By Andrew Clark [Financial Times, 11 July 2010]
When arias and duets are as sweetly melodic as Luisa Miller’s, you have to ask why the opera is not performed more frequently. One reason may be that Verdi wrote too many masterpieces to allow the also-rans a chance. Or perhaps Luisa Miller is too much of a transitional work: it lacks the elemental vigour of his “galley” years without achieving the dramatic sophistication of Rigoletto, La traviata and other masterpieces of his middle period.