last update: 8 August 2011

The Sunday Times, London

Warner doesn’t miss any opportunity to have extras plunging from a great height into the lake — the captive non-singing Idia Legray, with whom the heroine Maddalena di Coigny exchanges place on the tumbril, taking Chénier to his execution, has to tread water for what seems like an eternity in the Conciergerie scene — but both give the festival the popular spectacle for which Bregenz, the least elitist of the big European opera junkets, is famous. Constance Hoffman’s costumes add period colour bordering on grotesquerie. [...]

Scott Hendricks blustered effectively as the resentful and sexually jealous Gerard. Among the cameo parts, Rosalind Plowright doubled as an über-glamorous Contessa and stoical Madelon, although why she had to sing from between Marat’s teeth remained a mystery. Peter Bronder was the slimy, fetish-dressed spy, Incredibile.

Financial Times, Frankfurt

Directed by Keith Warner and designed by David Fielding, it does what it needs to do - entertain Bregenz's tourist public with an eye-goggling array of effects and stunts. [...] Héctor Sandoval sings Chénier with ardour and style. Scott Hendricks is the powerful Gérard, Norma Fantini a sympathetic Maddalena, Ulf Schirmer conducts with brio.

BBC News, London

A tale of love and the death staged on a lake. [...] The action takes place both on and in the water. [..] Stage design is based on the famous painting - the death of Marat bei Jacques-Louis David.  The head of Marat raises high above the surfaces of the lake and weights 60 tons.

A more extensive list of reviews in German (and sporadically in French) you find here.