Career

Most of the premiere run's main cast returned, led by the inimitable Lisette Oropesa. Hers was a fully realized portrayal even on the occasion of her role debut, and she continues to rock the part, visibly delighting in playing the strutting, capricious sorceress. Vocally, Handel's writing fits her like a glove, too: the raging runs of Ma quando tornerai were, expectably, tossed off with fiery ease, the sharply punctuated, tortured phrases of Ah, mio cor sung with heartrending emotion, the act-closing, devastating Ah! Ruggiero crudel … Ombre pallide rendered with a suitably lachrymose tone and grave, sharply dramatic sense of phrasing. (Di, cor mio could have used a touch more creamy tone and a less fluttery vibrato, but who am I to nitpick?)

—  Orsolya Gyárfás  •  Parterre Box

Lisette Oropesa sang Liù. She displayed secure and rich, velvety lower and middle registers, from which she soared effortlessly to the generously blooming high notes. … meticulous study and knowing from experience exactly how to place the voice at every moment, was still in evidence throughout, but combined now with more of what came across as spontaneity.

—  Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe  •  Seen and Heard International

Zum mächtvollen Begrüßungschor ihrer Druiden schreitet sie mit der Würde einer Oberpriesterin die Olavinlinna-Innenhoftreppe herunter, ihre ersten Worte an den Chor (und ihr Publikum) sind schlank und dabei raumfüllend, klar, mit natürlicher Autorität. Den folgenden großen Norma-Hit Casta Diva legt sie nicht staatstragend-langsam an, sondern emotional und dennoch schlicht: Norma kommt ihrer rituellen Pflicht ohne Pomp nach. Das gelingt Oropesa so grandios, dass ihr das finnische Publikum fast italienisch wird und sie – das ist hier untypisch – in die Schlussakkorde der Arie hinein feiert.

—  Stephan Knies  •  Opernwelt

The main reason to see the Royal Opera's new production of I puritani is Lisette Oropesa's performance as Elvira. The poise and sensitivity of her stage presence is matched by a voice of supple, endlessly nuanced sweetness. She's a diva in the old, true sense, unrivalled in the way she balances a melody on its accompaniment, as well as the dewdrop freshness of her high notes and her ability to infuse a falling phrase with a hundred shades of quiet sorrow.

It's Oropesa who carries the night, with her tattered wedding dress and wilted bouquet. The more fragile her sound, the more compelling she becomes, though she's dazzlingly passionate and brilliant when she needs to be, supplying a luminosity that was badly needed in Richard Jones's drab new staging.

—  Richard Bratby  •  The Spectator

Oropesa lleva en volandas a la orquesta, mantiene siempre vivo el interés del público y construye un personaje de gran verdad escénica, delicado y creíble. Su línea de canto, exquisita, parece invocar el espíritu de las grandes Violettas que han pasado por este teatro. Estamos, sin duda, ante una de las intérpretes de referencia del papel en la actualidad, un auténtico lujo para las audiencias de Nueva York.

—  Carlos J. López Rayward  •  Opera World

En Amalia, Lisette Oropesa a remporté un très grand succès. La maîtrise technique impressionne : legato souverain, vocalises précises, trilles impeccables jusque dans le grave – notamment dans le « O caro accento » de la cabalette « Carlo vive », où les soprano les plus illustres n’hésitent pas à les escamoter, même au disque ! Au-delà de la virtuosité, la soprano s’investit pleinement, rendant attachant un personnage dramatiquement mince mais musicalement gratifiant.

—  Stéphane Lelièvre  •  Premiere Loge Opera

Lis­ette Oropesa, per­haps the sav­vi­est bel canto singer of our time, is also an out­stand­ing act­ress. Her Elvira— fra­gile, fero­cious, unmoored—was a musical aurora borealis: lumin­ous, unstable. She refrac­ted emo­tion rather than simply car­ry­ing it, each phrase catch­ing a dif­fer­ent shade of feel­ing— first golden and remote, then burn­ing with an almost reck­less intens­ity. She under­stands, instinct­ively, con­trol at the edge of col­lapse, and she rides that edge with unnerv­ing pre­ci­sion. Col­oratura pas­sages flicker and dart, not as orna­ment but as agit­a­tion, the sound regis­ter­ing Elvira’s unrav­el­ing. And yet there are moments when she stills everything, draws the line into something eer­ily pure, as if time had briefly stopped to accom­mod­ate her grief. It was in these sus­pen­sions— these held breaths—that her per­form­ance lingered.

—  Arya Roshanian  •  New York Review