Performer: Uta Gruber-Ballehr

Strauss' penultimate opera is treated to a lavish if superficial staging at the Salzburg Festival, but the real rewards come from the musical performance of this unjustly neglected work.

Tonight's setting of Die Soldaten in a WWI stable is so sordid you can almost feel the rats gnawing. Alvis Hermanis was right to warn in a newspaper interview that we would leave the theatre feeling shocked.

Donizettis Oper wird in Stuttgart zu einem Fest der Musik, vor allem des Gesangs.