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Critical Acclaim | Features
Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia in concert at Caramoor (Lucrezia Borgia)
“By force of personality, Lucrezia dominates every scene of the opera — even the ones without her. With her extraordinarily powerful and multifaceted soprano, Ms. Meade managed to do the same vocally, standing out from the excellent cast and focusing the energy of each ensemble on her. In the beginning, her high notes had a sharp edge; but in the course of the evening, her singing gained noticeably in warmth and pliancy. Her intelligent command of both text and melodic architecture helped knit the coloratura passages into a coherent musical structure.”
— The New York Times, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim (July 2014)
“Angela Meade took the title role, giving as accomplished a performance as I’ve ever seen from her — which is saying quite a lot. The voice itself was, if anything, richer and fuller than ever, especially in its potent lower reaches. The technique was, as expected, a marvel: the full-throated voicing of passagework, the easy access to brilliant high notes. In the prologue finale, a pianissimo high A-flat, sustained over the churning ensemble for five long measures, provoked astonished gasps from the crowd. But Meade, who seems to grow as an artist with each passing season, brought a new element of authority to this assignment: a formerly diffident performer has become one who now commands the stage as her natural dominion. Her fiery declamation in her encounters with her husband was that of a singer in full command of the dramatic moment; so, in the same scene, was the pathos in her pleas for her adored Gennaro’s life. This was the work of a true prima donna.”
— Opera News, Fred Cohn (July 2014)
“The performance marked another achievement for Angela Meade, whose artistic development since her 2010 Norma at Caramoor has largely played out in the public eye. … she was terrific in the confrontations of Act 2 when her grim husband, the Ferrarese Duke Alfonso, was determined to execute Gennaro, thinking he was Lucrezia’s lover, and later when engineering Gennaro’s escape. It was especially gratifying that Meade wielded her big voice to maximum effect without allowing her singing to turn gross. She also showed herself capable of producing a more concentrated, resonant sound than I remember from before. And she was striking in the opera’s concluding cabaletta, sung over the body of Gennaro, whom she inadvertently poisoned, excelling in both its impassioned and its florid aspects.”
— Musical America, George Loomis (July 2014)
“Soprano Angela Meade has almost every necessary quality for the title role: a big, beautiful sound, coloratura suppleness for the roulades in her final showpiece aria and astonishing technical control for the effortless leaps between registers and the floating pianissimos that can be heard above the full orchestra and chorus. … a superb display.”
— The Wall Street Journal, Heidi Waleson (July 2014)
“Angela Meade’s commanding temperament, declamatory power, and wide vocal range were ideal for the title role; as a soprano drammatico d’agilita she effortlessly executed Donizetti’s demanding ornamentation. The most stunning moment of many in her performance was when she held a mezza-voce note for bars and bars over the chorus, ultimately swelling it and holding it even longer at full, sustained force, all without any audible pause for breath. The Met would be wise to mount this opera for her.”
— New York Classical Review, Eric Myers (July 2014)
Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell with Teatro Regio di Torino (Mathilde)
“Musically this production is a treat”
“Has Rossini’s final opera, William Tell, at last achieved the recognition it deserves from the world’s opera houses? … this is a major achievement for the Teatro Regio Torino, an oasis of artistic and financial wellbeing in an Italian landscape of troubled opera houses. The high choral and orchestra standards are a tribute to Gianandrea Noseda’s achievements as music director. … Angela Meade’s big-voiced Matilde has authority aplenty, and while the voice can sound impure, she sings beautifully in the haunting ‘Selva opaca’.”
– Financial Times, George Loomis (May 2014)
Puccini’s Edgar in concert at Frankfurt Opera (Fidelia)
“In Frankfurt it was a festival of voices which was celebrated by the audience at the end with standing ovations. The soprano Angela Meade (Fidelia) demonstrated subtly tinted, restrained passion onstage.” — Frankfurter Rundschau, Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich (February 2014)
“Angela Meade (Fidelia) seemed to be in her element. She offered vocal showpieces ennobled by poetic elegance, marveled with a distinctive soprano timbre and with flexible, emotionally charged accents. She also combined both naive and dramatic gestures in her splendid shaping of the role. … This unusually substantial evening of opera may well go down in the annals of the house. — Der Neue Merker, Gerhard Hoffmann (February 2014)
“The soprano Angela Meade caused the highlights of the concert. Her unwavering commitment to Edgar in the final act developed an irresistible suggestiveness and created a cosmos of love amid an atmosphere of hatred.” — Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, Benedikt Stegemann (February 2014)
“Angela Meade presented a stunning a performance. (…) Puccini has written three great arias for Fidelia. Meade sang it with great devotion and knew how to portion her energy well. She also has an extremely powerful, persistent voice, which she added an expressive intimacy to even in the most dramatic passages.” — Kurturfreak, Markus Gründig (February 2014)
“The American soprano Angela Meade demonstrated the most impressive gentle moments of the concert, foreshadowing wisely in her arias the precise characterizations in Puccini’s later works.” — Allegemeine Zeitung Mainz, Axel Zibulski (February 2014)
“…Angela Meade as Fidelia sings powerfully yet shows sensitive and girlish textures…” — Frankfurter Neue Presse, Andreas Bomba (February 2014)
Opera News Diva Issue Cover Story: Time of Arrival
Opera News | In more than thirty years of attending performances of Norma, I had never encountered a soprano able to negotiate the monumental title role accurately and without technical compromise.
That is, until July 10, 2010, at the Caramoor Festival in Katonah, New York, when Angela Meade, then thirty-two, sang the role, beginning to end, just as I had always hoped to hear it – with a plush, large-scale sound; a secure, ringing top; an incisive lower range; and, above all, with a realization of every note of the score, with the treacherous coloratura passages voiced firmly, fully – and thrillingly. Here was that rare creature, a dramatic soprano d’agilita.
Met soprano makes Pittsburgh debut at gala
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette | Meade’s career began at the Met with a win at the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, which the soprano has since followed with successful performances on that legendary stage and elsewhere. Christopher Hahn, then artistic director of Pittsburgh Opera and now its general director, was a judge in the competition that started her career.
“She was a great find as many times one discovers at those Met auditions, but she was just sort of starting out, so obviously I watched [her career] with great interest,” Mr. Hahn said. “It’s great when an initial impulse, the first impression, then over a period of time is vindicated.”
While she has sung on two occasions with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Ms. Meade, 37, makes her Pittsburgh Opera debut on Saturday in “Grand and Glorious,” a one-night gala concert at the Benedum Center.
Angela Meade a ItaliaChiamaItalia, ‘lavorare al Teatro Regio? Un’esperienza meravigliosa’
ItaliaChiamaItalia | Dopo tante interviste ai cantanti lirici italiani che portano con orgoglio il loro talento nel mondo, questa volta sulle pagine di ItaliaChiamaItalia è protagonista un soprano statunitense, Angela Meade, che porta le sue doti vocali nel nostro Paese.
Venuta per la prima volta in Italia, qualche mese fa, ha conquistato il Belpaese ed è prossima a ritornarci per un evento importantissimo con il Teatro Regio di Torino, quale lo Stresa Festival. Nell’incantevole cornice che si affaccia sul Lago Maggiore, il 22 agosto si raggiungerà un prestigioso traguardo: il concerto numero 1000, dove Angela, specializzata nel repertorio operistico italiano di primo Ottocento, sarà la principessa Matilde nel Gugliemo Tell di Rossini.
Portland Summerfest presents free opera, ‘Norma,’ in Washington Park
OregonLive | Portland Summerfest one of Washington Park’s most popular events for three reasons: A gorgeous location overlooking the city and Mt. Hood, a favorite opera every year and casts as good as at any opera house in the country.
This summer, the great Angela Meade returns to Portland Summerfest to sing the title role in Norma, that Rolls Royce of an opera that purrs down the road on pillowy song. Meade is a favorite soprano of the Metropolitan Opera, perfect for Vincenzo Bellini’s bel canto opera with its luxurious powertrain of sound that pulls the thing along.
Angela Meade on Met Opera’s ‘Falstaff,’ Future Verdi Roles & Rossini in Turin
Latinos Post | She watched her lover kill himself in Verdi’s Ernani for her Met debut. She was beheaded for perceived adultery in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena three years later. She then committed suicide as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore in early 2013. And a few months ago she was ready to kill her children as the title character in Bellini’s Norma. All of this on the Metropolitan Opera no less.
Despite the tragic dimensions of most of her roles, Angela Meade feels extremely comfortable in the world of comic opera.
“It’s just a really fun show. I’ve never done anything like this,” said Meade during a recent conversation with Latinos Post about her performances as Alice Ford in the new Met production of Verdi’s Falstaff. “It’s so different from everything that I do. I play tragic characters where I die all the time. It’s nice to have fun and focus on the comedic side and enjoy working with my colleagues.”
Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera (Alice Ford)
“The soprano Angela Meade, fresh from an enormous success as Bellini’s “Norma” at the Met, is a plush-voiced, wise Alice Ford.”
— The New York Times, Anthony Tommasini (December 2013)
“The cast was generally terrific, particularly Angela Meade as the leading ‘wife,’ Alice Ford. Her full lyric soprano darted and swooped, with trills and high C’s neatly in place.”
— New York Observer, James Jorden (December 2013)
Met Opera ‘Audition’ Winners, 6 Years After
The New York Times | By journalistic tradition, where-are-they-now stories tell of people whose 15 minutes of fame are up. But the reshowing of The Audition, Susan Froemke’s documentary about a competition for young opera singers, on Sunday at noon on Great Performances at the Met on Channel 13, offers an opportunity for a different kind of update. Ms. Froemke’s 2009 film chronicled the grueling final rounds of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, in which some 1,800 singers competed for six $15,000 prizes and a chance to catch the ears of the opera world. So where are they now? With the heartbreaking exception of Ryan Smith, a well-liked tenor who won but died of lymphoma before the film’s release, the winning singers are all performing at the Metropolitan Opera and other major opera houses.