Critical Reception
Critical reception to the opera's Copenhagen world premiere was almost uniformly positive (e.g. "Add The Handmaid's Tale to the list of recent works that the Metropolitan Opera should feel obliged to present" - New York Times). In London the reviews were mixed and many hostile. While the power of Atwood's story and skill of Bentley's libretto were recognised, some critics felt that the vocal writing was characterless and for some female characters too shrill and highly pitched to allow for proper diction, while the orchestral writing was judged by some to be bombastic. Others praised Ruders for his composition's sympathy to the spirit of the novel. The Minnesota and Toronto premieres were widely praised by the critics (e.g. "This well-conceived production restores confidence in the possibilities of contemporary opera as compelling theater" - USA Today).
Both the first Copenhagen and London seasons, and the later productions in America and Canada, were successes with the opera-going public, with houses consistently selling out.
Read more about this topic: The Handmaid's Tale (opera)
Famous quotes containing the words critical and/or reception:
“The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable rôle with the promise of rewards—material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the Garden of Eden.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)