Here's a sampling of press the Cincinnati Opera and Nicholas Muni have received:

Heidi Waleson, writing for The Wall Street Journal, praised Muni's "intelligent direction" in The Maids, based on the shocking, real-life murder case in Jean Genet's play. Muni, she wrote, "did not attempt to find reasons for these unreasonable acts, but left the audience to draw its own conclusions."

She found its pairing with The Emperor of Atlantis, an opera composed in a concentration camp, intriguing.

"It is impossible to separate them entirely from their source materials, and the musical optimism expressed by a man who died in Auschwitz is ultimately just as striking as the eloquent evocation of murderously dysfunctional individuals," she concluded.

John Koopman, submitting reviews to opera magazines in Mexico and three European countries, says, "Cincinnati Opera's Summer Festival season has mounted a stunning double-bill production of two remarkable operas ... Both stage director Muni and maestro (Patrick) Summers worked their powerful magic, making the evening a particularly potent operatic experience and a triumph for Cincinnati Opera."

Janelle Gelfand