As Judith unlocks room after room in the castle of her new husband, Duke Bluebeard, we follow her deeper and deeper into the recesses of his troubled imagination. through a torture chamber, an armoury, a treasury and a garden, until we find a mysterious seventh chamber which holds her fate.

Bartok’s opera is as taut and gripping as a thriller, but it resists easy categorisation. At once a study of an obsessive, violent man and an allegory of the battle of the sexes, Bluebeard’s Castle is a powerful story that incites thought as well as suspense.

Presented as a semi-staged concert performance by two internationally acclaimed performers in an hour of gripping psychodrama. This production is a two-hander, with award-winning Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw singing Judith and Canadian baritone John Relyea, one of today’s finest basses, as Bluebeard.