'This war-torn and vigorous production of The Medium is worth seeing for John Pascoe's direction and set design alone.'

'It doesn't matter whether or not you care much for Menotti: either the man or the musician. There remain two performances of The Medium to go, and – if you love opera – you owe it to yourself to see this remarkable production.'

'John Pascoe's stage direction in itself justifies the price of admission. It is simply brilliant: economical in its use of space, dramatically adroit, suggestive, subtle and lurid at exactly the right moments.'

'Director John Pascoe set The Medium in 1946, the year it was written, but amid the rubble of postwar Europe. The exhausted Flora (Barbara Dever) became a scrounger, picking up furniture left in the streets and trading spurious séances for money to buy precious food.'

'Madame Flora has set herself up in the remains of an industrial building whose steel beams hang twisted from above. When massive doors at the rear are opened, a battered skyline looms. Madame Flora becomes no mere crook, but an ageing woman struggling for survival after Armageddon.'

'The aftermath of the Second World War – the world in which the première of The Medium took place in 1946 – is powerfully evoked through Pascoe's stage and costume designs.'

'John Pascoe, the stage director and designer of Spoleto's revival, makes the story compelling again. This is The Medium writ large.'

'Caitlin Lynch as Mrs Gobineau was marvellous in her first-act narrative of her child's death – the scene was well-executed and genuinely moving'

'John Pascoe directed and designed the sets and costumes, and captured the claustrophobic nature of the work, entirely set in Madame Flora's tawdry parlour. To present the smoke and mirrors of her trade as actual visual elements was a canny touch.'

'Menotti's operas, in the hands of truly exceptional and original artists, can indeed rise above their limitations. And that's just what happened in Spoleto Festival's The Medium. First and foremost, there's designer–director John Pascoe's supremely imaginative and often startlingly effective stage direction and design.'

'Gian Carlo Menotti lives on in the new production of The Medium … The world- renowned director and designer John Pascoe, is responsible for bringing this story to life.'

'Barbara Dever's Madame Flora, was a hulking presence, vocally and physically. Yet as she grew unhinged by an unexplainable turn in her séance, Dever let her weakness and weariness show through. The more desperate she became, the more pitiful she was.'

'Monica's "Black Swan" sounded tender but not dreamy, and Toby's yearning for her had sexual passion. Flora kicked him out not because he refused to admit he'd played a prank but because he might sweep Monica away.'

'As Monica, soprano Jennifer Aylmer was an absolute delight – serving as the opera's sole (and tenuous) link to sanity and good sense. Toby's … strangled efforts to express his feelings for her made for this production's most powerfully moving (even tear-jerking) moments … His physical gestures and pain-wracked facial expressions were worth a thousand words.'

'Instead of casting Monica, Flora's daughter and accomplice, as the usual ingénue, Pascoe makes her less petite but more soulful. For the mute Toby, Flora's other accomplice, Pascoe has bypassed the typical lithe dancer-type to enlist an actor who has magnetism but also a physical disability. Toby's every movement becomes charged.'

'Even though Menotti gave the mute no words to say or sing, actor Gregg Mozgala – who has cerebral palsy – spoke volumes through the yearning in his eyes and the struggling fervour of his movement.'

'The set's elaborate and fantasy-ridden trappings positively reeked of postwar squalor and decay … Its details – both within and from without – were surreally à propos to the story: a pile of rubble off to one side, a grimy statuette of the Virgin Mary ringed by cockeyed candles, and the dim, ravaged cityscape beyond the doors.'

'Barbara Dever makes a strong entrance as Madame Flora into this crumbling world. Her character, too, is on the verge of collapse; powerfully sung, her depiction of Madame Flora was convincing throughout.'

'Pascoe told me in our pre-festival chat that Gregg Mozgala is an aspiring actor born with a fairly mild, but still profoundly limiting case of cerebral palsy. His presence as Toby makes for a totally brilliant (and magical) casting coup. The result speaks for itself.'

'The set, designed by Pascoe, reflected the physical reality of Madam Flora's world. Jagged shards of metal plunged through the roof, reminding us of the ruin outside. So when an inexplicable spiritual event broke through her cynical veneer, she collapsed in fear of this unknown force. Dever brought pathos to the character, and her bullying had a frightened edge'

'Taking complete control over set and costume design, director John Pascoe has transported Gian Carlo Menotti's most successful opera to a surreal, postwar setting that resonates wonderfully with the spiritualism and guilt that haunt the composer's libretto and score.'

'Meanwhile, bullet holes in the walls let in light from the outside, forcing Flora to face the world she feared. "The dead don't come back," she cries piteously, but in vain: the ineradicable memories of World War Two proved that they did.'

'Some of the opera's most powerful and touching acting came from Gregg Mozgala as Toby … He's the opera's ultimate tragic victim, and not just because he dies in the end.'

'Joseph Flummerfelt's grasp of the score is as sure as is Pascoe's grip on the Guignol.'