Hundred-year-old Bluebeard puts the frighteners on Dublin

Joshua Bloom and Paula Murrihy in Bluebeard’s Castle

Bluebeard’s Castle

By Béla Bartók

Irish National Opera

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

The Slavic style that dared to challenge Italian/German operatic culture in the early 20th century never really made a breakthrough into Ireland, a land firmly girded inside Dublin with Puccini and Verdi, and eventually in Wexford with Donizetti.

So it’s greatly pleasing to at last see masterpieces of the genre – such as this superb little shocker – being unleashed on our ...