By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 8 June 2008]

There are two ways of reading the Royal Opera’s new Don Carlo. The first goes something like this: tenor-of-the-moment Rolando Villazón returns to the stage after months of indisposition and crowns a front-rank cast in a subtly delineated version of Verdi’s Spanish drama, masterminded by “the most influential arts figure in the UK” – Nicholas Hytner of London’s National Theatre.