The performance, which was the work’s world premiere in 2015, could hardly be bettered. Mezzo-soprano Natascha Petrinsky, Viennese born, Israeli trained, scores a triumph in the title role. The rest of the cast is excellent, and the orchestral and choral forces under Franck Ollu are superb. The recorded sound is clear and open. The effect of the whole is overpowering.

As an unbroken 90-minute span, it makes an impressively taut, compelling drama. The pacing may be generally slow, almost meditative, but that restraint makes the occasional eruptions of violence in the score, and above all the terrible denouement, even more shocking...The recording from the Monnaie performances is wonderfully clear and spacious. Every detail of the orchestral writing, with the electronics that Dusapin uses very sparingly, registers under Franck Ollu.