Michael Dungan, The Irish Times - 06/03/2023

It’s visually breathtaking: in this co-production with Garsington Opera and Santa Fe Opera, the designer Gary McCann’s scale-busting bedroom (act one) and drawingroom (act two) inflate the aristocratic excess of imperial Vienna in the mid-18th century, while his costumes fast-forward the action to the mid-20th. Gigantic windows flood the rooms with Malcolm Rippeth’s almost celestial sunlight, which he swaps for the half-light from grimy chandeliers in act three’s dingy tavern. It all provides a sumptuous platform for Strauss’s very sumptuous music.