MusicWeb International offers an in-depth rave review for the Florentine Opera Company’s recording of Carlisle Floyd: Wuthering Heights:
“Floyd’s opera is both spectral and emotionally intense; there’s nothing of the musical about it. The writing has about it a florid brilliance entirely in keeping with the themes of love in vain, betrayal and striving for the unattainable. It is by no means a chamber opera and the emotions are played out on a grand scale – Puccinian really. This major Reference Recordings project is Wuthering Heights’ first recording and presentationally no corners have been cut. The sound is deep stage and stunning. … John Quinn has said of another Floyd opera (Susannah) that “Floyd offers, very successfully, what I’d term American verismo.” I’d go with that for Wuthering Heights also. The conductor Joseph Mechavich has already conducted Susannah, Of Mice and Men and Cold Sassy Tree so he is no stranger to Floyd’s way with drama and music. Everything here, from soloist to chorus to orchestra, is fluently treated; nothing is in the least tentative. This is a princely production all round.” —Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International