A full concert, and two hours later, the orchestra and chorus finally received their turn.
In its early years the chorus received high praise from Russian musicians Sergei Rachmaninov and Fyodor Chaliapin.
The bands and choruses have received consistent superior ratings for the past 25 years at District, Archdiocesan, and State Band festivals.
The France-Amérique noted that Voigt and the chorus received French diction training for the performance from Thomas Grubb, a teacher at the Juilliard School.
The score, which begins and ends almost inaudibly, occasionally follows the narrative, as when both orchestra and chorus receive the grandmother with an explosion of sound.
Judged on their singing, presentation and musical quality, the chorus received its highest scores in decades of competition.
Despite this mix, the chorus regularly receives critical acclaim.
On top of that the overall chorus received a perfect score, the first perfect score for Martin County and the first perfect score nationwide for 28 years.
The chorus received a wild card invitation to the International chorus contest in Salt Lake City for July 2005.
The Greek chorus of dead human-trafficking victims has generally received negative reviews; one critic called it "the play's least successful device."