The whole musical fabric has been knitted together very nicely indeed and this fine recording does not betray its longer-than-usual genesis. The plot is an expanded version of the Brothers Grimm’s The 12 Princes…Ruders responded with beguilingly orchestrated music that moves from light to dark before reattaining the light with most people getting what they deserve…The end result is often enchanting, dramatic and beautifully rendered on disc.

Assembled for this recording is a cast whose vocal qualities are hugely attractive. And, admirably, every singer seems to have been chosen as much for individual sonic distinctiveness as for vocal qualities shared the with others…Sarah Shafer is a stunning Princess Lyra: radiant, supple, vocally always at east, and richly coloured through the entire range.

There is plenty of space for lyrical solo numbers in Ruders’ score, which veers between mid-Atlantic neoromanticism and something edgier and more expressionist in the orchestral interludes...it’s particularly Sarah Shafer in the role of Lyra who makes the most of his smoothly contoured vocal writing.

To a knowing libretto by Becky and David Starobin (who also shares conducting duties with Benjamin Schwartz) Ruders responds with music of darkly macabre, poetically illuminating commentary.