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Reviews - Opera
Marie/Marietta in Korngold's Die tote Stadt
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“she sang with luscious tone and dramatic power. It was a performance to remember and cherish."
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“The rising soprano Meagan Miller sang Marietta/Marie with a winning fullness of tone, a naturalness of phrasing, and an elegant way of sending high-lying passages sailing above the orchestra. And while this was a concert performance, she still credibly embodied the shifting moods of Marietta, the coquette, the free-spirited artist drawn to Paul’s mysterious inner life, and the proudly defiant young soul who will not don the mask of the dead.”
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"[Miller] flowered in her part’s ecstatic upward leaps. As the vision of Marie, standing dramatically side-lit in a doorway behind the orchestra, Miller subtly changed character to sing affectingly of love for her spouse and the opera’s central message to choose life, with all its imperfections, over death. . . . the emotional heart of the evening was the folksong-like, deeply nostalgic Gluck, das mir verblieb, introduced by Marietta and answered by Paul as their love began to flower. Morris, Miller and Rose gently stopped the show with that one."
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“The opera’s lead roles, Paul and Marietta/Marie, boast Richard Tauber and Maria Jeritza as only the most illustrious in a long lineage of interpreters. In the grueling tenor lead, we had Jay Hunter Morris, perhaps best known currently as the Metropolitan Opera’s Siegfried (in both Ring operas) and the beautiful and poised Meagan Miller, a noted Met Straussian (Empress; Ariadne). [Maestro Gil] Rose enticed both stars to this, their Boston debuts. They stooped. They conquered.
As veteran Wagnerian/Straussians, neither Morris nor Miller had difficulty surfing the orchestral breakers crashing forward and over them, from right behind their backs. They gamely gave their all, declining any alternate lower notes provided in the score. … Against the shimmering grandeur of Korngold’s orchestration Miller’s soprano soared effortlessly and as ideally as could be wished or imagined here, or in any of the comparable lush contexts provided by Wagner, Strauss or their epigones. There is no fragility in her high range, including the one high C just after [286]. So there was a quality of mezzo fullness that complemented Morris’ ‘baritone.’”
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“The two principal performers in this production are versatile as well. Morris, a true heldentenor who famously brought the house down when he stepped in as Seigfried in the Met’s Ring Cycle, and the title role in San Diego’s “Moby Dick” on PBS, will repeat the role of Frank in “Dead City” in Poland; Miller, a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, will repeat her role of Marie/Marietta in Tokyo and Hamburg. The current performance was yet another feather in their caps, sung with meticulous care and feeling by both of these artists as well as the supporting cast and choruses.”
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"soprano Meagan Miller, comfortably embodied the dual roles of the vivacious, flirty Marietta and the apparition of the dead Marie. She has a big voice that carries easily and is plenty agile, which neatly fits Korngold’s writing for the parts, and her account of the great aria, “Glück, das mir verblieb,” was serene and dulcet. As the opera progressed and her big moments in Acts 2 and 3 rolled around, Miller, like Morris, was in fine fettle. Indeed, her combination of vocal and dramatic abilities – she’s a capable actress, even when limited by the restraints of a concert performance – allowed her to fully inhabit Marietta’s character during the harrowing first scene of Act 3; accordingly, Marietta’s apparent murder came across as about as vivid an experience of Gesamtkunstwerk as one might hope to find in such a staging.”
