Doubtless those who attended this Prom in September last year will have fond memories of what is often an impressive performance. Jukka-Pekka Saraste is particularly good at moulding the narrative wherever the voices fall silent, for example that sullen moment at around 1’50” into track 7 where Judith stoops to gaze into the ‘Lake of Tears’. Just occasionally you sense that he’s not really an ‘opera’ conductor in the way that James Levine is, and it’s Levine’s live Munich relay from the previous year, also with John Tomlinson in the title-role, that provides the most relevant comparison.

Under Saraste, Tomlinson’s Bluebeard is more stretched vocally than he had been in Munich, possibly due to the sheer effort of projecting into the vast Royal Albert Hall. There’s a telling case in point near the start of track eight, where Bluebeard invites Judith to see his former wives. The previous November, Tomlinson projected a voluminous but still basically warm tone, whereas for the Prom he was more prone to bellow, maybe a theatrical gesture, but not ‘sung’ in quite the same way. Also, there’s the question of vocal inflection and here I always go back to Mihály Székely (under either Dorati or, better still, Ferencsik), whose mastery of his native tongue makes for vivid and lilting inflections, so crucial in this music. In other respects Tomlinson’s voice is scarcely less commanding than it had been, though if you want to hear him in prime condition you’ll need to investigate Haitink’s Bluebeard, a performance illuminated more from within.

Whichever version you choose, Tomlinson cuts a commanding Duke, with Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet a forthright Judith, less vulnerable-sounding than Levine’s Kremena Dilcheva. Try the opening of the third door (Bluebeard’s ‘treasury’), where the awestruck Dilcheva is bowed and tremulous compared with Charbonnet’s bolder approach, though Dilcheva also has the benefit of Levine’s more rapturous conducting. Being such a huge space, the RAH is less accommodating of detail than the Philharmonie im Gasteig, in the ‘Lake of Tears’ especially, where on this new CD the all-important celesta is barely audible. And while you would expect the RAH to add acres to Bluebeard’s Realms (the fifth door, where Charbonnet enters fractionally before cue), Levine in Munich ‘throws open his arms’ even wider.

Weighing up the virtues of Tomlinson’s various Bluebeards, I’d recommend the Haitink as vocally superior, Levine as the most compelling interpretation and this Prom as a memento of an occasion that many will want to revisit. If not the very best, it’s a persuasive performance and Paul Griffiths’s perceptive note is a bonus that all lovers of the opera (and of Bartók) should read.