GLyndebourne opera festival: DIe Zauberflöte: Queen of the night
Best are the top and bottom of the cast, Caroline Wettergreen as a Queen of the Night who dazzles with her top notes, one of the best I have seen in 40 years!
- The Financial Times
Caroline Wettergreen’s elegant Queen, with even more stratospheric high notes than normal, is ambiguous, even sympathetic.
- The Guardian
The iron-strong cast makes for agreeable company, and it’s graced by another stratospheric outing for Caroline Wettergreen’s helium-fuelled Queen of the Night. As at the Royal Opera House, the Norwegian soprano delivers her moments with oompf, wow and pinpoint accuracy, and at the opening performance she even leapt up a cheeky octave at the end of “Zum Leiden bin ich auserkoren”.
- BachTrack
Caroline Wettergreen had a plangent tenderness to match her spells of imperious fury. Her blistering "Der Hölle Rache" after the interval immaculately struck one bull’s-eye after another.
- The Arts Desk
..a Queen of the Night who combined needlepoint vocal daring with a surprising vulnerability.
- The Spectator
..the real star of the production is Norwegian soprano Caroline Wettergreen as the Queen of the Night. This role has some gloriously high notes, but Wettergreen astonishingly replaced them with some even higher ones.
- The Express
The two standout performances were Caroline Wettergreen as the Queen of the Night and Brindley Sherratt as Sarastro. Wettergreen made the Queen of the Night more sympathetic than the imperious figure we see in many productions, particularly during her first aria. The coloratura zipped along in ‘O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn’ and the aria had a white-hot elemental fury. The second aria was even better and the coloratura leaps and top Fs were deservedly greeted with ecstatic applause from the audience.
- Seen and Heard – International
Caroline Wettergreen’s ambivalent Queen of the Night fearlessly commands the stratosphere, even interpolating extra high notes.
- Evening Standard
Caroline Wettergreen was a nuanced Queen who you might even have felt sorry for. Her effortless coloratura was precise and glittering.
- Planet Hugill
On-trend for moon-landing weekend, Caroline Wettergreen’s stratospheric Queen of the Night is an absolute show-stopper.
- The Argus
The strong vocal lines made this an unexpectedly immersive experience exploring what was a surprisingly rich complex score. Queen of the Night solo was a remarkable feat deserving of the rapturous and extended applause soprano Caroline Wettergreen received.
- Thourougly Good
The Queen of the Night provided incredible range, with impeccable coloratura, acting with energy and conviction.
- Opera Actual
The highest accolades go to Caroline Wettergreen’s Queen of the Night, with the beauty and control that she displayed in her coloratura making her a class act in every sense. It was also interesting to see how there was a certain sense of calm and understatement in her gestures in ‘O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn’, but that by the time of ‘Der Hölle Rache’ her ability to micromanage how she presented herself had given way to desperation, making her appear far more overtly forceful.
- MusicOHM – Proms 51
..with genuine thrills from Caroline Wettergreen's Queen of the Night as a posturing Madame Upstairs: incandescence filling the hall, the top F full and brilliant, not just pipped out.
- The Arts Desk – Proms 51
Caroline Wettergreen as Queen of the Night presents a suitably witchy figure in plum velvet and stops the show – as usual – with her glittering act two aria.
- Lark Reviews – Proms 51
..her performance was refreshingly free of histrionics and steeliness – rather, her first aria was eloquently controlled, and the famous ‘Der Hölle Rache’ musically forthright, drawing some sympathetic engagement with the cause of a character who is here regarded as unjustifiably wronged.
- Classical Source - Proms 51
