"In her fourth project with KO, director Keturah Stickann again wove psychological themes into the staging, themes that reference the backstory of the opera otherwise told only through exposition. Specters of Azucena’s mother and child briefly haunt several scenes as a reminder of that story, completed at the finale by a stunning image of an immolation as the existing scenery flies away. Stickann also gave Il Trovatore some truly gorgeous stage pictures through the painting and organization of crowd tableaus and character movement, such as Act II’s “Anvil Chorus,” all the while making a positive attribute of the drop and wing sets"