In its review of Houston Grand Opera’s production of Verdi’s Otello, Classical Voice North America summed up the evening with the headline: “Desdemona Debut A Ringing Success For Soprano Pérez.” CVNA, and indeed many others in the audience for Ailyn Pérez’s first performance as Desdemona on October 24, found much to love in the soprano’s interpretation, as seen in the Houston Press‘s review:
If white hot passion was absent [elsewhere], soprano Ailyn Perez supplied it in spades as Desdemona. What a honey of a voice – warm, vibrant, a velvet sheen. A beauty on stage, she conquered, soaring in the love duet, later defiantly protesting her innocence, or tenderly saying her prayers in the plangent “Ave Maria,” knowing full well what is about to happen. Our eyes never left her, and we eagerly await her next appearance here in Houston, hopefully soon. Her young career, ascendant, will be fun to watch.
The Houston Chronicle added to the praise, saying “As Desdemona, Otello’s unjustly accused wife, soprano Ailyn Perez sang with a richness, warmth and poise that radiated her character’s good-heartedness… From the outbursts that captured Desdemona’s anguish to the silky pianissimos that evoked a soul looking heavenward, Perez’s voice revealed what the doomed woman felt,” while Houstonia magazine definitely declared “Ailyn Pérez, a soprano with an exceptionally brilliant vocal color, was the ideal Desdemona: effortlessly beautiful, pure, and sympathetic.”
Following her success on the stage, Pérez then turned to work of a more personal nature when she joined the students at Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (HSPVA) for a Q&A session about music and her career. As a proud graduate of public schools who believes in the power and necessity of music education for all students, Pérez devotes time wherever she is to connecting with and helping young musicians, and also promoting the importance of keeping music education alive in American schools.