DIE ÄGYPTISCHE HELENA (Metropolitan Opera, New York - March 2007)

“Diana Damrau’s Aithra was perfect, her coloratura impeccable, her movements alluring.” - Classics Today, 5/2007

“The cast was dominated by Diana Damrau – willowy, dancerly, mercurial, and utterly enchanting as the enchantress Aithra.
- Martin Bernheimer, The Financial Times

Just as impressive in different ways was the German coloratura soprano Diana Damrau, as the sorceress Aithra, who is pining for her absent lover, Poseidon, when she becomes enmeshed in Helena’s plight and concocts the fraudulent plan to rescue the marriage. A lovely, physically nimble and captivating artist, Ms. Damrau sang with impeccable agility, dramatic flair and penetratingly rich sound.” - Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times

“… As the sorceress Aithra, Ms. Damrau demonstrated not only the silvery high notes and flexibility required for a Strauss seconda donna (she made a stunning Met debut as Zerbinetta in “Ariadne” in 2005), but also ringing power, total commitment, and even some Martha Graham-like moves.” - Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal

“… singing the role of Aithra. Ms. Damrau may be a coloratura – a Zerbinetta (in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos”) – but her instrument is sizeable, sensuous, and penetrating. She sang wondrously, sinuously, exhibiting her uncanny technical control. What’s more, she’s a fine actress – one who knows that the voice does much of the acting.” -Jay Nordlinger, The New York Sun

“Top vocal honors belonged to Diana Damrau, who played Aithra, a sorceress whom Hofmannsthal gives full responsibility for the telling of his tale. The soprano sounded as beautiful as Helena was reported to have looked. Last season, Damrau delighted with her light but fiendish coloratura work in “The Barber of Seville.” In “Helena”, she impressed as a future Salome”. - Robert Hofler, Variety

“Central to this act is the flighty Aithra, a long and difficult secondary role that soprano Diana Damrau built into a dazzling star turn. Her fleet soprano darted and soared through the stratospheric music nonchalantly, and she strode the stage with the panther-like grace of a modern dancer. Directed to spend the first 40 minutes of the second act (when she has nothing to sing) onstage sleeping, Damrau created the most electrifying unconscious opera character since Leonie Rysanek in “Parsifal” - Gay City News

IL BARBIERE DI SIVIGLIA (Metropolitan Opera, New York - November 2006)

“In Diana Damrau, the Met has a Rosina with an edge. The German soprano has a sweet sound and a powerhouse upper register, as she showed last season in her debut as Zerbinetta in Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos.” - Mike Silverman, Associated Press

“Rosina can be a role for a winsome simperer, but the soprano Diana Damrau did justice to her sly intelligence. Possessed of high notes so crystalline and gleaming as to make a Swarowski chandelier seem shabby, Damrau made it clear that it was she who was running the show. “ - Justin Davidson, Newsday

“Though Rosina was conceived for a mezzo-soprano, the role has long been appropriated also by sopranos, and the lovely German coloratura Diana Damrau was absolutely dazzling here. Interpolating extra-high roulades into the music, she brought her bright, clear and very sizable voice to the role, singing with impeccable accuracy and delightful impishness.” - Anthony Tommasini NY Times

“…Rosina is Diana Damrau, perhaps the leading coloratura soprano in the world right now…On Monday night, Ms. Damrau was as dazzling as ever, singing with incredible ease. She could do anything with her voice that she wanted – and she was no wallflower. Her “Una voce poco fa” was extremely hammy, outlandish. But you know? If you got it, flaunt it – and Ms. Damrau certainly has it. Her Rosina is about as much fun as you can have in an opera house. “ - Jay Nordlinger, The New York Sun

ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (Metropolitan Opera New York)

“ …Ms. Damrau made a strong impression in the demanding double role of the Gym Teacher and the Old Hag in the premiere of Lorin Maazel’s “1984” at Covent Garden in London last May. Here as Zerbinetta…she was sensational. With her bright voice, she dashed off Strauss’ streams of coloratura roulades and flights above high C technical ease and impish glee. And she captured her character’s amorous quandry: if the good Lord wanted us women to resist the advances of men, she asks in one disarming and self-examining moment, then why did he create them in such endless varieties?...” - The New York Times, 27.9.2006

“Bringing the house down was the newcomer, Ms. Damrau,…well established in Europe…This summer she gave a recital in Salzburg that was the talk of the town…Ms. Damrau has nothing except for voice, technique, and personality. I mean oodles of all three. And I left out looks – she has those ,too. Her coloratura was spot-on, and her range is enormous: Miles above the staff she is free and lovely; in the lower register she is free and lovely…Singing is a breeze to her. The ovation she received after Zerbinetta’s fire-works was one of the longest I can remember at the Met.” - NY SUN, 26.9.2006

1984 (Royal Opera House Covent Garden)

“As the Gym Instructress, German Soprano Diana Damrau gives a master-class in maintaining complex coloratura while doing the splits…” - Observer 8.5.2005

“…I la doble tasca de Diana Damrau com a Instructora de Gimnàstica i Dona Borratxa: com Keenlyside, la soprano alemanya és un veritable prodigi que conjumina un instrument espectacular amb una enorme agilitat escènica.” - Avui 5.5.2005

ARIADNE AUF NAXOS (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London)

„I have heard only one or two Zerbinettas as good as Diana Damrau's and none better. In her long coloratura aria, not only was she spot-on accurate, but she characterised her trills wittily and coped with the strataspheric vocal pyrotechnics as if they were child's-play. She stopped the show." - The Sunday Telegraph, July 2004

„...Diana Damrau was simply the sexiest and funniest Zerbinetta I have ever seen!..." - Sunday Times, July 2004

DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE (Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London)

„As the Queen of Night, Diana Damrau is also one of the best. All the notes are there and she has a high old time playing the role as a Hollywood tragedy queen, like a Joan Crawford spitting top Fs.”- Financial Times 28.01.03

“Diana Damrau´s Queen of the Night, her coloratura spattered like drops of acid, is a self-dramatising diva, vicious from the off.” - The Guardian, 27th January 2003-03-10

“Diana Damrau, veteran Queen of the Night, shows no sign of getting bored, both incandescent and unusually nuanced, full of real sadness as she mourns her lost daughter and fire-spitting disdain for Sarastro and his gang.”- The Times, 27th January 2003-03-10