Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim

“Beczala's impassioned outburst in Act I was undeniably powerful. But his singing has a declarative cast: Each phrase seems to assert its own valor, and his frequent use of soblike inflections, idiomatic in Italian opera when used judiciously, soon felt a touch hysterical.”

“One is made of giant military maps; the other, of billowing piles of regimental laundry that Marie — the adopted mascot and the title’s ‘daughter of the regiment’ — must conquer. A third summit looms, unseen, in the music: the aria ‘ Ah! mes amis ,’ sung by Tonio, the Tyrolean mountain boy who upends Marie’s world.”

“This ‘La Sonnambula’ would have been worth cheering for the singing alone.”