“The clearest example of this was Alisa Zaika’s I (Romance); it is a work of considerable power and meaning but it also stands alone among these six works as being the only one that resolved to be nothing more nor less than an opera that takes us to another time or place beyond our comfort zone. History in Zaika’s opera isn’t so much repeated but inescapable; Khvylovy eventually faced his own atrocities with suicide. I (Romance) is an astounding piece of writing; I just wished to hear this particular opera in isolation perhaps.”