Some found Peter Hall's staging… too dark and serious, but for me it was an invigorating evening. …Vladimir Jurowski… draws highly polished and brilliant playing from the LPO of one of Rossini's greatest scores. …presenting a down-and-out Don Magnifico - dirty to his fingernails - works well when you have such a strong singing-actor as Luciano Di Pasquale. Ruxandra Donose is winning in the title role…

This is a truly marvellous performance on all counts - staging, conducting and singing. Sir Peter Hall… manages to breathe new life into the routines without ever slipping over into farce, while exploring each character in some depth. The sense of an ensemble on top form is underlined by Vladimir Jurowski's exacting, pellucid and vivid interpretation, so that the music, like the libretto, is presented afresh. The superb cast has no weaknesses and many strengths, Ruxandra Donose may not have the idiomatic Italian timbre of Cecilia Bartoli... but she is the more consistent singer, using her wide range and rich tone to startling effect. Her youthful (24-year-old) partner, Russian tenor Maxim Mironov, proves an ideal Ramiro, fluent in every aspect of his role and delivering its appreciable demands in a light, pliant voice of delicate beauty.

This is a performance that meets the Glyndebourne gold standard… Hall has decided to keep it real and produced something understated, sensitive and thus deeply pleasurable.