.

Program and cast

Conductor: Levente Török

Conductor: Zsolt Hamar

Judith: Anna Kissjudit, Andrea Szántó, Zsuzsanna Ádám

Bluebeard: Krisztián Cser, Christopher Maltman, András Palerdi

Featuring the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra

English translation by Arthur Roger Crane

Composer: Béla Bartók

Librettist: Béla Balázs