“…  The sound is beautifully clear and well balanced. The performance is alert and communicative on everybody’s part. The main singers, all new names to me, are a highly capable lot and less afflicted by wobble and bark than are many prominent opera singers nowadays. Some of the women in smaller roles make a particularly beautiful sound, such as Tetiana Miyus, who (as Katja) gets to sing a sad multistrophic Russian folk song unaccompanied … With this, its first appearance on compact disc, The Passenger further confirms its ongoing resonance for our age.”

“… The opera, which was first staged at the Bregenz Festival as recently as 2010, takes place alternately on the ship and in Auschwitz, the epilogue at Martha’s home river. The work, which lasts about two and a half hours, is packed with intense music, which, however, never comes across as striking, but is used discreetly and psychologically. Roland Kluttig and the Graz Philharmonic do a fine job here … The interpretation of all involved is very clear, never overdone …  and yet always in the service of the characters being portrayed. Weinberg’s impressive music is of great beauty and grandeur. It is certainly one of the most perfect (and accessible even to the untrained listener) operas of the second half of the 20th century.”  *****