"On stage, with the scenery of Roberto Peregalli, Roman Hurko creates a true regie, at times ironic, at times playful, and at others very serious. It begins with the stage still covered in ladders, raised backdrops, servants cleaning, footlights still to be lit, as in a production of the period. The scene only comes to order with the start of the orchestra, which is however eclipsed by the movement on stage."

"As to Roman Hurko's stage direction one cannot expect complete adherence to the representative conventions of the Baroque theatre. The contamination between modern and classic is all effected in good taste. I believe this production constitutes an excellent model of how theatrical sensibility can overcome a lack of funds, indeed turning it into an advantage."

"The stage director Roman Hurko, working with scenery painted by Roberto Peregalli, has created a lean production which lights up characters and situations. Handel's message comes through in this powerful production...in forms which announce the age of rococo and which the little Spoleto theatre displayed to the joy of the applauding public."

"But right have suddenly appeared three youths gifted with fresh intelligence and free of any reverence...: conductor Rinaldo Alessandrini, stage director Roman Hurko and scenographer Roberto Peregalli. With tempered irony, yet a clear consciousness of what is the inalienable reason of poetry, they have brought Handel's music back from a dusty grave. With a few essential passages, a few jabs of irony, they have reintroduced the masterpiece "Semele", which had long been stored away in the dull minds of musicologists."

"The simple and beautiful scenes of Roberto Peregalli were well coordinated with the scenic movements of Roman Hurko, thus forming a production without superfluous finery, but showing one of the cardinal ideas of Baroque theatre: the obvious simulation and artificial reality of what takes place; a taut aesthetic to astonish and, why not, to confound the uninitiated and enchanted spectator."