Bluebeard's Castle - Performance History

Performance History

The success of the ballet The Wooden Prince in 1917 paved the way for the May 1918 première with the same conductor, Egisto Tango. Oszkár Kálmán was the first Bluebeard and Olga Haselbeck the first Judith. Following Balázs' exile in 1919 and the ban on his work there were no revivals until 1936. Bartók attended rehearsals and reportedly sided with the new Bluebeard, Mihály Székely, over the new conductor Sergio Failoni, who was insisting on fidelity to the printed score. On the Dorati recording Székely displays an assured sense of parlando rubato; less certain is whether Bartók sanctioned some of the changed pitches (or indeed if Székely does them on another recording made with János Ferencsik).

Bluebeard's Castle was first performed in Italy at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on 5 May 1938. The production was conducted by Sergio Failoni and starred Miklós Székely in the title role and Ella Némethy as Judith. The Teatro di San Carlo mounted the opera for the first time on 19 April 1951 with contralto Isa Malafunk and bass Mario Petri. The work's La Scala debut occurred on 28 January 1954 with American soprano Dorothy Dow as Judith and Petri as Bluebeard. This was followed by several other productions at major opera houses in Italy, including the Teatro Regio di Torino (1961), Teatro dell'Opera di Roma (1962), Teatro Comunale di Bologna (1966), La Fenice (1967), and the Teatro Regio di Parma (1970).

The opera was first performed in the United States in a student production at Southern Methodist University in 1946. The first professional American performance was for NBC radio in 1949 in a performance conducted by Antal Dorati in Dallas, Texas. The first fully staged American production was at the New York City Opera on 2 October 1952 with conductor Joseph Rosenstock and singers Catherine Ayres and James Pease. The Metropolitan Opera mounted the opera for the first time on 10 June 1974 with conductor Sixten Ehrling and singers David Ward and Shirley Verrett.

The South American premiere was in Buenos Aires's Teatro Colón, 23 September 1953 conducted by Karl Boehm.

Bluebeard's Castle received its French premiere on 17 April 1950 in a radio broadcast on Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française. Ernest Ansermet conducted the performance which featured Renée Gilly as Judith and Lucien Lovano as Bluebeard. The first staged production of the work in France was at the Opéra national du Rhin on 29 April 1954 with Heinz Rehfuss in the title role, Elsa Cavelti as Judith, and conductor Ernest Bour. The first performance in Paris was at the Opéra-Comique on 8 October 1959 with soprano Berthe Monmart and bass Xavier Depraz. The production was directed by Marcel Lamy and used a French translation by Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi.

The London première took place on 16 January 1957 at the Rudolf Steiner Theatre during the English tour of Scottish composer Erik Chisholm directing the UCT Opera Company whose Désirée Talbot was Judith. A few years earlier, Erik Chisholm had premièred this work in South Africa at the Little Theatre in Cape Town. The opera's Austrian premiere took place at the Salzburg Festival on 4 August 1978 with conductor George Alexander Albrecht leading soprano Katalin Kasza and baritone Walter Berry. In Israel the opera premiered on 15 December 2010 at the New Israeli Opera in Tel Aviv. Vladimir Braun was Bluebeard and Svetlana Sandler sang in Judith. Shirit Lee Weiss directed and Ilan Volkov conducted. The sets, originally used in the Seattle Symphony's 2007 performance were designed by famous Seattle-based glass artist Dale Chihuly.

The Taiwanese première, directed and conducted by Tseng Dau-Hsiong, took place in the National Theater in Taipei on 30 December 2011.