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“Scotto has found her ideal role…a great performance… Domingo sang glamorously… The sets serve the work exquisitely [with] Piero Faggioni’s graceful direction” New York Magazine

“Maisky and his players perform the Haydn with warm, polished energy. His Schumann, with a fairly restrained Bernstein, sometimes overdoes the languishing, but it's beautiful playing, and visually compelling.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2007 ****

“What a joy, as Maisky's performance of Haydn's C major Cello Concerto opens in the beautiful concert room of the Schloss Hetzendorf in Vienna, to hear the rich-timbred soloist and the lovely sounds of the Vienna strings” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Stratas's sinuous child-woman comes close to the ideal in Friedrich's glitzy but unnerving film, strongly cast throughout and superbly conducted.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 ****

“The Unitel production of Richard Strauss’ Salome is the most extraordinary instance of televised opera I’ve ever encountered” Washington Post

“Götz Friedrich's Vienna studio film of Strauss's spooky study of necrophiliac lust (and much else) created quite a stir when it was first shown on TV more than 30 years ago. It has dated badly – largely on account of the porn-shop leather costumes (Jan Skalický), the director's then inexperience in film and penchant for phallic imagery, and Gerd Staub's plexiglass scenery.
The 'Carry On Cappadocia' atmosphere is not improved by Salome's clumsily choreographed and over-veiled dance, which Terry Scott would at least have made funny.
At the start of her international career, Teresa Stratas's poor German, aurally evident struggle (even in overdubs) with a part that was in real terms much too heavy for her, and overdone gesturing get in the way of her normally matchless acting. She (and Friedrich) never find the fey terror lurking behind the readings of Welitsch or Cebotari. Weikl sounds well but, when the camera's not looking salaciously at his legs, he seems lost. The star performers here are the veterans who, one suspects, do brilliantly what they've always done: Beirer's unnervingly sympathetic Herod, and Varnay's horrific Herodias (look at her eyes as she watches her daughter dance or backs her demand for Jokanaan's head) – every inch a vicious queen.
Böhm and the orchestra are, of course, ducks to water in this score but their reward is an unexceptional and rather squeezed sound picture.
No extras are offered but there is a readable retrospective essay by Friedrich.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“It is now almost certainly the best Salome either on CD or DVD...Stratas really looks the part as well as singing it...Above all, Gotz Friedrich's production evokes the atmosphere and dramatic intensity of Strauss's opera” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“…a fully rounded musical performance is marred by a staging that includes all sorts of gimmicks. By and large the opera could hardly be more strongly cast. Anna Netrebko is a dreamy, vulnerable and beautifully sung Susanna, and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo's smouldering Figaro is a really macho rival to the Count.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2007

"If I were to describe music as my religion, these six suites would be my bible" Mischa Maisky

“Mortally wounded by the censors, Verdi's 1850 opera disappeared for more than a century. This Met staging is impressively sung, especially by Domingo in the title role.” BBC Music Magazine, Proms 2007 ****

“…the production… was mounted specifically for Domingo who enjoyed in it one of the most impressive triumphs of his career, happily preserved now in sight as well as sound.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2007

“This is the purest high camp, and probably always was. The score, lustrously played by the VPO, has its diaphanous moments, but Salome it ain't.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2007 ****