Susan Foster
Soprano
Press Reviews
TURANDOT
Savonlinna Opera Festival
"L'Américaine Susan Foster, qui chante aussi bien Norma qu'Isolde ou Brünnhilde, a une voix large. Elle incarne une Turandot solide mais nuancée... "
--ConcertoNet.com, July 2009
(The American Susan Foster, who sings Norma just as well as Isolde or Brünnhilde, has a large voice. She embodies a solid but nuanced Turandot...)
TRISTAN UND ISOLDE
The Metropolitan Opera
"Susan Foster, who replaced Dalayman in the final act, was a somewhat heavier-voiced Isolde, with plenty of vocal power and a secure knowledge of the role, having performed it last season with James Conlon in Los Angeles and with Valéry Gergiev in St Petersburg. When the curtain came down after her moving 'Liebestod', Foster won cheers not only from an enthusiastic audience, but also from Barenboim and the rest of the cast."
--David Rice, ClassicalSource.com, December 2008
(The American Susan Foster, who sings Norma just as well as Isolde or Brünnhilde, has a large voice. She embodies a solid but nuanced Turandot...)
FIDELIO
Opera Roanoke
"Even without costumes and staging, her great aria 'Abscheulicher,' in which she prays for the strength to carry out her rescue operation, was an emotionally intense experience."
--Seth Williamson, Roanoke Times, 4/19/08
"Night of the Rising Stars" - Lyric Opera of Chicago
"Without doubt, the most thrilling voice of the evening belonged to Susan Foster, a soprano who is blessed with an enormous instrument. It takes a sound as large as Foster's to fill the cavernous theaters around the world where great names are made... Foster spun high notes of remarkable luster and force. Her midrange, too, was unusually appealing, as much for its suppleness and beauty of tone as its sheer power. But Foster can be persuasive in pianissimo passages, too, her tone carrying across the theater even at a whisper."
--The Chicago Tribune
IL TROVATORE
Connecticut Opera
"Soprano Susan Foster was an imposing and at times thrilling Leonora... her lilting 'D'amor sull'ali rosee' quite rightly stopped the show.
--The Hartford Courant
Vancouver Opera
Also in fine voice and with wonderful powers of projection was American soprano Susan Foster, making her Vancouver Opera debut as Leonora. Exceptional in her portrayal of the doomed heroine, she captured both extremes of the role's rapture and despair. The dramatic intensity of her acting was matched by her rich voice, as accomplished in the coloratura passages of "Tacea la notte placida" as in the most ethereal phrasing of her grand fourth-act aria, "D'amor sull'ali rosee." Foster is a rarity on the operatic stage: a singing actress.
--The Vancouver Courier
TOSCA
Washington Summer Opera
"Soprano Susan Foster, singing the title role for the first time, made the part, with all its complexities of character and its varied musical demands, seem written for her. She was totally a prima donna, as the role requires - imperious and manipulative, given to theatrical gestures from her Act 1 tantrum about the strange, blue-eyed woman in her lover's painting through the anguish and sudden, lethal violence of Act 2 to her spectacular suicide in Act 3. She is still near the beginning of what promises to be a very distinguished career, with acting as impressive as her powerful, well-controlled, emotionally compelling voice."
--The Washington Post
"Susan Foster's powerhouse spinto voice is the genuine article, and she's believable in the title role in a mercifully unhistrionic way."
--Washington City Paper
"What a sensational performance by this dazzling soprano of Puccini's very passionate and tragic heroine. Ms. Foster's voice is so powerful, so full of emotion; her acting so masterful that you want to yell out and cheer when she kills the lecherous Scarpia, and you want to cry as she flings herself to her death after the execution of her lover."
--The Review (Washington, D.C.)
NORMA
Washington Summer Opera
"Susan Foster, as Norma, sang in full, bright tones and seemed to increase in power over her upper registers."
--The Washington Post