By David Patrick Stearns [Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 June 2010]
In the world’s most complicated art forms, simplicity is tough. But that’s what is called for in Willibald Christoph Gluck’s OrphÈe et Eurydice, an occasion for which the Opera Company of Philadelphia made pared-back production values not just a virtue but an eloquent artistic statement – even if Thursday’s opening performance at the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater occasionally crossed lines from simplicity to blandness to dramatic uncertainty.