-- John Allison, BBC Music Magazine

Delibes’ perfumed score for Lakmé is somewhat of an acquired taste. Its lyricism occasionally embarrasses: the lovely duet for Lakmé and her companion Mallika that shows up just 10 minutes into the opera has been used for so many ads (British Airways comes to mind first, but there have been others) that it seems hackneyed—it takes a second of hearing it in context to realize how beautiful it is.

Dessay is a miraculous singer (and was at her best at this stage of her career—in 1995), one of the few stratospherically placed voices that almost never loses its warmth—not even above high-C. And because her technique is so impeccable, Dessay can articulate the text (it helps that she’s French, of course) at any range as well, and she makes Lakmé into something far more than a piece of delightful, fruity pie. Her “Bell Song” is a knockout, as rightly it should be.

Gregory Kunde is a sensitive singer, with a sweet, even range and a nice sense of line, legato, and the language, and Jose van Dam, just past his prime, is still wonderfully effective as Nilakantha, Lakmé’s overly careful dad. The others in the cast, as well as the Toulouse forces, are terrific under Plasson’s baton—there are many places where he could opt for bathos but does not.

-- Robert Levine, ClassicsToday.com