“Anthony Suter, whose comic opera The Most Fortunate Son was a riot last year,

returned with a complete change of pace in heroes, monsters, humans, about a family

separated by the Iraq war. One scene showed the conflict and reconciliation between

the wife and brother of a soldier in Iraq who meet unexpectedly at an anti-war protest…

In the second scene from heroes, monsters humans, Signe Mortenson was an Iraqi girl

thanking the soldier for saving her brother, but angry and frightened by the bombing. The

aria, with a clarinet obbligato by the composer, was sung in Arabic, a first for most of the

audience and a triumph”.

                                                        --M.D. Ridge, May 26th, 2008, Portfolio Weekly, Norfolk

“Anthony Suter’s heroes, monsters, humans provided serious contrast with two pictures

of human conflict concerning the Iraq war. First, the brother and wife of an American

soldier in Iraq argued the war’s merits. Then that brother heard the outpouring of mixed

emotions of the sister of a suicide bomber he had saved. Both scenes drew strength

from direct musical writing and solid, committed performances”.

                                                        --Lee Teply, May 28th, 2008, Virginia Pilot