Deutsche Oper Berlin

Die Agyptische Helena is a dog's breakfast of a libretto, incomprehensible, ungainly and silly. Strauss's score is similarly scrambled, a tangle of violent outbursts and gaudy kitsch. So it is a small miracle that Berlin's Deutsche Oper has come up with such a gripping production of the piece....Andrew Litton brings the necessary discipline and restraint to the score, giving the crass climaxes all they're worth without ever drowning his singers. Evidently a sow's ear can truly yield a silk purse.

Another source of the [Die Agyptische Helena's] success is the conductor Andrew Litton. Strauss's big orchestral moments make due impact but no less telling is the sustained tension Litton brings to quiet passages.

Rarely, if ever, does any production manage to answer as many questions as "Egyptian Helen" raises. That, however, is exactly what the Deutsche Oper accomplishes with virtually flawless casting. Credit for this stroke of good fortune goes to Marelli and, in equal measure, to Conductor Andrew Litton and his orchestra, who achieve amazing sonorities from the very first bar, pouring body and soul into a brilliant performance.