"A first-rate recording of a durable classic." (Opera News)

"Chicago Opera Theater brings the story fully and frighteningly to life for the first time on compact disc. Joyce Castle sings the title role . . . with chilling malevolence. Bedi brings to the role [of Monica] a pervasive and affecting sweetness." (Newark Star-Ledger)

"Exudes a riveting theatrical atmosphere." (Dallas Morning News)

Oft-performed but mysteriously absent on recordings, Menotti's eerie opera The Medium has materialized in its first recording in more than a quarter century. This two-act "musical drama" is about a fake psychic whose surprise encounter with the unknown leads to murder and mayhem. It is stage a dozen times annually in the US alone. Yet, recordings haven't been available for years, and (until now) it has never appeared on CD.

A "sensational success" for Menotti (Kobbé's Opera Book), the present version of The Medium had its premiere February 18, 1947 at New York's Heckscher Theater. New York Times music critic Olin Downes wrote, "we have here the quality of opera. It is dramatic music, emphatic in action as well as feeling, and in essence song, which is what opera must be. No other American composer has shown the inborn talent that Mr. Menotti, an Italian by descent, unquestionable possesses for the lyric theater." Critic (and composer) Virgil Thomson called it a "first-class musico-theatrical work . . . the most gripping operatic narrative [he] has witnessed in many a year . . .[It] wrings every heart string, and the music is thoroughly touching."