Conductor Karina Canellakis was born and raised in New York City in a family of musicians. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied both violin and conducting. She later studied conducting at the Juilliard School. She spent two years as a violinist with the Berlin Philharmonic Academy Orchestra, and Sir Simon Rattle encouraged her to pursue her conducting ambitions.

Since then, Canellakis has achieved several milestones. She was the first woman to conduct the First Night of the BBC Proms in London in 2019, and was also the first woman to conduct the Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018.

Karina Canellakis

To celebrate her birthday on 23 August, let us feature her 2025 recording of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Rinat Shaham and Gábor Bretz. This interpretation has received strong critical acclaim and major award recognition.

Karina Canellakis & Netherlands Radio Philharmonic perform Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (Teaser)

Seven Doors into Darkness

With Europe spiralling towards a massive war that would eventually devastate the continent, Béla Bartók gave voice to the general sense of anxiety and foreboding by starting work on his only opera in 1911.

The one-act Duke Bluebeard’s Castle features only two characters, Duke Bluebeard and his new wife Judith. They arrive at his dark and forbidding castle with seven locked doors, and Judith insists that all the doors be opened.

Béla Bartók: Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

Béla Bartók: Prologue – Opening (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

As the doors are opened one by one, Judith eventually discovers Bluebeard’s three former wives wearing crowns and heavy jewels. Bluebeard praises each of his former wives and introduces Judith as his fourth. Horrified, Judith begs him to stop, but it is too late.

He dresses her in jewellery and a crown, and Judith follows the other wives through the seventh door. It closes behind her, and everything fades into utter darkness.

Béla Bartók: First Door: The Torture Chamber (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

A World Unto Itself

Karina Canellakis

For Canellakis, the opera “is a world unto itself which has haunted me for as long as I can remember… This story is used as a gateway or vehicle for Bartók to express his most profound feelings about life and mortality.” (Canellakis, Bluebeard’s Castle, Naxos)

Béla Bartók: Second Door: The Armoury (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

Canellakis is particularly awe-struck by Bartók’s orchestration, and the sheer beauty of the orchestral writing. “It is like a series of tone poems strung together by this storyline, with the opening of each door of the castle allowing us to enter a new realm of orchestral texture, colour, shading, and atmosphere.” (Canellakis, Bluebeard’s Castle, Naxos)

Béla Bartók: Third Door: The Treasury (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

The music climaxes with an emotional outpouring at the seventh door. It is this seventh door, the last nine minutes of the piece, that move Canellakis to tears every time. “It is an homage to life itself, to life’s brevity and fleeting beauty, to being human, to love, and to death.” (Canellakis, Bluebeard’s Castle, Naxos)

The 2025 Pentatone recording of Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, with Rinat Shaham as Judith and Gábor Bretz as Bluebeard, is part of Canellakis’ continued Bartók cycle with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic. They recorded the Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces in 2023, works that are partly from the same period as Bluebeard’s Castle.

Béla Bartók: Fourth Door: The Secret Garden (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

Psychological Landscape

Karina Canellakis

Canellakis’ reading is repeatedly praised for its emphasis on detail, colour, and psychological tension. James Manheim suggests that she essentially solves some of the work’s potential problems by capturing the colours of the score. (Manheim, AllMusic, 2025)

Béla Bartók: Fifth Door: Bluebeard’s Kingdom (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

In Canellakis’ reading, Bluebeard is not simply a villain. Instead, the psychological relationship between the two characters becomes increasingly complicated. She achieves this by paying attention to Bartók’s orchestral writing at every dynamic level. As such, the recording tells the story on a psychological level.

Béla Bartók: Sixth Door: Tears (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)

A Bluebeard for Our Time

The recording won the BBC Music Magazine Award for Opera in 2026, with the jury specifically highlighting Canellakis’ intensity, commitment, and expressiveness. It is arguably the recording that most convincingly established Canellakis as a major interpreter of Bartók’s music.

Duke Bluebeard’s Castle — BBC Music Magazine Award

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Béla Bartók: Seventh Door: Bluebeard’s Former Wives (Rinat Shaham, mezzo-soprano; Gábor Bretz, bass; Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis, cond.)