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Apr. 22, 28, 30 2023
The Foreign Princess
Rusalka
Portland Opera
Apr. 22, 2023
Apr. 28, 2023
Apr. 30, 2023 |
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May 6, 7 2023
Soloist
Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra
Drama takes center stage, starting with Verdi’s overture to La Forza del Destino. Soprano Othalie Graham returns to the HSO and lends her luminous voice to Wagner and Ravel. The Romantic symphony of Howard Hanson brings our series to a thrilling close.
Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 3:00 PM |
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"OTHALIE GRAHAM as LADY MACBETH joins 'The Grandest Sorority". OPERA CAROLINA
Voix Des Artes, Joseph Newsome
" Soprano Othalie Graham first assayed [Lady Macbeth] in the present production’s October 2019 première at Toledo Opera. This auspicious rôle début inducted her into the very exclusive sorority of singers who have sung Lady Macbeth, Aida, and Turandot...[including]Maria Callas, Birgit Nilsson, and Leonie Rysanek..Dame Gwyneth Jones, Rita Hunter, Martina Arroyo..and Ghena Dimitrova...[a] legacy that Graham continued."
"The vehemence of Graham’s calculating Lady recalled Callas’s standard-setting interpretation, and the incredible might of her singing rivaled Jones’s legendary vocal amplitude. Graham relied upon her own theatrical instincts and vocal resources in forming her characterization, however, thereby restoring to the rôle the Shakespearean grandeur...The trills and bravura passages in the andantino cavatina ‘Vieni! t’affretta!’ and cabaletta ‘Or tutti sorgete’ are rarely comfortable for voices of the size of Graham’s.. dramatic soprano, but here, too, Graham... conquered the music’s difficulties. Her vocalism in the duet with Macbeth seethed with deadly cunning, her singing at once cajoling and contemptuous... Graham ended Act One with a magnificent D♭6 that might have leveled Birnam Wood."
"In Act Two, Graham traversed the two-octave range of... 'La luce langue' with abandon [and]the Act 3 duet with Macbeth found Graham at the height of her powers as a singing actress - her depiction of Lady’s ferocity exemplified by her Herculean top C. Not surprisingly, there was no shortage of vocal strength in Graham’s traversal of the Sleepwalking scene in Act Four, but the expressivity of her singing was no less prodigious...That such a large voice reached the written top D♭ quietly, as Verdi intended, was astonishing, but the ethereal beauty of Graham’s tone was captivating..Though Graham’s Lady Macbeth was no one-dimensional termagnet [but] a vulnerable woman fighting to find lasting security in a hostile world could be discerned."
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"Othalie Graham, in the role of "Lady Macbeth"
Il Messagero, Rieti, Italy
"Othalie Graham, in the role of "Lady Macbeth" [was] very good, interpreting the very difficult role. In particular, [she] was appreciated in the Sleepwalking Scene, [contrasting] an elegant half-voice with soft overtones, to a fuller timbre... [up] to powerful high notes."
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