By Allan Ulrich [Financial Times, 23 February 2009]

Finally, after valiant attempts and sporadic tantalising morsels, Los Angeles now boasts a Ring des Nibelungen it can call its own, and if the opening instalment is representative, it will look like no other production of Wagner’s 15-hour epic of ambition, greed and redemption currently on the boards. Fortunately, it will probably sound like the best of the rest.