Alexandra Nowakowski joins DO OPERA for general management. Welcome Alexandra !
« More of a surprise and therefore more of a triumph was Soprano Alexandra Nowakowski making her Met debut …From the opening recit before ‘Come per me serena,’ Ms Nowakowski spun a lovely pianissimo line; her high phrases in the cavatina itself as graceful and pitch-perfect as one could want. The showy cabaletta, ‘Sopra il sen la man mi posa,’ a wildly decorated theme and variations, was dispatched with ease and spotless high notes, while the audience held its breath. Moving from innocent delight to tender intimacy and warmth to almost wild exaltation, it was clear that a fine artist, not just a good-enough substitute had been found. As the opera continued, she expressed sexual longing, pathos, misery, and finally, when she was vindicated, triumph. Her singing of the gorgeous ‘Ah, non credea mirarti’ was hypnotically beautiful and melancholy in the extreme, and the final, following ‘Ah, non giunge,’ the soul of ecstatic mania. In Villazon’s production, after her ordeal, she refuses Elvino’s hand and races out of town, but not before letting go with a quite remarkable high F, a knockout punch of virtuosity and a huge farewell to the petty townsfolk. The ovation for her was wild. »
Her roles include a.o. Königin der Nacht / Die Zauberflöte, Zerbinetta / Ariadne auf Naxos, Manon (by Massenet), Lucia di Lammermoor, Olympia / Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Gilda / Rigoletto.
This season she will sing Gilda / Rigoletto in Oviedo and will debute Violetta / Traviata at Buxton International Festival. She will be back next season at the Met for Parsifal.