I must begin my appreciation with the achievements of the conductor and – heed this! – the orchestra, for the standard of work in the pit pleasingly exceeded not only the level of ordinary repertoire performances, but even the benchmarks set by festive premieres...
The orchestra was capable of playing in a disciplined and enjoyable way for the entire time in a manner which clearly revealed the richness of the score. The main merit in this obviously belongs to conductor Péter Halász. It was his work that was exalted by the almost exemplary nature of the orchestral-vocal harmony, which was disturbed by only one or two instances of problems in balance, namely the dominance of the orchestral sound. And most importantly, Péter Halász possesses a striking picture, a vision, if you will, of Die Frau ohne Schatten, which fortunately is transmitted to us not by means of verbose declamations, but via the carefully-wrought form and ethos of the overall performance which was audible to all.