This new version… is splendidly recorded, and Farnes coaxes some superb playing from the orchestra. Sally Burgess makes a fine Judith, bringing out the firmness of her love for Bluebeard, as well as her vulnerability. …Tomlinson… is as commanding as ever, and to listen to this performance as a whole is to marvel anew at the richness and inventiveness of Bartók's score.

Burgess manages to make Judith the multi-dimensional character she deserves to be...John Tomlinson's Bluebeard broods magnificently, his voice and personality as overpowering as the atmosphere of his castle...let me introduce the third member of the cast: the Orchestra of Opera North conducted by Richard Farnes, who provide vivid colours and deep shadows

This recording grew from performances by Opera North but the absence of a visual element hardly matters. Nor in this instance does the language issue either. Bluebeard is perfect food for the mind's theatre, the tale of a man alone (as John Tomlinson reminds us in the cryptic spoken prologue) and while under normal circumstances Hungarian would win over any translation, here vivid vocal acting and clarity of diction more than compensate. And there's Farnes's conducting, which even from as early as the introduction counters the pervading darkness with deftly pointed woodwind phrases and a light, expressive curve to the string lines.
Tomlinson's Bluebeard is godlike, cautioning and doleful, the voice hugely resonant. Sally Burgess sounds old enough to know better than to stray thoughtlessly from her father's home. When Judith first views the castle's interior she sounds suitably tremulous and awestruck, though when she blurts out the words 'tell me why the doors are bolted?' an air of petulance spells trouble: her command to 'open!' cues forceful thwacks on timps and bass drum. And so the drama unfolds, Burgess's Judith, shrewish and fatally curious, Tomlinson's Bluebeard, inwardly tortured but fired by Judith's dark beauty. The instruments of torture, the armaments, mountains of gold, tender flowers and spacious kingdom, all are graphically tone-painted, Farnes delivering with distinction every time – though when Burgess gasps at the kingdom newly revealed she keeps her high C fairly short. Tomlinson's most sensitive moment, as so often with him in this work, comes when he recalls his former wives, and Farnes's comes at the 'lake of tears', the perfect dovetailing of winds and strings, mournful but also extremely beautiful.
The later climactic moments are delivered with enormous power, the sum effect very moving.
For a thoroughly sympathetic, theatrically effective English-language Bluebeard's Castle, this new release is about as good as it's likely to get.

Moving and powerful, this English Bluebeard is as good as it gets. …while under normal circumstances I'd favour Hungarian above any translation, here vivid vocal acting and clarity of diction more than compensate. And there's Farnes's conducting, which even from as early as the introduction counters the pervading darkness with deftly pointed woodwind phrases and a light, expressive curve to the string lines. Tomlinson's Bluebeard is godlike, cautioning and doleful, the voice hugely resonant. Tomlinson's most sensitive moment, as so often with him in this work, comes when he recalls his former wives (track 19), and Farnes's comes at the 'lake of tears', the perfect dovetailing of winds and strings, mournful but also extremely beautiful.