Reviews

Today's review is of Petrinsky, Abdrazakov, RTÉ NSO/Anissimovat the National Concert Hall

Petrinsky, Abdrazakov, RTÉ NSO/Anissimov

NCH, Dublin

Beethoven - Symphony No 3 (Eroica)

Bartók - Bluebeard's Castle

There may not be much in the way of action in Bartók's sole opera Bluebeard's Castle. A newly-married couple - the strangest of newly-married couples - arrive home and talk.

Doors open, beams of light cast lines across the floor, and the hapless Judith discovers blood and more blood behind each door that's opened in her husband Bluebeard's dark and chilly castle, where the walls are always weeping.

The drama may be an interior one ("the opening and closure of the man's castle, his soul," according to Bartók scholar László Somfai), but the composer certainly knew what a coup-de-théâtre was and how to provide one.

The fifth door, which reveals Bluebeard's "spacious kingdom", opens with an organ-reinforced blaze of brass so vivid you almost want to blink and step backwards, such is the intensity of the radiance.

Friday's RTÉ NSO performance under Alexander Anissimov, with the extra brass players placed in a corner of the balcony, delivered the parallel major chords of this climax with turbo-charged effectiveness.

Momentarily it felt as if the hall itself could not contain more sound.

And the generalities of the mostly dark and brooding atmosphere were also soundly conveyed.

The detail of the work was mostly less-well sharply delineated.

Bashkirian bass Askar Abdrazakov's Bluebeard was lighter in tone than was needed to counteract the weight of sound Anissimov challenged him with.

And Austrian mezzo soprano Natascha Petrinsky's Judith, while suitably insistent and well able to ride the orchestral climaxes, was by no means subtle in detail.

Subtlety was in short supply, too, in Anissimov's handling of Beethoven's Eroica Symphony.

The conductor's approach was to upend the work. He presented the first two movements (where the real weight lies) with a kind of gruff but low-powered energy.

The performance came to life in an altogether more focused fashion for the Scherzo and Finale.

The audience on this occasion made no secret of its appreciation of the unusual approach.