Sobriety and Elegance – Alcalde’s conducting is analytical in the first act, as sober and precise as the scene. It turns to the drama in the second act with authentic greatness, extracting the dramatic essence from the purified control of a sound that seeks the secret and interiorized heart of the score more than it does fireworks. With this, the sensation of true sound has a direct impact on the scene, and on many occasions, it even leads the performance.
In sum, the Madrid Symphony performed, in my opinion, the best performance since it has been in the Royal Theatre, with a strings section that knew how to sing with feeling (especially the violins and the cellos, although there could have been more body in the double basses). Above all, there was a sense of playing in a group that bodes well for the opera season ahead.
El PaísJuan Ángel Vela del Campo (14-09-1998) pdf

But not only the look, the listen also attracts: Pedro Alcalde deliberately elicits delicate diminuendi from the Staatskapelle Berlin, he can decelerate very gently in the highest altitudes before he goes to the maximum with the dramatic rhythms. By the way, the 59-year-old Spaniard not only has music on it, but also a degree in philosophy, which you can even hear if you want to be subtle.
Ballet-Journal – Gisela Sonnenburg (24-06-2018) link