Critical Acclaim

Opera Company of Philadelphia - Fidelio

Ailyn Pérez couldn't have been a more theatrically adept Marzelline…

David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, October 2008

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis – Les contes d'Hoffman

Soprano Ailyn Pérez (a terrfic Violetta last season at OTSL) is an arresting artist, and she handled the four heroines with vocal allure...

                                                Judith Malafronte, Opera News, August 2008

Few singers can really do justice to all the ladies, but soprano Ailyn Perez, who has a big voice with a smoky, come-hither timbre, did well. She was vocally best suited to the lyrically innocent Antonia, but she was also adept and funny in Olympia's coloratura and fierce as the courtesan Giulietta.

                                              Heidi Waleson, Wall Street Journal, July 2008

"The best part is the return of soprano Ailyn Perez, this time taking four roles — the singing doll Olympia, the young girl Antonia, the courtesan Giulietta and the diva Stella — with very different vocal and dramatic requirements. After a slightly uneven start, Perez sang and acted with beauty and strength; her performance was a golden strand that glittered through the opera."

Sarah Bryan Miller, Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, June 2008

"This is opera, where great performances conquer all. Soprano Pérez handles four roles, each of which requires a different vocal coloration, spectacularly: the singing robot Olympia, sweet young Antonia, the courtesan Giulietta and the diva Stella. Pérez is magnificent; her voice is supple and pure, her vocal portrayals of the very different characters elegantly drawn."

Lew Prince, Riverfront Times, June 2008

Michigan Opera Theater - Le nozze di Figaro

Ailyn Perez created a whip-smart, flirtatious Susanna, singing with charismatic shape, color and clarity.

Mark Stryker, Detroit Free Press, November 13, 2007

Opera Theatre of St. Louis – La traviata

                             

• "Soprano Ailyn Pérez came on board only two months before the season opened, yet her Violetta revealed a magnificently assured artist, with ample vocal resources and a magnetic stage presence."

  Judith Malafronte, Opera News, September 2007

• "There was nothing cynical about Ailyn Pérez’s Violetta: the young Chicago-born soprano was stunning, vocally, dramatically and physically. On opening night, May 27, she melted the hearts of even the most “Traviata”-weary with her flawless singing and vulnerable acting."

  Musical America, June 19, 2007

• "Sometimes going to a performance of a well-known opera is like visiting an old friend: There are the familiar arias and ensembles; there are the familiar scenes and situations. It can be a great pleasure and satisfaction; it's rarely a thrill.

  Once in a while, though, a performer breaks through to make the familiar new again. That happened Saturday night in Opera Theatre of St. Louis' all-about-the-singing production of Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata." 

  Soprano Ailyn Pérez is the complete package — vocally, dramatically, physically — and her beautifully sung, touchingly acted Violetta was an exciting debut. It's a splendid voice, used well, with clean coloratura, range, color and a seamless technique."

  Sarah Bryan Miller, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 28, 2007

• Boston Lyric Opera – Le nozze di Figaro

  "In fact, before Pérez stopped me in my tracks, I was considering how only she, among decades of excellent Susannas, had fully shown me how ‘Deh vieni’ can at once be a cruel charade and a rapturous love song to Figaro."

  David Shengold, Opera, September 2007

• "As the Count and Susanna, Paulo Szot and Ailyn Pérez were marvelous… And Pérez made Susanna sweet but still nobody’s fool. Her handling of “Deh vieni, non tardar” was particularly memorable; as she floated up to a ravishing B-flat, one could feel Ketelsen’s Figaro squirming in anguish."

  Wayman Chin, Opera News, July 2007

• "Lord has assembled one of BLO’s best-ever casts. The eight major roles are all superbly (in a couple of cases spectacularly) sung, mostly by singers new to Boston. And they sing especially well together. As Susanna, the spunky maid to Countess Almaviva and adoring fiancée of Figaro, valet (and former barber) to Seville’s Count Almaviva, 27-year-old soprano Ailyn Pérez (Chicago-born, to parents from Mexico) is adorable in looks and personality, always instantly responsive to what’s going on around her, a sparkling, vivacious comedienne who can also touch your heart. And her voice — dewy, pearly, prismatic, glowing, over a wide dynamic range — makes you eager to hear each new phrase. The emotional center of this Figaro is her last-act aria, “Deh vieni non tardar” (“Beloved, don’t delay”), in which Susanna, knowing that her beloved but jealous Figaro is watching her, pretends to be awaiting a lover, which, of course, she is — Figaro! Pérez catches the tender duality of Susanna’s serenade, and her exquisite pianissimos add another dimension to her already iridescent full voice."

  Lloyd Schwarz, The Phoenix, May, 2007

• "Ailyn Pérez made a sweet Susanna with an attractive soprano voice."

  Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, April 30, 2007

• "Pérez, making her Boston debut as Susanna, was fetching and sang wonderfully."

  Keith Powers, The Boston Herald, May 1, 2007

• Opera Carolina – Rigoletto

  “Pérez could've silenced the commentators over the years who have accused Gilda's role of being thin. Yes, she delivered the girlish sweetness that's about all some sopranos offer. But her voice also had richness and passion. Her face showed the excitement of first love and the heartbreak of betrayal. Pérez gave Gilda a heroic stature—as befits a character who gives up her life for another.”

  Steven Brown, The Charlotte Observer, March 2, 2007

• Wolf Trap Opera Company – Le nozze di Figaro

  “Ailyn Pérez sounded like an already well-seasoned Countess, with a tonal warmth and eloquent sense of line that gave her performance the stamp of musical authority. Her Dove sono was exquisitely sculpted, at once vulnerable and patrician”.

  Tim Smith, Opera News, November 2006

• Opera Delaware - Rigoletto

  “As the virginal Gilda, Pérez seems like a reincarnation of the late Victoria de los Angeles, infusing her cardboard character with radiant humanity and rich, lyric-soprano tone. Her coloratura, an essential part of this non-de los Angeles role, is unsteady. But her phrasing transforms what can be mere vocal display into a deepening window into Gilda’s soul.”

  David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, November, 2006
• Merola Opera Program - Schwabacher Recital Series

• Ailyn Pérez is one of those remarkable singers whose voices have a thrilling “chiaroscuro” quality — light and dark hitting the ear simultaneously, a bright voice with burnished timbre, and a high voice with depths within the heights. She is utterly musical and sings with intention, communicating constantly with the listener. She greets her audience with a brilliant smile, holds the stage upon entering and never gives it up. Blessed with gifts that can't be taught, she is in every way a singer to take to one's heart, as indeed the warmly receptive audience did at one of the estimable Schwabacher Debut Recitals on Sunday evening.

  San Francisco Musical Voice – January, 2006

• Participants in the San Francisco Opera Center's Schwabacher Debut Recitals series include Adler Fellows and even the occasional seasoned pro. But some of the series' most exciting events have highlighted young singers on the basis of no more than a single summer in the Merola Opera Program.

  Well, that and the kind of vocal talent that takes you aback on first hearing.

  Soprano Ailyn Pérez, who offered a radiant display of lyricism and musical vitality at Temple Emanu-El on Sunday, is just such a talent -- a singer of enormous abilities and even greater potential.

  Combining tonal splendor with exuberant spirit, she turned a program of familiar and lesser-known music into a series of small triumphs. The superb contributions of pianist Matthew Piatt only added to the program's luster.

  In a way, anyone who witnessed her star turn as Anne Truelove in August's Merola production of Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" could not have been too surprised at Pérez's latest success. Many of the same qualities that enlivened that performance -- including a plush, expansive top range, incisive diction and a gift for shaping a winsome legato phrase -- were in evidence again. But Pérez's program of Italian, German, French and Spanish songs called for an even greater range of assets than one operatic role, and she covered all the bases with wondrous assurance. In the opening excerpt from Mozart's oratorio "Davidde Pentitente," "Tra l'oscure ombre funeste," she deployed an exquisitely covered lower range to conjure up the shadowy gloom of the text's beginning -- then effortlessly brightened her sound to soar into the exultant closing section.

  She charted a similar transition from the tempestuous to the luminescent in Schubert's "The Young Nun," after a rendition of his "To Be Sung on the Water" that lilted along with a pure, simple spirit of joy.

  Throughout, Pérez showed a rare gift for judging the acoustics of the performance space and modulating her dynamic level accordingly. Unlike many a debutant before her, she was able to sing loudly in a way that registered a dramatic impact without blasting listeners out of their seats, and her softest singing carried impeccably through the hall.

  Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, January, 2006

• Opera Delaware – Rigoletto

  “Pérez is a near perfect Gilda. Her vocation range and personal charm establish the innocence and desperation that drive Gilda to her final act of self-sacrifice.”

  Tom Butler, The News Journal, November, 2005

• “Another exhilarating gift was the performance by young Ailyn Pérez as Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda. Pérez can pluck crystalline notes from the air like diamonds from the sky. Other outstanding moments of the production were Gilda’s lyrical rendition of the famous coloratura aria “Cara Nome.”

  Caryl E. Huffaker, Community, November, 2005

• Academy Of Vocal Arts – L’amico Fritz

  “The AVA leads, James Valentin (Fritz) and Ailyn Pérez (Suzel), have often distinguished themselves in lyric-weight repertoire, but L’amico Fritz put them on the threshold of heavier spin-to-weight singing . …but Mascagni’s 90 minutes of music caused no serious strain while bringing out even more than usual vocal warmth from Pérez …”

  David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, January 2005

• “Pérez made a bewitching Suzel. She conveyed the young girl’s quiet ardor with her shimmering lyric soprano. Pérez knows how to shade a delicate phrase and open her voice in the climaxes.”

  Robert Baxter, Camden Courier-Post, January, 2005

• Academy Of Vocal Arts – L’elisir d ’amore

  “The revelation of the evening was the Adina of Ailyn Pérez, a second-year student at the Academy of Vocal Arts. This is a young soprano of star potential and already of stunning artistry. She looks good and moves well on stage; she has a voice of rare charm and surprising power; and she sang with a well-founded confidence in her technical resources that had the many taxing high notes and florid passages in her role ringing out with awesome clarity and not the slightest trace of harshness. I doubt it will be long before she finds herself adorning the fully professional stages of companies around the world – look out for her.”

  Bernard Jacobson, musicweb.uk.net, May-August 2004

• Academy Of Vocal Arts – Le nozze di Figaro

  “Pérez makes a delectable Susanna. Her singing and her acting have personality and profile.”

  Robert Baxter, Camden Courier-Post, November, 2003

• “…Ailyn Pérez sang the role of Susanna with such maturity that one might think she’s performed the role for years. Her perfectly placed soprano was light yet rich, and her sincere facial expressions strengthened the nuances of her sound, bringing effective emotional content to every phrase - happiness to sadness, craftiness to heart-breaking loveliness.”

  Mark Beers, The Philadelphia Weekly, November, 2003

• “Pérez has been an entrancing presence since her arrival (at AVA_ in the fall of 2002…Her inner radiance combined with vocal luster makes her ideal casting for the wise maid who knows all. On a moment-by-moment basis, her infallible acting choices gave the illusion that she’s living the role, as opposed to just portraying it. She never gives too much or too little. Not a single untruthful or ungraceful phrase left her mouth. She never acted the libretto; her characterization was expressed was expressed entirely through music.”

  David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Inquirer, November, 2003