Buxton International Festival 2024
Conductor Christian Curnyn
Director Jacopo Spirei
Set and Costume Designer Anna Bonomelli
Lighting Designer D M Wood
Photo Credit Genevieve Girling
There’s a beautifully-detailed house interior set and some wonderful costuming by designer Anna Bonomelli, and DM Wood is again the wizard of the lighting.
Robert Beale
Anna Bonomelli’s beautiful set is instantly recognisable as any of a hundred middle-class living rooms, but surrealism shows through the cracks as family tensions ratchet; by the time a downtrodden Beauty, platinum wig and sequins traded for grey hoodie and grey hair, sings her exquisite final prayer, it’s been transformed into a funeral parlour.
The Guardian - Sarah Noble
Spirei was aided in his reading by the excellent designs of Anna Bonomelli. The single set comprised a living cum dining room typically associated with middle-class houses with a kitchen in the background, between which the mother figure continually moved while setting and clearing the table while her daughters lounged on the couch. On the left-hand side of the stage was the obligatory, nicely decorated Christmas tree.
Opera Wire - Alan Neilson
Spirei's answer is to set it during a family Christmas, in a suburban house sometime in the 1970s (designer Anna Bonomelli), with the four characters as dad, mum and two rebellious daughters. Is the ending 'wise, bitter, or cynical? Whatever our answer, it is a devastating conclusion to a brilliantly imaginative staging.
Classical Music Daily