“The opera follows the outline of Dickens’ story but rather like sun-flares spins off into a world of its own. It delights and shakes you with Sharp’s performance as singer, actor and skald; he is nothing short of glorious. It makes you aware of the Victorian novella as a work extolling self-improvement. It draws parallels between the fallibilities of the world and Scrooge’s misanthropy, which is remediable as it turns out. If any of this seems a bit grim then do not worry: the experience glows but goes through stages that have a frisson not that far removed from Peter Ackroyd’s London documentaries.”