By Francis Carlin [Financial Times, 1 June 2006]

Donizetti’s delightful comedy has been cold-shouldered in the past at the Paris Opera. It only turned up in 1987 in a borrowed Otto Schenk staging first seen in Vienna in 1973. Now Laurent Pelly has applied his trusty technique in a production destined to become core repertoire. The irony is that this is occurring during the reign of Gerard Mortier, who hates this sort of harmless entertainment.