Iolanta
Erica Jeal [The Guardian, 17 August 2005]
Double bills aren’t what they used to be. _Iolanta_, Tchaikovsky’s last, one-act opera, was conceived as the second part of an evening that would have begun nearly two hours earlier with his ballet _The Nutcracker_. Welsh National Opera’s concert presentation, which has been touring on and off since June, paired it with only a few snippets from the ballet score – and the evening didn’t exactly seem short.