... wherefore it can be certified that soloists, chorus and orchestra present a qualitatively closed, supreme performance which rarely can be experienced. ... During the choral march in the exile the overall sound indeed was somewhat phantasmal, making the most beautiful Russian romanticism of souls perceptible.
And above the sounding surface quasi hovered the conductor Patrik Ringborg, in whose hands the Gothenburg Opera recently laid all Wagner performances. What the Swedish conductor and the outstandingly disposed Staatskapelle Weimar with eleven man band (pushing the envelope) accomplished, calls for hundredfold bravos. ...
One guest on Saturday also outshone the rest at the première, not merely because of his stately body height: the Swedish conductor Patrik Ringborg. "The best came from the pit", he and the Staatskapelle rose cheers everywhere.

The drastic erotic of the piece must as well be put into action. Thus there is a lot of "lovemaking" in the pit and on stage during the three hours and one-quarter. ... The team of singers can rely on their highly motivated colleagues in the orchestra under Patrik Ringborg. In an exceedingly flexible way the Staatskapelle realises a dynamic spreader from the most brutal tutti to the most placent chambermusic-like passages.

Through conductor Patrik Ringborg and the Staatskapelle the impact of the thrilling pictures so full of suspense are yet again boosted by extreme musical contrasts. Brawly brass players alternate with fine, barely audible string passages. The farce, the tragedy escalating in absurdity becomes marvellously clear.

It is a vehement, violent, mild, mellow, mad and malicious music, a grand collage, not separating the noble from the low and abruptly changing from the lyric-melodic love-yearning aria to the rhythmical thrusts of rape or love act. It is a music not mincing matters, to the greatest extent cinematic, unreservedly showing the audience the direction and what's hidden behind the masks. A music, demanding the highest alertness and precision, in which the Opera Chorus of the DNT, the Philharmonic Choir Weimar, the soloists, the Opera Studio members and the Staatskapelle Weimar could be heard in great form last Saturday. The Swede Patrik Ringborg as music director erects and governs this cosmos changing between euphony and cacophony every moment of the three and a half hours performance enthusiastically received.

In the end there is euphoric applause for a grandiose cast... Rejoicing above all for the Staatskapelle Weimar and the conductor Patrik Ringborg, who develop a splendid sound, shaping every musical detail with love and having no scruples for tone-painting in the orgiastic scenes. In short: a must for Shostakowitch-fans.

Last Saturday the curtain rose for the première - a ingenious implementation of Shostakowitch's masterpiece. ... Patrik Ringborg fascinates as conductor as well as the Staatskapelle, working with amazing verve. ... The music takes part - and so does the staging as well - in the destiny of the convicts banned to Sibiria... Haunting, impressive, unforgettable.

The Staatskapelle really excels itself under Patrik Ringborg's leadership! Ringborg succeeds in letting the grandiose, the gigantic and the grotesque in the music splendidly light up during this tour de force. Still he never covers his fabulous, always exemplary articulated singers.

In preparation.

In preparation.

In preparation.

In preparation.

In preparation.

In preparation.

... In preparation.

In preparation.

In preparation.