Sallinen's timing of the action seems to click into a higher gear forom the end of Act 1 Scene 2 where bastard Edmund 'deposes' Edgar from the Gloucester family inheritance. There is some classy singing from Salminen in the title-role...Silvasti's disturbed, neurotic Edmund, Jorma Hynninen's less-is-more Glcouester and Lilli Paasikivi's heart-and-soul Cordelia.

Matti Salminen’s huge Lear is indeed ‘every inch a king’. The bass shows the thunder he has brought to Wagner roles internationally, but also a Lieder singer’s delicacy when needed. Even when ranting, foolish and profligate, he retains a sense of the king’s former stature and cunning. His reunion duet with the affecting, lovely-sounding Lilli Paasikivi (a mezzo Cordelia, against usual operatic type) is among the opera’s musical highlights. Jorma Silvasti’s twitchily malign Edmund, with agitated lines and high tessitura, calls to mind this fine tenor’s Laca; Edmund gets more solo time than Lear, and becomes the work’s second protagonist.