BY JAY NORDLINGER [NY Sun, 13 March 2006]
Last week, Avery Fisher Hall turned into an opera house, for about an hour. The New York Philharmonic devoted the bulk of its subscription program to “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle,” Bartok’s one-acter. Conducting was Christoph von Dohnanyi, the veteran German maestro. But isn’t he Bartok’s countryman, a Hungarian? No, his grandfather, the composer Ernst von Dohnanyi – or Erno Dohnanyi, if you prefer the pure Hungarian – was. Christoph is a Hamburger.