Online: Bártok's opera Bluebeard’s Castle with David Stout and April Fredrick

The English Symphony Orchestra complete their first year of Music from Wyastone virtual concerts with a concert performance of Béla Bartók’s one-act opera, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, written in 1911. The performance is the first of a new reduced orchestration of the opera for 25 performers including organ, by Australian conductor and arranger Christopher van Tuinen, and revised by Michael Karcher-Young, ESO’s Assistant Conductor. The work is sung in Hungarian with English subtitles.

The ESO performance of Bluebeard’s Castle reunites soprano April Fredrick as Judith and baritone David Stout as Kékszakállú (Bluebeard). Previously for the ESO, Fredrick and Stout led the cast for the world premiere of John Joubert’s opera Jane Eyre in 2016. This performance was named Classical Music Magazine Premiere of the Year and chosen as the Birmingham Post’s Classical Highlight of the year. The subsequent Somm Records recording of Jane Eyre was later chosen as Opera Recording of the Year by Music Web International.

“Vocally, David and April are perfect for Bartók’s two roles, which in many ways fall in between the cracks of our normal voice types,“ says ESO Conductor and Artistic Director Kenneth Woods. “Both roles need a mix of power and lyricism, and ease and projection at both the extreme upper and lower end of their registers. But aside from their vocal and musical qualities, I was fascinated by the connections between the characters of Edward Rochester and Jane Eyre, and Bluebeard. Both Jane Eyre and Bluebeard’s Castle deal with the limitations of intimacy, and it’s not hard to imagine the ending of Jane Eyre segueing into the beginning of Bluebeard’s Castle.”

Access to the concert is via the event website. The performance is available free-to-view for four days and afterwards through the ESO digital archive where unlimited access to ESO subscribers offers exclusive content and events for supporters who donate a minimum of £5/month, including Mahler's Symphony no.9.