Zhang Liping - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Geoff Brown wrote in The Times that:

With Li Ping Zhang’s lovelorn Liu, though, sweet drama and music came rolled into one. Her part’s vocal perils left her unscathed; each word struck home in the heart in a way no one else’s ever did. At the curtain calls, she enjoyed all the fervent applause

Malcolm Hayes, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, remarked that: 'The biggest round of applause went to the Liu of Zhang Liping, whose sumptuous soprano had us hanging on her every note'

Writing in The Times, David Cairns remarked that:

Above all, Liping Zhang gave us a heroine of exceptional eloquence and intensity, no drooping lily but a vital, suffering, deeply touching creature whose élans and agonies raised the work momentarily to a higher plane. Her Lucia can be heard again on Wednesday (10 December) and should not be missed.

David Fingleton, writing in the British newspaper, the Sunday Express, commented:

This soprano, in her early 30s, clearly has great insight and intelligence as well as good looks, and her clearly-drawn, thoughtful performance held the audience in the palm of her hand. When she sang the great aria One Fine Day in Act Two, where the abandoned Butterfly expresses her confidence in her husband's return, you could see the tears being shed. Her performance was a tour-de-force.

The Detroit News wrote:

Like few other operas, Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" depends on the vocal and dramatic prowess of its title character. And in soprano Zhang Liping, the Michigan Opera Theatre production that opened Saturday night at the Detroit Opera House boasts a Butterfly who does more than carry the show; she represents the world standard. This is a singer, indeed a theatrical experience, not to be missed

Hugh Canning wrote in Opera Magazine that:

I was delighted to encounter her lovely, stylishly sung Mimi here: she has clearly been listening to Freni - no better model - to judge by her subtle and idiomatic use of portemento, but this was no carbon copy and she had plenty of vocal swell for 'Il Primo bacio del aprile e mio' from her Act 1 narration and emotional depth in her Act 3 farewell