Soprano Diana Damrau assumes the crowns of three different Tudor queens, the central characters in operas by Donizetti: Anne Boleyn (Anna Bolena), Mary, Queen of Scots (Maria Stuarda), and Elizabeth I (Roberto Devereux). With Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, she performs the substantial and climactic final scene of each work. When Damrau sang Maria Stuarda at the Zurich Opera, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote: “She commands a voice that seems to have no limits. Her coloratura is stunning, her vocal range impressive, and her dynamic shadings are breath-taking. Damrau is in a class of her own.”
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The roles of Anna, Maria and Elisabetta make high technical demands on the singer, as well as calling for an exceptionally wide expressive range. Diana Damrau, luminous of voice, is surely the perfect exponent of this repertoire: adept at surmounting the music’s technical challenges in its dramatic moments, yet capable of exhibiting the tenderness for which these roles call.
– Recording of the month - BBC Magazine
Diana Damrau’s Tudor Queens, a survey of heroines from three Donizetti operas, is nothing short of terrific. This is a singer with technical chops that can’t be beat and dramatic sensibilities to match.
– Arts Fuse