Everyone not only sang well; they worked as a cohesive musical unit, in large part because of conductor Kenneth Montgomery's urgent but not flustered tempos and the dramatically incisive recitatives.

Conductor Kenneth Montgomery elicited graceful, precisely articulated playing from the orchestra.

Irish conductor Kenneth Montgomery led the surging but well-paced accompaniment by the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra; his special contribution was the simultaneous use of fortepiano and harpsichord to add tonal color to the recitatives.

Another star was British conductor Kenneth Montgomery who led the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra in a luminous reading of the score. He took chances with tempi so that well-known arias such as Sesto's Parto, parto sounded unfamiliar, placing the showy coloratura within the meaning of the text with effective use of pauses. Thus the excellent cast of singers musically emphasized drama and motivation rather than pyrotechnics. Montgomery is simply one of this generation's great opera conductors, and rarely has Mozart sounded so intelligent, perceptive and humane.