Fischer, Ivan - Conductor
Budapest Festival Orchestra

Budapest Festival Orchestra
Ivan Fischer - Conductor

(...) Channel’s re-mastering is deeper and more revealing than the original  (...) It’s good to have this reading back, in better shape than ever, passionate, intense, and beautifully remastered.
Audiphile Audition 5 stars

(…) This is one of the best recordings I’ve heard of this opera, not only because of the sound but also because Ivan Fischer turns out to be an excellent conductor of challenging work. (…)
American Record Guide

(...) Fischer  and his superb orchestra are overwhelming at the climaxes, aided by the outstanding sonics from Budapest’s Italian Institute. The brass-led outbursts at the opening of the fifth door (track 7) will make your hair stand on end. (...)The voices are naturally integrated into the orchestra, always intelligible and never lost to even the great climaxes.
Fanfare

Having formerly been issued in 2003 for the label Decca, this recording is today being rereleased on multichannel SACD on the Channel Classics label. Bartók’s only opera is a remarkable work on more than one level, as conductor Ivan Fisher points out: “Despite a few scenic productions that were successful, it is the concert versions of this opera that caused the greatest public reaction. At numerous concerts, I was the witness to this psychodrama in which listeners, who during the sixty minutes of Bartók’s profoundly moving music were fixated by the faces of the two singers or followed the translation via the subtitles or in their program, and were confronted with themselves.” Ivan Fisher thus offers a lively and vibrant vision of this Bartók masterpiece, and a true sharing is thus born, transforming musical listening into a living experience. A great moment.
Opus Haute Défenition

(...) Iván Fischer has a sure sense not only of the music’s shifting colours but also of their dramatic import (...) Fischer manages to keep the psychological intensity growing as we move from door to door. (...) superbly engineered recording (...)
International Record Review ‘OUTSTANDING’

(...) auch hier erweist sich der ungarische Dirigent Iván Fischer als Meister seines Metiers. (...) Er entfacht mit dem glänzend disponierten Budapester Festival Orchester einen Rausch an orchestralen Farbenschattierungen, Tiefenwirkungen, Beleuchtungswechseln und dramaturgischen Zuspitzungen. 'Herzog Blaubarts Burg' wird hier zu einer Oper für Orchester – durchaus mit Recht. (...) Nicht weniger überzeugend ist die vokale Gestaltung (...)
Klassik.com

Fischer and his team, of course, portray the castle, as it were, and they are magnificent. The velvety strings at the opening, the spooky clarinets, the keyboard xylophone borrowed for this recording to capture the sound of Bluebeard's armory--all are wonderfully evocative, and the playing and pacing are just about perfect. So is Channel Classics' engineering, capturing plenty of detail while retaining ideal balances between the orchestra and the singers. I don't know what they did to the original sonics, but the disc sounds much better now than it did back in 2003. This is a very fine recording, an important addition to the Bartók discography.
Classics Today 9/10

Fischer attends masterfully to all the atmospheric nuances of Bartok's sumptuous orchestration. When Judith opens each of the mysterious seven doors, a different coloration is revealed-blood red, bluish green, gold, etc.-and the experience for us at home is practically synesthetic. The recording presents orchestral details, an expansive soundstage, and natural scaling of solo voices. A wind machine, representing the sighing of the casde, is audible but not overdone. When Judith throws open the fifth door, the orchestral climax is magnificent.
The Absolute Sound