'sung with due dramatic impact by young baritone Dario Dugandzic, the ‘Man’. In fact his remarkably buoyant, fulsome tones throughout were most memorable, and the main highlight of this unusually stark drama. ‘I’m only just developing my voice, trying to explore’, he said when I congratulated this young singer from Yugoslavia after the show. With the distinguished baritone Ian Caddy directing this opera, I’m not surprised Dugandzic got to give of his best.'
'The opera is well delivered and directed, with an interesting score that has expressive arias, recitatives, duets, with much of the dialogue between man and woman over a ground bass. The idiom is tonal, but one of the Woman’s final arias uses a 12-tone row, as she bloodthirstily lists the torments he will endure during his slow death:'
'I liked it too. Hugill is clearly a composer of discernment, imagination, and drive, and his score encompassed many a gem, including an arioso, fearsome duet with the Man, as the Woman spells out her plan of revenge, with torrid passages for violin, cello and piano, and a cliff-hanger at the end. At the sound of a banging door the woman departs. All we hear is the dripping tap. Silence. Then chorus: ‘Will she be back ?’
All quotations from Jill Barlow's review in Tempo Magazine
FIRST PERFORMANCES (2011). Tempo, Volume 65, Issue 258, October 2011 pp 45-58 http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?aid=8406640

'chilling'
'Though the action was restricted to the woman's taunting and the man's ranting, the director Ian Caddy drew gripping performances from both'
'Dario Dugandzic, a baritone of distinctive timbre, conveyed the man's mood chanes in his hysterical outbursts'
'Zoe South, a dramatic soprano with Wagnerian credentials, contained the bitterness that motivates the woman in her tautly focussed singing'
'Hugill made atmospheric use of his four musicians, opening almost tentatively with disjoined notes on the cello, soon joined by the piano, and bringing in the violin and clarinet to create a substantial orchestral texture as the tension increased, only to end with the final not on the solo cello'
'The conductor David Roblou drew the maximum theatrical impact from this disturbing piece'
Margaret Davies in Opera Magazine, June 2011

'Robert Hugill's When a Man Knows needs to transfer to somewhere higher profile, where it can get the exposure it deserves. This is what good chamber opera should be like. It's modern, yet not so experimental that it can't reach out and draw an audience in. It's compact, too, and travels well.'
'What I liked most about Hugill's When a Man Knows is the abstraction and spartan simplicity. This allows for endless possibilities. ' - See full review at Classical Iconoclast