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Posted on Thu, Jan 28, 2010 : 1:30 a.m.

Chicago Symphony with Pierre Boulez stellar at Hill Auditorium

By Susan Isaacs Nisbett

A critic friend of mine once talked about how difficult it can be to stay tuned to every note of a concert. There are moments, he said, when attention goes AWOL and you just have to say, “I’ll meet you at the cadence.”

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Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor Pierre Boulez directs during Opera in Concert: Bartók’s "Bluebeard’s Castle" at Hill Auditorium on Wednesday night.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

But every now and then a concert comes along that is perfectly paced and completely engrossing — like Wednesday’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert at Hill Auditorium, conducted by the legendary Pierre Boulez. There was Ravel’s “Tombeau de Couperin” to start; Marc-Andre Dalbavie’s recent flute concerto to follow, and to finish, Bartók’s rarely heard opera, “Bluebeard’s Castle.” And from the evanescent opening of the Ravel to the last sparse, dark chords of the Bartók, the evening brought music, playing and singing to keep you sitting up straight and transfixed.

Boulez and the orchestra had perfect pitch, it seemed to me, for the graciousness and charm of the Ravel. The 4 movements, so beautifully orchestrated by Ravel, unfurled in sepia tones that captured the music’s somewhat wistful, sometimes wry insouciance. There was nothing brassy or shiny in the sound, only transparency, shimmer and a dose, in the final “Rigaudon,” of sunshine. The winds, among them oboe soloist Eugene Izotov, were outstanding. So, too, was CSO principal flute Mathieu Dufour in the Dalbavie concerto that followed. Rapid repeated notes, arpeggios and scales are the materials Dalbavie plays with in his concerto. The flute suggests and the orchestra concurs, or it’s the other way around, but the effect is of convergences, departures and repeating echoes. With some lazy melodic interludes for the flute, which Dufour made sing just as he made his scales and arpeggios zing, the whole was quite engaging. Still, the pièce de résistance of the evening was the Bartók, riveting enough to make you forget, almost, that there had been a first half to the concert.

Like most of the audience, I’d wager, I was hearing the Bartók live for the first time, and though it was a concert version of the opera — which it is how it is usually done when it’s done at all — mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung (Judith) and bass-baritone Falk Struckmann (Bluebeard) brought the compact drama very much to life.

DeYoung, more theatrical than Struckmann, was a most manipulative and somewhat pouty Judith, unwittingly leading herself to doom through her headstrong pursuit of the stern Bluebeard’s secrets. Both were vocally superb in demanding roles. Their strong characterizations profited, too, from projected English supertitles that gave the audience access to Balazs’ terse Hungarian libretto and the myriad questions the characters ask (“Do you love me?” “Are you afraid?”). The questions are answered obliquely, if at all, as the pair talk across each other. They are separated on stage by the conductor, but psychologically, the chasm that divides them is much wider. If the terse libretto is amazingly tension-filled, so is Bartók’s score. It is the narrator of the drama. Ominous, claustrophobic repetitions set the scene in Bluebeard’s sealed-off castle, and as Judith claims the keys to Bluebeard’s locked doors and opens them one by one, Bartók paints each scene as richly, and as imaginatively, as any illustrated book. The door that opens to reveal the immensity of Bluebeard’s kingdom gave the CSO a chance to open up its own sound for a stunning vista. It was one moment among many, though, that made the evening memorable.

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Chicago Symphony Orchestra conductor Pierre Boulez directs during Opera in Concert: Bartók’s "Bluebeard’s Castle" at Hill Auditorium on Wednesday night.

Melanie Maxwell | AnnArbor.com

Susan Isaacs Nisbett is a free-lance writer who covers classical music and dance for AnnArbor.com.