Acclaim for the 2008 Salzburg Roméo: "Bartlett Sher's production delivered the success everyone was waiting for " (Die Presse). "Villazón expresses all of Roméo's hot-blooded passion, his tender, erotic intimacy, and, finally, his deathly despair" (Süddeutsche Zeitung). "With lovely, musical phrasing, Machaidze captures the full range of Juliet's moods" (Tagesspiegel). The young Canadian conductor's "amazing dynamism… brings out all the drama's phases, from sensuality to death" (Le Figaro)