Thanks, Alan, that's helpful. Amazingly the whole thing has been uploaded to YouTube by Naxos here, so one can judge for oneself, I suppose. I asked because I found the cpo Vasco da Gama (interesting that Naxos have reverted to Meyerbeer's original title) a disappointment after so much hype. I must say I thought Spyres sounds pretty good in what I've heard of it so far, but my expectations are notoriously low compared to yours .