ENTERTAINMENT
April 19, 2005 | Mark Swed, Times Staff Writer
Friday night at UC Santa Barbara, Dawn Upshaw performed in recital. Two nights later, Susan Graham appeared at the Music Center. These are two of America's most appealing, best-loved singers, and they have a lot in common. They are close in age -- early 40s. They are from the heartland and all-American. They are singers who can reach an audience. Indeed, they can reach an audience so well that both have been invited to sing for state dinners at George W.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 17, 2005 | Matthew Gurewitsch, Special to The Times
"I have a feeling I'm being watched very closely," Susan Graham said, smiling straight into an overhead security camera and brushing fingertips against the fancy-yellow-diamond drop earrings that lent their playful accent to her borrowed $6-million parure. The scene was Cartier on Fifth Avenue, where the mezzo-soprano whom many friends call Suzy was celebrating the release of her new CD, "Poemes de l'Amour." Never had the famed jeweler honored a classical musician in such fashion.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 27, 2001 | CHRIS PASLES
If you're surprised to see the same soprano singing the disparate roles of Pamina and the Queen of the Night, that's the point. Dessay's album argues that Mozart didn't make the vocal classifications we do today. For him, a soprano was a soprano was a ... well, maybe. Dessay is excellent in the pyrotechnics of the Queen (and other virtuosic roles), but less persuasive in the fuller lyricism demanded of Pamina (and similar heroines).
ENTERTAINMENT
July 16, 2000 | MARK SWED
Ned Rorem is most famous for his frank diaries and for his art songs. But while the diaries have long been combed for dish, the songs have mainly been famous for being famous. Though praised for decades for their direct sentiment and sophisticated poetry, they've fought fashion. But wait long enough and everything changes. Tuneful, old-fashioned songs are back in American music, and a new generation of noted singers has come along to sing them.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 21, 2000 | CHRIS PASLES
This is an intoxicating recording of Handel's endlessly inventive and complex opera, captured live in Robert Carsen's enchanting production as it ravished Paris last summer. Lucky Chicago saw it early this year. Every superlative is warranted. The singers sweep all before them. Fleming is a creamy Alcina. Graham, a heroic Ruggiero. Kathleen Kuhlmann, a steadfast Bradamante. Timothy Robinson, a devoted Oronte. Juanita Lascarro, a touching Oberto.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 15, 2000 | DANIEL CARIAGA, TIMES MUSIC WRITER
Subtle and thoughtful, musically astute and dramatically engaging, Susan Graham's local debut recital Thursday night at the Alex Theatre in Glendale proved admirable in every way. The tall mezzo-soprano from Roswell, N.M., acclaimed by some as the definitive Octavian ("Rosenkavalier") of the younger generation, and a ubiquitous singing actress in new operas by John Harbison ("The Great Gatsby," last December) and Jake Heggie ("Dead Man Walking," this October), arrived in reams of accolades.