“Kristine Opolais, in her best singing and interpreting of the evening, was most moving. The Epilogue, elided into seamlessly from the preceding scene, left the chorus onstage— although still costumed as old and demented—and finally freed Mefistofele from his pompous postures, letting him act the text. Suddenly everything seemed right and success of the final scene inspired the audience to loud ovations, proving once again that “all’s well that ends well” . . .

“L’altra notte,”as well as the rest of her Prison scene, was outstanding and her acting was, as usual, superb.”

Jeffrey A. Leipsic – Opera News

“Back on earth, Opolais sings L’altra notte in fondo al mare and what follows is with great emotional depth. Her Margherita is a woman steeled by suffering. When she and Calleja sing Lontano, lontano, lontano, they bring out tenderness and tragedy, beauty and pain. Opolais sings the Spunta, l’aurora pallida with such calm heroism that Calleja’s O strazio crudel! tore at the heart. Opolais’s purity contrasts pointedly with the singing of Elena (Karine Babajanyan) . . .”

Classical Iconoclast

“Kristine Opolais shines with understated Grace Kelly elegance, which makes her seduction feel more like rape, for it is, since Faust is not what he really should be. The trio at the end of the scene sparks with tension Faust and Margherita are swept away by the force of the sharp, dotted rhythms that mark Mefistofele’s music.”

Anne Ozorio – Opera Today

“. . . Kristine Opolais sticks in one’s memory with the dungeon scene in the third act. She overwhelmed the audience as the regretting daughter and mother who had killed her own mother to be able to spend a night with Faust and drowned her own baby, the result of this sin, afterwards. After Opolais performed the unidimensional naive girl that gets seduced by Faust in the second act, her voice presents totally different colors while acting completely overcome with hysteria . . .

9 Stars for a musical[ly] excellent performance with a dream cast and an exciting staging of this (unjustly) rarely performed opera! ✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰”

Lukas Leipfinger – The Operatic Musicologist

“Kristine Opolais’s Margherita . . . brings lashings of pathos and drama.”

Shirley Apthorp – The Financial Times

Image: © Wilfried Hösl for the Bayerische Staatsoper