Reviews

Lisette Oropesa achieved total triumph as Amalia, the trill-filled part created for Jenny Lind. She sang with passion, technical aplomb, delicacy, and lovely timbre within her lyric-coloratura means.

—  David Shengold  •  Gay City News

Soprano Lisette Oropesa made a pleasing debut as the suffering Amalia

—  Charles T. Downey  •  Washington Post

If there was a leader in the pack, it was Lisette Oropesa, whose Susanna was a potent combination of charm and beautifully articulated wit, with telling touches of peasant common sense.

—  Simon Williams  •  Opera News

Lisette Oropesa is an up-and-coming soprano who has established an excellent reputation for singing with luminous tones and precise coloratura. Her Susanna was flirty, saucy and passionate.

—  Maria Nockin  •  Opera Today

Soprano Lisette Oropesa creates a very young, but wise beyond her years, Suzanna. She resists the usual “smartest girl in the class” smugness that many purveyors of the role affect. We see her evaluate, and then approve, the ideas as the conspirators hatch the harebrained scheme to give the Count his comeuppance. Her aria Deh Vieni, Non Tardar is exquisite.

—  Gregory Sullivan Isaacs  •  Theater Jones

Lisette Oropesa (who shares Madeline Kahn’s birthday) sings Susanna with sweet vibrance and spunky stage presence. I admired Oropesa in The Enchanted Island at the Met two seasons ago, and here, with superior dramatic material, she’s winning.

—  William V. Madison  •  Billevesées

Lisette Oropesa was irresistible as Susanna, burbling to and fro in a lovely voice.

—  James R. Oestreich  •  New York Times

I was thoroughly impressed with Lisette Oropesa's Susanna. She had great stage presence, comic flair, good timing in her stage movements, vivid chemistry with both her Figaro and Countess Almaviva, and sang beautifully this Mozart music that suits her voice so well. She sang naturally throughout the evening, with never a strained note. What a charming Susanna!

—  Luiz Gazzola  •  Opera Lively

His Susanna, Lisette Oropesa, makes an incandescent debut. I still can’t get her limpid, astutely phrased “Deh vieni” out of my head. That Letter Duet, “Sull’aria” with the Countess, could hardly be better sung.

—  John Stege  •  San Francisco Reporter

Lisette Oropesa, also from the Metropolitan Opera, employs her clear and appealing soprano to the myriad emotions of the complex young woman – cajoling, frustration, jealousy and ultimate satisfaction. In her touching final aria “Deh vieni non tardar (At last the moment is near)” one can almost hear her becoming tired of the subterfuge and simply wishing to be married peacefully to Figaro.

—  D.S. Crafts  •  Albuquerque Journal

Lisette Oropesa, who made everyone fall in love with her right from the outset in her company debut. Nothing in the evening surpassed her rendition of “Deh vieni, non tardar” in Act IV, in which she spun strands of magic in the evening air.

—  James M. Keller  •  Santa Fe New Mexican

...beautifully sung from offstage by Lisette Oropesa.

—  Vivien Schweitzer  •  New York Times

Lisette Oropesa brought a sweet soprano as the forest bird and sang with ease throughout the role's difficult arching passages. 

—  David Salazar  •  Latinos Post

Lisette Oropesa was a compelling Gilda, with beautiful coloratura and purity of tone.

—  Luiz Gazzola  •  Opera Lively

Her '"Caro nome" was exquisite, a perfectly lovely arc of tonal radiance and dynamic nuance, climaxing with an incredible trill. All evening the soprano produced one beautiful phrase after another, with impeccable musicianship and with the character's vulnerability and ultimate resolve finely delineated in both the words and the colours of the voice.

—  Oberon  •  Oberon's Grove

And Lisette Oropesa was a Gilda who invited tenderness. Her pure, smooth soprano and alert presence were both endearing

—  Zachary Woolfe  •  New York Times

Oropesa's "Caro Nome" was one of, if not the highlight, of the evening

—  David Salazar  •  Latinos Post

Still, as Gilda, Lisette Oropesa offered a pearly “Caro nome” in her poised soprano

—  James Jorden  •  New York Post

Oropesa also has, perhaps more noticably for some, a pure light lyric soprano that is as balanced and classically expressive as recent decades have seen.

—  JSU  •  An Unamplified Voice

Pamina was sung by the Louisiana-born Cuban-American soprano Lisette Oropesa, and she sang beautifully. Oropesa has a lovely, powerful voice, with a big top and strength throughout her whole register, and an ability to add believable pathos and sadness to her singing, particularly in her very fine Ach, ich fühls, which is when she most needs it. It is also a voice with warmth and richness, and that made Oropesa’s Pamina a sympathetic figure, rather than a dreary, lovelorn sop. Her acting was believable and sincere, and she looked delectable in her blue cocktail dress, platinum-blond wig and pink shoes. But most of all, you wanted to hear her sing some more.

—  Greg Stepanich  •  Palm Beach Arts Paper

Her voice had the lushness in the lower and mid-ranges, but floated lightly and nimbly through the upper range.

—  Judy O. Marchman  •  Operagasm

Most of the applause at the curtain went to soprano Lisette Oropesa, making her FGO debut as the dewy Pamina, recognizing her passionate declamations of love and heartbreak.

—  Bill Hirschman  •  SouthFlorida.com

Even more impressive, and affecting, is soprano Lisette Oropesa as the harried young heroine, Pamina. Made up like a bouffant haired 60’s ingénue in the manner of Sandra Dee, Oropesa draws on the humor of the caricature while making her emotionally real. Her second act “Now my heart is filled with sadness” aria is a wonder of delicacy and feeling.

—  Tony Guzman  •  Miami Sun Post

Oropesa was beyond fantastic in her portrayal of Pamina. She has a lovely, large and clear soprano voice. ... Her rendering of the aria "Ach, ich fühls" was poignant and heart-renderingly beautiful. Everything she sang during the performance was note perfect and beautiful.

—  Jack Gardner  •  EDGE Miami

The soprano Lisette Oropesa made a fresh-faced and innocent Pamina. Her aria Ach, ich fühl’s, sung as she believes Tamino no longer loves her, was genuinely moving, with quietly intense high notes and assured, unforced articulation of quick passages.

—  David Fleshler  •  South Florida Classical Review