By Allan Ulrich [Financial Times, 30 November 2005]

Four decades after its last staging in the City of the Angels, Wagner's final theatre work has returned to the boards in the alternately ravishing and infuriating Robert Wilson production, which, like the opera's eponymous protagonist, has wandered the globe, from Hamburg to Houston, for many years. When Wilson's hieratic Madama Butterfly was introduced here two seasons back, the LA Opera found itself with an improbable hit on its hands and a revival was arranged for this winter. And, because the tenor Plácido Domingo had never introduced his guileless fool to this company, which he serves as general director, the project seemed a natural for the 20th anniversary season.