By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 9 December 2005]

In his great act two aria "Fuor del mar" (Free of the sea) Idomeneo reflects on his escape from the clutches of Neptune - only to recognise that the price of survival is a more dreadful storm, this time moral and psycho-logical. The aria, handsomely sung on Wednesday by the Australian tenor Steve Davislim at the opening of the 2005-06 season at La Scala Milan, comes at halfway point in Mozart's Idomeneo, by which time you know whether you are in a good performance or a bad one.