The Daily Telegraph
‘It captures last May's acclaimed staging of Janacek's penultimate opera, in which Cheryl Barker plays the diva whose three centuries of youthfulness are beginning to wear off. Her sense of desperation - torn between regaining the formula and at last finding release from eternal life - colours every phrase. Her singing… is firm and vivid… She is admirably supported by Neal Davies, Robert Brubaker, John Wegner, John Graham-Hall, Thomas Walker and Graham Clark as the various men who fall under her Lulu-like spell… All the singing is closely miked - essential in this most wordy of Janacek's operas - but it never compromises the depth and richness of sound from the orchestra pit in the overall balance. And in the pit itself, Mackerras responds to the composer's fecund writing with a performance of rhythmic vitality and textural clarity.’