After listening to this disc, I had a sneaking feeling that it might have been more up the ''Sounds in Retrospective'' panel's street than mine: its colossal dynamic range is vastly impressive, from the mysterious emergence from the land of legend at the beginning or the final tragic mutterings to the apocalyptic brass and organ at the opening of the fifth door or the terrifying climaxes as Bluebeard and Judith stand before the fatal seventh door and when she is ultimately committed to everlasting darkness. The actual orchestral balance is not always quite right, though—MEO rightly pointed out the remoteness of the celesta at the glitter of the jewel chamber (though the engineers have brought it forward for the sea of tears)—and it has to be said that the orchestral playing is not of the first class.
Ferencsik has a deep understanding of the work and an excellent feeling for its shaping as an entity, though at the age of 74 he seems to respond less vividly to some of the score's imaginative sonorities. But the chief reservation concerns the singers, neither of whom does to convey the subtle revelations of character as the work progresses. Nesterenko contents himself with a generalized nobility of voice; Obraztsova presents an unsympathetic virago, strident in her upper register and plummy in her lower. Both artists might with advantage have studied Gyorgy Kroo's perceptive psychological interpretation of the cryptic work's meaning.'