Mark Valencia for ****Backtrack

"The result is a triumph of simplicity and clarity, light on pomp and glitter but forensically presented to reflect our times."

​

"Extraordinarily, her mature reimagining, along with that of her creative team, was directed entirely by online links from London, and Gardner confesses he’s never even met the director face to face. The result is sharp, cut to the bone and powered by some remarkable lighting by Simon Corder."

​

Hugh Canning for The Sunday Times

"thrillingly stylised"

"Rodula Gaitanou's smart vivid direction - relayed on Zoom from London while the cast rehearsed in Bergen- makes a virtue of austerity, projecting the dram grippingly in an abstract setting of squares marked around an oblong space, representing Tito's seat of power."

" An astonishing achievement from one of Europe's pluckiest companies"

​

George Hall for Opera magazine

"The Grieghallen is a concert hall, not a fully equipped opera house, but given the combination of pragmatism and imagination on the part of the creatives and performers involved, the result works amazingly well: Gaitanou succeeds in turning its imposed limitations to her advantage. The work's complex web of personal and power relationships is made perfectly clear."

​

Bergens Tidende*****

Now BNO is back in the Grieg Hall with a version of Mozart's opera that is certainly different from the one originally planned, but which nevertheless works very well, both theatrically and musically. Greek Rodula Gaitanou, who has directed the show on zoom from London, is best known for beautiful, colourful and easily updated versions of 19th century opera classics. With the staging in the Grieg Hall, she has had to work with completely different means to establish a performance that satisfies the official requirements for distance and safety during the pandemic. Gaitanou and her staff have solved these problems by dividing the darkened stage floor into clear, luminous fields with solid spacing… The result has been an elegant, stylized stage image and a tightly choreographed movement pattern - which at the same time makes good sense in relation to the opera's narrative.
 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​