Béla Bartók: Bluebeard's Castle (Audio CD)  

A modern version of the old European folk-tale about the cruel, blue-bearded prince and his many disappearing wives, Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle is a metaphor for the impossibility of complete love between a man and a woman. A vast orchestra, one of Bartók’s largest, supports the vocal lines, moving deftly from moments of chamber-music- like delicacy to massive thunderheads of sound that underline the characters’ inner agony.