Bottom line: stellar singing from Dessay and Florez couldn't totally compensate for overly conceptual direction by Mary Zimmerman and libretto so irrelevant it borders on the idiotic. I left after the first act, not unsatisfied, exactly-- It's just that 90 minutes of this fluff was enough. I didn't need three hours.
Here's an MP3 of the boos this production received on opening night [via Medicine and Opera blog].
