Interpretive ideas aren't what make the singing so compelling, but rather raw, needy emotion guided by a dramatic instinct that infuses everything with an operatic intensity.

That said, in striving for operatic intensity in this symphonic work, Mr. Bolcom sometimes slips into melodrama.

In short, he has placed himself square in the middle of a debate of almost operatic intensity: whether low-cost medicine can equal high-quality medicine.

It's also a love story of a quietly operatic intensity, plus, simply, a Western classic, with its depiction of criminal rapacity and political corruption in league together.

Still, the headlines of "Deutschland alla Romana" have resonated, not least for the sheer operatic intensity of the drama.

Ms. Houtzeel was at her best here, singing with radiant tone and operatic intensity.

She overwhelmed the songs with visceral operatic intensity.

The most popular standards during the Napoleonic period were compositions that swelled with patriotism or operatic intensity.

Many of the same novels, moreover, suggest that real life is lived with operatic intensity accompanied by emotions that resemble symptoms.

But in later years, as succession issues loomed, the rivalry between their sons escalated into a legal battle of operatic intensity.