ROSINA

at the Dallas Opera

Nimble-voiced mezzos grow on trees these days, but Alaska-born Vivica Genaux, Dallas’ Rosina, is one of the best. It’s not a big sound, but it’s bright and so finely focused that it carries even through the vast reaches of Fair Park Music Hall.”
- Scott Cantrell, The Dallas Morning News, December 2, 2024

Mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, winner of the 1993 McCammon Vocal Competition, is a vivacious and alluring Rosina. She especially shines when she adds an artfully exaggerated vibrato to many of her arias that complements Rossini’s deceptively complex lines beautifully.”
- Punch Shaw, Star-Telegram (Dallas), December 4, 2024

HEADLINE: Barber is Boffo
The performances of Giorgio Caoduro as Figaro, Donato di Stefano as Doctor Bartolo and the luscious Vivica Genaux as Rosina were ‘bravo’ worthy and the audience gave it up. But everyone was terrific, and some of the scenes, especially in the first act, were transcendent with energy and excellence. I’m sure this was one of the best live performances of anything I’ve seen in Dallas.”
- Rod Davis, D Magazine, December 7, 2024

Top Ten Performances of 2006/Dallas, TX:
There were at least three contenders for the opera’s 20006 best. Handel’s Rodelinda had drop-dead gorgeous singing by Ruth Ann Swenson, and Verdi’s Nabucco featured imaginative sets and costumes by husband-and-wife Dallas artists Frances Bagley and Tom Orr. But the prize goes to The Barber of Seville, with a cast vocally and dramatically brilliant almost across the boards.”
- Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News, December 28, 2024

She threw off coloratura with effortless, pinpoint brilliance, and was an absolutely irresistible presence.”
- Scott Cantrell, Opera, April 2007

at the Wiener Staatsoper

The US Mezzo, Vivica Genaux, made her debut as Rosina at the Staatsoper, a role she has performed over 150 times at the world’s great opera houses. Miss Genaux looks gorgeous and displays the proper minx-like qualities. Her mezzo voice is well produced, her vocal attack is always secure, and she sang the role’s coloratura roulades with much style and remarkable ease.
- Karlheinz Roschitz, Neue Kronenzeitung, March 10, 2024

Miss Genaux’s beautiful, highly-cultivated voice, totally secure in the high notes, is tailor-made for the role of Rosina.
- P.J., Kurier, March 10, 2024

at the Opéra National de Paris/Bastille

Vivica Genaux (Rosina), her warm tone wonderfully even up to an unstrained B, her coloratura easy and musical, her stage presence enchanting…
- Rodney Milnes, Opera, July 2003

Of Vivica Genaux, one must emphasize her keenly-drawn portrayal of Rosina, her slenderness and feminine elegance, but also her flawless musicality.
- Jean Cabourg, Opéra International, March 2003

The first night of this third revival of this production at the Opera-Bastille was of interest chiefly because of the Paris Opéra debut of young mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux as Rosina. Genaux, who surprised everyone when her recent recording, Arias for Farinelli, became a run-away hit with CD buyers and critics alike, is, without a doubt, the most famous singer to emerge from Alaska. Her new recording of Handel’s Rinaldo with René Jacobs conducting, a production of which recently toured various European cities, is also likely to sell well. Singing with a prodigious technique and confident style, it was an impressive debut by any measure.

It has only been in the last decade or two that music schools have been turning out singers, schooled in historical informed Baroque technique, who have finally been able to do justice to the elegant, finely-spun vocal lines written by Rossini. Vivica Genaux is one of the best of this new crop and her Rosina was masterful. She does not sound like Marilyn Horne or Teresa Berganza, but the clarity of line and vocal grace was truly a marvel.

He [Bruce Fowler as Almaviva] and Miss Genaux made an attractive, believable and convincingly sung couple.
- Frank Cadenhead, musicweb.uk.net, January 20, 2025

From under her blue veil the stunning Vivica Genaux, a velvety mezzo, here embodies the future of the female condition, the hope of all oppressed women. With vocal presence, agility and caressing clarity of timbre, here is a rare voice, indisputably fascinating. Making her debut at the Opéra de Paris, the singer excelled, superbly sculpting the role that was composed by a master goldsmith. Genaux, a Rossinian sparkler, knows how to be humane, tender and brilliant, thanks to the grain of her warm, supple voice, for which the clear coloratura passages become even bolder under the fire of exquisite articulation. Since her Baroque debut on records under the Flemish conductor René Jacobs, a specialist in this material, (Arias for Farinelli and Rinaldo, both produced by Harmonia Mundi), one remains dazzled by her technical assurance and the musical instinct of which she gives proof.
- Alexandre Pham, Concertclassic.com, January 27, 2025

Three artists made their debuts at the Paris Opera, most significantly Vivica Genaux. The Alaskan mezzo-soprano here imparts a style wholly suited to Rossini’s comic works. Her vocalization is both easy and fluid; her phrasing is a dream. And as an actress, she achieves an ideal balance, with magnetic gestures and gazes, of genuine charm and cunning, a rare quality among those who sing the role of Rosina.
- Vincent Agrech, ConcertoNet.com, January 20, 2025

With these performances, Vivica Genaux confirms her reputation and virtuosity, never experiencing the slightest difficulty with Rossini’s ornamentation.
- Alessandro Di Profio, Il Giornale della Musica, January 31, 2025

The surprise came with the reprise of Il Barbiere di Siviglia, musically everything has changed. This cast’s singing proved to be better adapted, scintillating and dizzying, with an enticing Rosina from Vivica Genaux, who was making a sparkling debut at the Opéra de Paris.
- Pierre René Serna, Scènes, February 2003

The cast is musically perfect. Vivica Genaux possesses wit down to the tips of her vocalises. And as her beauty equals the art of her singing, one can say that she offers us a deluxe Rosina.
- Luc Décygnes, Le Canard Enchaîné, January 22, 2025

Above all there’s the beautiful Rosina of the American mezzo Vivica Genaux, whose voice possesses a luminous clarity.
- Claude Ollivier, Radio Notre Dame, January 19, 2025

at the Metropolitan Opera - 2002

The Rosina, Vivica Genaux, was her usual brilliant self. Her secure technique and burnished tonal quality made the role seem easy, as she tossed off her coloratura with aplomb and handled her comic stint with consummate skill.
- Maria Nockin, OperaJaponica.org, April 27, 2024

at Opera Carolina

But the stars of the evening were the two young lovers, Count Almaviva and Rosina. Vivica Genaux, who has played Rosina more than 100 times, including with the Metropolitan Opera, actually lived up to her advance billing. The tone is rich and sure, and coloratura pyrotechnics are simply no problem at all.
- Luther Wade, Charlotte Observer, April 6, 2024

at Baltimore Opera

Vivica Genaux’s Rosina was a mezzo with both agile, fully supported coloratura flights and a low range of ruby-red depth.
- Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post Company, October 13, 2024

Vivica Genaux’s warm, sure mezzo suited Rosina perfectly. The music had terrific vibrancy.
- Tim Smith, Baltimore Sun, October 13, 2024

Vivica Genaux has made a specialty of Rossini and with good reason. Her Barbie Doll figure and large, agile, dark timbred voice enable her to portray his most difficult heroines with seeming ease.
- Maria Nockin, operajaponica.org, October 2001

at De Nederlandse Opera – Amsterdam

The youthful and elegant mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux is very well cast as the innocent, cunning Rosina. Making her debut at the Netherlands Opera in this role, Ms. Genaux uses her alto-like timbre effortlessly, performing music that displays her superb flexibility with coloratura, as well as her subtle elegance with more lyric passages.
- Mischa Spel, NRC Handelsblad, November 2, 2024

[Her voice] is warm and beautiful in all registers and she allows the finely wrought details of her richly ornamented music to unfold beautifully.
- Hans Visser, Noordhollands Dagblad, November 3, 2024

The main attraction was a cast completely new to Amsterdam, headed by the young American Vivica Genaux in her local debut. She combined fresh, spontaneous acting and a somewhat veiled timbre with warm, mellifluous vocal lines and excellently delivered coloratura. Four days after the performance I saw (Nov. 28), she displayed the same qualities during a concert performance of Handel’s Arminio at the Concertgebouw, and immediately she was asked to return in the spring for a Rossini concert.
- Paul Korenhof, Opera News (On-line Edition), March 2001