“I must admit that not since the glory days of Renata Scotto have I been so emotionally moved and vocally satisfied until Ailyn Pérez took the Met stage. She has sung it elsewhere but this was her Met debut in the role and it was nothing short of an absolute triumph.
Pérez was complete, vocally and dramatically. It is interesting to watch a soprano mature and grow over a period of more than a decade; too often one notes vocal decline, complacency and/or a slight fudging of difficult passages. Here one sensed a soprano performing to her utmost artistic ability. She is close to becoming a great spinto, but proves over and over again here that her gorgeous lyric sound has not been sacrificed. Butterfly’s entrance, an exposed trial-by-fire if ever there was one, was sung delicately, sometimes on a wisp of breath, sometimes more fully, was capped by a full-throated high D flat. She was shy, curious and modest. Her “Un bel dì” was an object lesson in storytelling, almost a recited hallucination, and rose to the written forte B flat, which Pérez then reduced to a ghostly pianissimo for the orchestral coda. An opera in itself. She raged against Goro, she was attentive and curious with Sharpless, and when the blow came, her collapse was felt to the rafters, her resolve expressed in the darkest part of her voice.The sighting of the ship overwhelmed, the Cherry duet proved the oasis before the catastrophe. Her Death Scene, without a sob, was pathetic without being maudlin. She kept her dignity until the end.”
“The dignity of her noble origin, though wounded by many cuts, remained intact throughout the performance, from her first conversation with Pinkerton to her horrific end. That had the effect of freeing her to blossom vocally at will, without “younging down” her voice or manner.
And blossom Pérez did, selectively, at critical points in her characterization, saving the long build and splendid top for the showstopping aria “Un bel dì.” Focus and stamina were the hallmarks of her performance in a role that is onstage front and center for most of the opera’s two and a half hours.”
New York Classical Review