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Critical Acclaim | Features
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.
An Opera Reset for the 1950s Era
The Wall Street Journal | In the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Falstaff, opening Friday, the singer who plays the youthful Nannetta wears pedal pushers, the kitchen in a key scene is filled with midcentury American appliances and the title character’s first appearance is in a hotel room, surrounded by room-service carts.
Welcome to Falstaff set in the pre-Mad Men era, a far cry from the late-1800s opera created by Giuseppe Verdi, much less the Shakespearean plays from which it is based.
Met Opera review: Angela Meade triumphs in Bellini’s ‘Norma’
Examiner.com | Though Norma features three male roles, it is chiefly ladies night. The two priestesses, Norma and Adalgisa, sing high-powered duets in both acts—first in friendship, then in rage and anguish, and finally in reconciliation and solidarity—and these were showstoppers. The women’s stage chemistry spurred each other on to greater vocal feats, and they blended divinely.
Soprano Angela Meade, who hails from Centralia, Washington, and now resides in Philadelphia, received thunderous applause following her Act I entrance aria, Casta diva, thought by many to be the most difficult to sing in the soprano literature. In an interview last week, the gifted and immensely talented soprano shared with Examiner.com her insights into the role in general and that aria in particular.
Norma at the Metropolitan Opera (Norma)
Old Gods Awaken
“ Angela Meade and Jamie Barton both delivered tremendous performances in last night’s Norma at the Met, causing some old-school pandemonium in the house. Meade sang with a degree of dramatic involvement that I hadn’t yet seen from this greatly gifted soprano. … By the end she had taken full, fiery command of the stage. … To see these young artists reveling together in their voices makes you believe unswervingly in the future of the art.”
— The Rest Is Noise, New Yorker critic Alex Ross (October 2013)
Portland SummerFest brings back soprano Angela Meade for ‘Otello’
OregonLive | Angela Meade is coming back, and that is magic to the ears of opera fans. Meade, a super-soprano from Centralia, has a knack for singing soft, high notes – the kind that made her interpretation of Norma a standout role – but she also has the big, ringing notes that soar over orchestras. In short order, she’s become a regular at Carnegie Hall, the Vienna State Opera and other world stages.
On Friday, Meade returns to Washington Park to sing the poignant role of Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello at SummerFest’s Opera in the Park. In 2010, she sang Leonora in Il Trovatore and drew record crowds to the park. She should make an affecting Desdemona, wrongly accused wife of the misguided Moor.
You might think an up-and-comer like Meade wouldn’t have time for a Portland park at the height of festival season, but Meade regularly performs in the Northwest. She’s a huge draw to the Astoria Music Festival, for example. The fact she comes from Centralia, which she presumably visits when she’s in the area, benefits opera fans big time.
Q&A with Opera in the Parks’ Star Soprano, Angela Meade
Portland Monthly | In 2010, Opera in the Park, consistently one of the most popular events in the Washington Park Summer Festival, drew close to 6,000 people to two performances of Il Trovatore, starring Metropolitan Opera singer Angela Meade as Leonora. Since making her professional debut on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera as Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani in March 2008, the bel canto singer has wooed fans in the states and overseas, inciting the New Yorker to exclaim: “Meade is astounding…She has exceptional dynamic control, able to move from floating pianissimos to sudden dramatic swells. The coloratura effects—rapid runs, trills, delicate turns, and so on—are handled with uncommon ease. She is a very musical singer, naturally and intelligently riding the phrase.”
This summer, Ms. Meade returns to Opera in the Park to take on a new role: Desdemona in Guiseppe Verdi’s opera Otello on August 2 and 4. We spoke with Ms. Meade about her growing up in Centralia, not making it in New York, and her workout playlist (Verdi’s not on it).