"This concert performance from Versailles' Opéra Royal last November is a curio - almost perfection sits alongside over-cleanness and lack of drama, an almost Karajan-like tidying-up of corners ... The singing itself could hardly be bettered ... The choir may be a century beyond their habitual repertoire but their enunciation and use of text are superb without over-acting ... Among the soloists, Anna Caterina Antonacci works with Roth to achieve a reading of Marguerite's scenes ... It's hard to imagine the part of Faust's rejected love better achieved as drama through singing ... The story's very clear and undecorated but we're rarely gripped by it - by the beautiful singing, yes, but not the drama".