Bluebeard's Castle, Theatre of Sound review ★★★★★

Plenty of us have a skeleton in the wardrobe, but one character at the centre of Bluebeard's Castle has surprises between several doors at once.

Béla Bartók's opera can be a sinister thing, making an audience deeply uneasy as a young woman makes one unpleasant discover after another in the grim hideout of her new husband. But a reimagining of the piece by Theatre of Sound is touching and moving, putting in place of sexual menace a sense of lost that can speak to all.

Bluebeard here is a kindly husband, stretched to the limit by the creeping dementia of his wife. The 'doors' in their 'castle' are represented by a trunkful of memories in their ordinary home. A seductive kimono, a wedding veil, baby things, a son's longed-for baseball cap conjure up good times and bad gone by, remembered with both affection and pain by the man, hardly at all by the woman.

Judith's younger self appears in four guises – the sexy young woman, the excited bride first at the altar, then with her first baby, and finally the mother scarred by grief. Bluebeard – it sounds like a nickname from their flirty early days – is scarred too, by the loss of the woman he loved, abducted by dementia.

This profound and powerful hour of drama in music is raised above pure pain by outstanding performances from soprano Susan Bullock and bass-baritone Gerald Finley. Right in our midst, the audience on three sides at the Shaftesbury Avenue venue Stone Nest, formerly a chapel, these two top-flight singers tell with passion a story that could unfold in any family.

Six instrumentalists from the London Sinfonietta perform Bartok's elaborate score as arranged by conductor Stephen Higgins. (For best balance, maybe choose a seat at the corners or sides.) Director Daisy Evans's new translation of Béla Balázs' libretto sheds new light on this fable, both a revelation and a great theatrical experience.

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Further performances are on 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 Nov at 7PM, with additional performances at 4PM on 7, 13 and 14 Nov. Roles are sung by Gweneth Ann Rand and Michael Mayes at some performances. See Theatre of Sound booking site for casting