First performances are not all of a feather

Bird of Night fails to lift Paul Driver, but premieres of Maxwell Davies and Knussen prove transporting [Times Online, 29 October 2006]
Of four premieres I attended in the past few days, the grandest was the least. For the first time, the Royal Opera has commissioned a work from a woman, the Trinidadian Dominique Le Gendre, and it was staged at the Linbury. In 2003, a 20-minute opus by her had been put on there as part of A Nitro at the Opera ó a Sunday of ìblack operasî.