Press
Critical Acclaim | Features
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).
I Vepres siciliennes at Caramoor (Hélène)
“As he often does, Crutchfield assembled an excellent cast of singers, headlined by soprano Angela Meade, who was nothing short of extraordinary as Hélène. Meade commanded the stage with a regal presence, brimming with confidence in her opening aria in Act I, spitting with defiance in her Act IV duet with Henri, and spinning out a smooth legato in the Act II duet with Henri. She had the vocal power, unflagging through a long evening, to soar above ensembles like the Act IV quartet, while holding back enough suavity to give the ‘Sicilienne’ in the last act a light and airy character, all the way up to the fizzy high C-sharps, after perfectly floating the high, soft parts of her Act IV cavatine.”
— The Classical Review, Charles T. Downey (July 2013)
Don Giovanni at Cincinnati Opera (Donna Anna)
“The most memorable debut was made by Angela Meade, who as Donna Anna conveyed a range from grief to anguish while soaring radiantly through the most demanding arias. She might be forgiven for becoming a tad shrill when she unleashed the full power of her voice, which was considerable. Her sound was truly remarkable. As she knelt, she floated meltingly beautiful high notes in Donna Anna’s second act recitative and aria, ‘Crudele! . . . Non mi dir,’ in one of the evening’s most stunning moments.”
— Cincinnati Enquirer, Janelle Gelfand (June 2013)
Norma at Washington National Opera (Norma)
“Of the four Normas I’ve heard live in the last ten years, Angela Meade is by far the best.”
— Washington Post “Classical Beat”, Anne Midgette (March 2013)
“When you’ve got two vocal powerhouses like Meade and Zajick, the production doesn’t really matter … you had two women on stage who really know how to sing. …The Act I Norma-Adalgisa scene culminates in the quintessential dueling-sopranos duet (Zajick is a mezzo, but Bellini didn’t necessarily see the role that way), which involves both women repeating the same music, each going up to a high C: Meade offered a stunning, floating pianissimo, and Zajick sweetly responded with another one, which she held out even longer. Opera singing is partly an athletic feat; healthy competition can motivate great performances, and I’d venture that the energy between Meade and Zajick helped them both step it up a notch.”
— Washington Post, Anne Midgette (March 2013)
Angela Meade brings her ‘Norma’ to the Kennedy Center
Washington Examiner | Soprano Angela Meade has sung the title role of Norma several times since her debut performance at the Caramoor Festival in 2010, but the Bellini opera opening in the Kennedy Center Opera House this week is her first staged production.
“Both the music and the character are so complex, and yet it suits me well because the music plays to my particular strengths,” she said. “Even though Norma is a druid, she is so human and so real that I can portray all her emotions, from rage to falling in love and even wanting to do away with the children she loves because she is being cheated on. The plot is like a Jerry Springer opera.
“When I discovered the aria Casta diva, I had no idea that it belongs to one of the most challenging roles in opera. It simply happened. I was looking for an aria that fit my voice when I discovered it and I knew nothing of the complications in the story. Since the music was perfect for me, I began taking it to competitions and winning. That convinced me I was on to something.
Interview: Angela Meade a soprano on a mission in Toronto début with Ontario Philharmonic
Musical Toronto | Rising young soprano Angela Meade is making her Toronto début performing Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with the Ontario Philharmonic at the Regent Theatre in Oshawa on Saturday and at Koerner Hall on Tuesday.
Meade is one of several significant younger voices in the American opera world. Two weeks ago, she stepped in for Patricia Racette to sing Leonora in the Metropolitan Opera’s radio broadcast of Verdi’s Il trovatore, with excellent results.
The there’s something of the old-school prima donna assoluta in the way her voice commands all it surveys.
Although the Washington-state native with an easy laugh comes across as approachable and down-to-earth, it quickly becomes clear in an interview that Meade is a woman on a mission — and has been like that since girlhood.