By Shirley Apthorp [Financial Times, 14 April 2010]

Simulated sex is the order of the day. Klotho and Lachesis dry-hump Proserpina and each other in a giant high-heeled shoe, in a gynaecologist’s chair, on a hospital bed; various body parts are licked and sucked, orifices are penetrated. The Underworld is not treating Proserpina nicely. Neither Goethe’s text nor Wolfgang Rihm’s music quite cover it. So director Hans Neuenfels has filled in the blanks.