Here is a selection of press quotes from the premiere production of We Are The Lucky Ones, March 2025 (some machine translated):

Critic’s Pick: ‘We Are the Lucky Ones’ gives voice to a generation. This new opera assembles a compassionate, haunting portrait of the middle class that emerged from World War II and considers what they leave behind. […] What emerges, in an opera as compact and overwhelming as “Wozzeck,” is a portrait of a generation told with compassion, wisdom and artfulness. […] the creators of “We Are the Lucky Ones” push the boundaries of opera […] Like the best of opera, “We Are the Lucky Ones” often says two things at once, between the libretto and the score. — New York Times

“Octet singers astound in amazing opera ‘We Are The Lucky Ones’“. […] a thunderous opening of the Opera Forward Festival. Bassem Akiki conducts the complex and attractive score with preponderance and swing.” — Trouw

In the overwhelming opera ‘We Are The Lucky Ones’, an entire lifetime flashes before you. Everything about this brand-new performance about the baby-boomer generation is a bullseye. Venables glues the fragments of life together with contrasting and often sliding orchestral music, with brass and percussion at the base and colourful shots of piano, accordion and saxophone. The atmosphere is clearly the Hollywood, jazz and ballroom scene of the mid-twentieth century, but nowhere does it become cheap imitation. Meanwhile, the rhythmic tapping of woodblocks warns that time is moving irrevocably forward. A whole lifetime flashes before your eyes in this overwhelming festival opener that penetrates both heart and mind. — NRC

We Are the Lucky Ones is marvellous in scope and achievement. …a harrowing, tender, funny, non-judgmental living portrait of a generation widely regarded as the winners, and a profound reflection on the human condition. Taking his inspiration from the 20th century’s culturally polyphonic second half, Venables has created a huge-hearted score bursting with nostalgic references to Hollywood, jazz and dance and popular classics, with sublime vocal writing in which the soloists are their own chorus, all in a musical language that is entirely his own. — Bachtrack

Heartwarming portrait of a generation of ‘boomers’. — Theaterkrant

We Are The Lucky Ones has become a performance of great eloquence. The fragments of text brought together in the libretto are conveyed by eight soloists in a constellation that is both musically and visually virtuosic. […] Philip Venables’ music fits that scheme with an easy-to-hear patchwork full of deliberately chosen quotations and references. The result is a clearly instrumented and homogeneous orchestral backdrop for the soloists that perfectly matches the mood of their lyrics. […] We Are The Lucky Ones is a successful example of a new path. And that applies to both the work and the performance. Not insignificantly, moreover, Venables and Huffman were able to build on three centuries of musical theatre without rigorously jettisoning all traditions and achievements. In short: a surprising and above all hopeful opening of the Opera Forward Festival 2025! — Opus Klassiek

Holding up a mirror to the audience, moving them, provoking thought and painting a picture of our possible future — these are just some of the possibilities that the performing arts can provide for us. All this and more is currently on offer in De Nationale Opera’s Opera Forward Festival, We Are The Lucky Ones. — De Nieuwe Muze

Venables’ “We are the Lucky Ones” causes a sensation in Amsterdam. A sumptuous cast of singers, led by Bassem Akiki’s sharp musical direction, magnify this unclassifiable and seductive music. […] Venables offers a highly effective score, joyfully inviting echoes of Hollywood, big band, swing and jive. Moving pedal tones form the background for the interviews; tight imitations sketch out the dialogue; a few symbols can be heard, here a perpetuum mobile represents work, there aggressive syncopations illustrate a hunting scene, while the final regrets will see the gradual crumbling of the material. The whole is delightful for its diversity and enchanting for the balance between voices and instruments. — Diapason

Venables’ score responds perfectly to the kaleidoscope of scenes and situations, for the first time composing an opera for symphony orchestra, from which he draws brilliant fruit. The British composer’s music unambiguously embraces an eclecticism that should not be confused with a lack of personality; passages of a density somewhere between post-modern and post-minimalist coexist with the evocation of rhythms typical of the decades evoked with a clear component of Hollywood sumptuousness, for music that never falls (nor does the libretto) into easy sentimentality. Not least, Venables also knows how to write for the voices without sacrificing the clear enunciation of the text. — Opéra Actual

Der Zukunft der Oper... a sound that alternates between music of memory, wild outbursts and lyrical moments. Their vital parlando forms the core of the whole. — TAZ

A polyphonic tale made up not by eight characters but by the eight intertwined voices of the formidable and versatile performers of this brilliant work. […] If the bitter aftertaste of that hyper-realistic 90-minute synthesis of a life is inevitable, it is sweetened with a generous dose of irony, distributed copiously by the stylistically heterogeneous and theatrically intelligent score by Venables, who for the first time writes for a large orchestra. — Giornale della Musica

When opera tells our real story. The instrumental score, intended for a traditional symphony orchestra with additional percussion, accordion and piano, is rich in a variety of writing styles, all fairly accessible, and nicely supports or complements the voices, which are left to express a whole range of feelings and emotions, either solo or in ensembles. — La Libre