Clocking in at nine minutes, Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge (libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti) is a very short opera that sees two unhappily married couples playing bridge. Each sings an arietta, full of secret, often sexual, longing. It’s a nice pairing with Bluebeard’s Castle, that dark tale of opened and unopened doors—in other words, desire, knowledge, and sin. —L.J.