Welsh National Opera
It was the wonderful conducting of Andrew Litton, however, that set the seal on another triumph for WNO...one of the best opera conductors of the day.
— Hugh Canning, The Sunday Times, London
As for the conducting, Andrew Litton is a star. He goes for big sound...the raw, brute dynamism of this reading is electro-chemical.
— Michael White, Independent on Sunday
The hero of the occasion, however, is the conductor Andrew Litton, who goads the orchestra to explosions of fury.
— Peter Conrad, The Observer
Neil Armfields staging, conducted with stupendous power and brilliance by Andrew Litton, portrays the opera as much more than a parable of innocence and corruption. If there was a single dominating presence at Saturday's first night in Cardiff, it was Litton...Litton made the famous sequence of triadic chords sound as if they were flooding from organ pipes. Bernstein would have approved. I have a sneaking suspicion Britten would have, too.
— Andrew Clark, The Financial Times
The chief architect of this triumph is the young American conductor Andrew Litton, who has taken advantage of WNO's generous rehersal facilities to take a fresh look at the score without any hint of self-consciousness, simply by drawing out of it what was there all along. His taut reading often makes the piece sound like Shostakovich in one of his angrier moods, and the climaxes, every one of them properly earned, have a positively Wagnerian aural impact.
— Rodney Milnes, The Times, London
Andrew Litton conducts (Britten's Billy Budd) with flawless intensity and great compassion, while the WNO chorus has never been bettered in this music. It's a thrilling, painful evening - and it's under no circumstances to be missed.
— Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Andrew Litton conducts a superbly integrated performance, with orchestral playing that is at once emphatic and refined.
— Stephen Walsh, The Independent