Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera
“Ailyn Pérez provided warm, elegant leadership as Alice with a glowing lyric soprano. Her rise as one of the Met’s leading ladies has been a pleasure of this season.”
“Pérez, Cano, and Lemieux were not only in fine voice, but seemed carefree as well, enjoying themselves in the characters, relishing what, at last in opera terms, is the equivalent of snappy dialogue. This suited the music, which goes back and further, interjects, and chatters as much as the characters—like recitatives but more musical and through-composed.
The contrasting colors from these singers mirrored those in the score, which has more instrumental details than many of Verdi’s older works. Pérez was tremendously clear and full…”
“As Alice, Ailyn Pérez looked at her broader, more outrageous scene partners—Michael Volle’s Falstaff, Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s Quickly—with a reactive, ironic eye.
Vocally, she was able to shade this ironic remove into lyrical sincerity with extreme precision. In the letter scene, for example, from phrase to phrase Pérez’s voice shifted from the glittering lyricism of a lover who is not yet ready to cede the field of romanticism and desire to the sly warmth of a wife who knows how transactional romance can be.”
“Ailyn Pérez as Alice Ford was the epitome of glamour, which was mirrored in the creaminess of her voice and lovely legato singing with high notes that bloomed effortlessly.”