press and reviews

Isabel Milenski

Semele

"In this brilliantly bratty, cynically clever production, mean Texas oilmen and their vain women who thought themselves godlike are shown, in fact, to be gods and goddesses."

--Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

"Semele is transformed from an ultra-serious mythological tale to black comedy. Handel the entertainer would approve."

--Timothy Mangan, Orange County Register

Jenufa

"What is radical is the way Milenski strives to position every shade of feeling in your face and the degree to which she is able to get the singers to do just that."

Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times

"Milenski did something astonishing: she devoted her energies to an intense, intelligent, logical expression of the drama as written. The show was utterly free of self indulgent 'look at me' excesses...This was Janacek in the Raw"

David Gregson, Opera West

"Wisely the company plays Jenufa's gritty Realism close to the bone. The result is a cohesive remarkable production directed by Isabel Milenski."

Bondo Wyszpolski, Redondo Beach Easy Reader

Euridice

"The stage pictures were striking and beautiful. The performers entered into the spirit of the occasion making about two hours of mostly declamatory music totally absorbing. "

--David Gregson, Opera News

"Euridice is an opera that should require an audience to adjust its attitude, but the startling first impression of this Euridice was that all the attitude adjustment was already taken care of by the plucky attitude of the production."

--Mark Swed, Lost Angeles Times

"I have rarely, if eve, been so moved in opera."

--Bondo Wyszpolski, Easy Reader

The Silent Woman

"With her characteristic exuberance, Isabel Milenski is one of opera's most impressive fresh faces in recent years."

--Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times