Weigle conducts superbly, bringing many original and fine ideas to this amazingly fresh score and building up great momentum over entire acts...[Bullock's] awakening is shrill and insecure, but later on she sings beautifully.

With his extraordinary reserves of stamina [Ryan] is truly formidable in a broadly paced forging scene. But in Act 2 only the short episode in which he muses about his mother has any degree of tenderness...Weigle's sensitive grasp of the mammoth score's multivalent moods ensures that the performance retains a powerful grip on the listener and the vividly characterised orchestral playing is well recorded