Was Bluebeard such a bad guy? Maybe not, supposes conductor Iván Fischer in his booklet-notes for Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle. Perhaps all the blood in his castle is just in the mind of Bluebeard’s last bride, Judith. And what about his other imprisoned wives? Well, they live in Bluebeard’s heart. What a nice consolation that is for their zombified existence!

Thank goodness this isn’t a DVD because this highly suspect view of the libretto doesn’t translate into musical perversity in this authoritative 2002 recording, made when Fischer was a Philips artist. Now licensed by Channel Classics, the SACD recording sits nicely alongside Fischer’s technologically up-to-date work for that label, though were he re‑recording the opera today, some different vocal casting would be in order.

Besides using a corrected version of Bartók’s score, Fischer employs a more authentic xylophone in the torture-chamber scene that’s more muted and less lurid than the instrument usually heard – appropriate to a recording that’s both sonically rich but lacking ostentation. What might normally be an impressive orchestral flourish becomes a particularly vivid expression of Judith’s demanding hysteria, which makes sense in a battle of wills that she wins at a huge price. As for the ending, the nice-guy Bluebeard theory is manifested in a tenderness that makes the vision of Judith stumbling under the weight of her huge crown all the more chilling.

As both singers are native Hungarians, the contour and timbre of the vocal lines have organic unity even to an ear unschooled in Eastern European tongue. Though László Polgár has warmth and authority as Bluebeard (even if he’s overtaxed in all the usual spots), Ildikó Komlósi brings near-Wagnerian weight to the dramatic climaxes but her inflexibility leaves some notes more implied than sung. Compared with the finely shaded, text-attentive journey that Andrea Meláth on Naxos takes into Bluebeard’s heart of darkness, Komlósi is a vocally stentorian bully.