Iván Fischer certainly knows how to conduct this music. He leads his Budapest Festival Orchestra in a very striking performance full of atmosphere and color. Bluebeard’s armory has the necessary rhythmic menace, and his treasury truly glitters. The opening of the fifth door onto his domain erupts with splendid majesty, and the closing pages sink slowly into darkness with a palpable sense of sorrow and dread. Taken on purely interpretive and orchestral grounds this is as fine a performance as any available.
If only the singing and sound were as good! Ildikó Komlósi generally does well by Judith, sounding aptly girlish at the start and darkening her tone as the revelations about her new husband deepen her awareness of what she has done and the price she must pay. László Polgár, on the other hand, sounds distinctly frayed as the title character, especially in comparison to his previous recording a few years ago for Boulez on DG (though I greatly prefer Komlósi to Jessye Norman in that production). Under pressure his voice lacks richness and support, and that makes him a less imposing character than he must be.
Sonically once again we see that Philips has not yet figured out what to do with SACD technology. In stereo this is a good recording, the voices well balanced and the orchestral image coherent; but in multi-channel playback it’s a bit of mess, with far too much activity in the rear speakers, and even that inconsistently projected. On the plus side, there’s none of that diffusion of sonic impact that has characterized so many recent SACD productions–but if sonic realism is the goal, then Philips still has a long way to go.
