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February 12, 2008 Budapest Festival Orchestra Conducted By Iván Fischer Performs at Carnegie Hall On February 8, 2008 The Budapest Festival Orchestra (BFO) gave two memorable concerts of 'The Wooden Prince' and the 'Bluebeard's Castle' at the Avery Fisher Hall at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday and Sunday night, February 8th and 10th, 2008, respectively. With Ildikó Komlósi as Judith and László Polgár as Bluebeard, their outstanding singing performance was underscored by the exceptional music of the BFO, founded by their conductor Iván Fisher. The New York Times ran the following music review of the two musical events:
Singers Ildikó Komlósi and László Polgár with Conductor Iván Fischer leading the Budapest Festival Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on February 10th, 2008. Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times "Tuesday, February
12, 2008 Some visitors win us over by being themselves. Others bring gifts. A week or so ago, the signature gorgeousness of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam was enough to attract audiences to Carnegie Hall, even if the programs were hardly adventures. Some listeners would probably have made the trip just to hear the players tune up. The Budapest Festival Orchestra — formed by Ivan Fischer in 1983 and conducted by him twice over the weekend at Avery Fisher Hall — enticed us with two of Bartok’s rare adventures into the theater. On Friday evening it was the ballet music for “The Wooden Prince” and on Sunday afternoon, the opera “Bluebeard’s Castle.” As they say about actors, Bartok had range. The creator of thinking-man’s string quartets and belligerent piano music was also a dashing man of the theater. Both pieces are collaborations with the writer Bela Balazs, and in them Bartok the lonely modernist is nowhere to be heard. Liszt was his spiritual father, as Liszt came to be for so much of musical Hungary. It is curious that the Hungarians venerate and name national conservatories after a man who spent his life outside their country and did not speak the language. “The Wooden Prince” is a folkloric amalgam of amorous young royalty, anthropomorphic forests, a carved doll come to life and a happily-ever-after ending. Mr. Fischer had the bright idea of projecting stage directions on a screen above the stage. Audience members followed the story, heard Bartok’s blow-by-blow music and probably, like me, wondered at his illustrative ingenuity. With scarcely less brilliance, the soundtracks of Hollywood cartoons in the 1940s did much the same thing. “Bluebeard’s Castle” works differently. It is so devoid of physical action as to be scarcely an opera at all. Bluebeard and his newest bride stand on either side of Mr. Fischer’s podium. A dismal castle, seven doors and the horrors and enticements behind them are left to the listener’s imagination, which in the end may do a better job than any director or set designer could. This is extravagant music, and Mr. Fischer and his fine, eager players missed no opportunity to make it so. Laszlo Polgar, who has made something of a career from the part, sang Bluebeard splendidly: his sepulchral bass wavering to wonderful effect between menace and regret. Ildiko Komlosi embraced both Judith’s tender heart and her willfulness. No sentiment in “Bluebeard’s Castle” is simple. Murder and true love mingle to terrifying effect. Wagnerian love-death is turned on its ear. Beloved Rachmaninoff introduced Friday’s Bartok; equally beloved Strauss served the same function on Sunday. The Budapest Festival Orchestra plays well and ardently; its strong, shiny upper strings are a major asset. Strauss’s “Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche” and the First Waltz Sequence from his opera “Der Rosenkavalier” were deft when they should have been and exuberant elsewhere. For the instrumental arrangement of Rachmaninoff’s “Vocalise” on Friday, eight violinists came out of the orchestra to play the singer’s line. The marketing formula for orchestras visiting New York nearly always includes a familiar concerto and a brand-name soloist. Alexander Toradze had canceled as pianist for Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” on Friday, and Dejan Lazic replaced him. The repertory was in a way a stroke of
luck for Mr. Lazic, given that this superpopular rhapsody has become almost
a required entrance exam for young pianists going into the public virtuoso
business. This particular player whizzed and banged around the keyboard in
impressive style. Add another bright little star to the piano world’s
already crowded firmament."
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