By Martin Bernheimer [Financial Times, 12 December 2007]

Nothing exceeds likes excess. The Mariinsky version of Prokofiev’s wild and sometimes wonderful War and Peace, which returned to the Met on Monday after a five-year lapse, boasts a cast that would make any statistician delirious. Called to duty for this 4¼-hour marathon were 52 soloists, 118 choristers, 41 dancers and 227 supernumeraries, not to mention a horse, a dog, a goat and four chickens. Somehow, I missed the chickens.