"With this opera, Gorges Ocloo takes a new step in his search (which hopefully never ends) for points of common interest between African and European cultures. The ‘Stabat Mater’ by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi serves as the underpinning of this lament that is simultaneously an accolade to both the dead and the living. Ocloo takes full liberty with this score. He makes it his own, and from that confrontation a remarkable beauty emerges."

"The musical cross-fertilizations result in an opera full of surprising twists and turns, and with the kind of exuberant energy that is customary in African church communities."

"The voices of the male and female singers sound very beautiful and pure. Their harmonizing makes this Pergolesi very special. It has a primal force, a pathos of its own, spiritual and sacral."

"Love needs very few words, death even less. The grieving widow (superb role by actress Tine Joustra) is constantly attended by six African angels, who perform the 12 parts of the ‘Stabat Mater’. The instrumentation is daring: drums, cello and guitar, with soprano, mezzo-soprano and bass as vocalists."

"For a year and a half, Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ has been on repeat. On my phone. At home. I listened to song after song for hours at a time. ‘What do I feel?’ I kept asking myself. Then I sat down at my instruments and rewrote his score for six South African musicians. In Europe we are born bicycling, in South Africa they are born singing. What they can do with their voice is amazing."