Fort Worth Opera's Ariadne auf Naxos is a glorious treat
“As Zerbinetta, leader of the circus group, young Audrey Luna delivered the night’s showstopper, a coloratura free-for-all directed at Ariadne, who spent much of the time lying on the ground sobbing. In the aria that begins with 'Great high and mighty princess,' an effort to revive the goddess’ spirits, Luna used every vocal trick in the book, sailing into the stratosphere with runs, skips, trills, a note that sounded like a high F, you name it. The audience erupted in a roar when she finished and kept it up for some time.”
— Leonard Eureka,
Fort Worth Weekly
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Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos Completes Fort Worth Opera's Perfect Season
“For this production, the company introduced soprano Audrey Luna to the local audience in the show-stopping role of Zerbinetta, in which Luna bounded through vocal acrobatics while convincingly portraying an empty-headed, egotistical entertainer who turns out to be wiser than anyone else.”
— Wayne Lee Gay,
D Magazine
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Island in a Dream
“Luna provides much of the fireworks for the second act, and deftly navigates the role. Zerbinetta is written in the bel canto tradition, and Luna has no problems impressing all with her clear, controlled tone that is equally as stunning in the lower register as it is up in the coloratura range.”
— John Norine Jr.,
TheaterJones
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FW Opera stages an entertaining "Ariadne auf Naxos"
“Audrey Luna’s spunky Zerbinetta flits fetchingly around the stage and flutters easily through her vocal fireworks.”
— Scott Cantrell,
Dallas Morning News
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Mozart masterpiece is as magical as ever
“Audrey Luna sang perhaps the opera’s best-known tune, the Queen of the Night’s vengeance aria, to terrifying effect, popping out a series of high F’s like sonic daggers.”
— Catherine Reese Newton,
Salt Lake Tribune
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“Coloratura soprano Audrey Luna, costumed in a Lady Gaga-esque ensemble, contributed a musically and physically fearless performance as Ariel, whose vocal line lies impossibly (and sometimes cruelly) high.” — F. Paul Driscoll,
Opera News
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Thomas Adès' The Tempest live in HD from the Met
“Ariel is an almost unbelievably high role for coloratura soprano, and Audrey Luna’s stratospheric performance met its demands perfectly.”
— Paul Kilbey,
Bachtrack
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A Magical "Tempest"
“Audrey Luna, dressed in a glittering body suit and slinking around the stage like Spider-Man, is a marvel as Ariel, and her vocal dexterity is breathtaking. The first bars she sings sound nothing so much as a puppy yelping, yet her final blessing on Ferdinand and Miranda is as soft and gentle as a benediction.”
— Wilborn Hampton,
Huffington Post
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Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On
“Adès’s most magical creation is Ariel, who levitates both in body and voice. She sings in the register of sprites, so high and soft as to float nearly out of the range of human hearing (and far beyond any singer’s ability to distinguish syllables). Get the casting wrong and you’re in for a long night of shrill squeaks, but Audrey Luna surfs on clouds, and in the final scene, her offstage voice blends with the orchestra’s eerie whistle, making it clear that while human order is restored, the isle remains a perpetually enchanted place.”
— Justin Davidson,
New York Magazine
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Lepage's Tempest production reveals this great opera's full potential
“Audrey Luna is the radiant Ariel.”
— Tom Service,
The Guardian (UK)
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'The Tempest' premieres at The Metropolitan Opera
“Audrey Luna steals the show as Ariel. Looking like one of Lepage’s Cirque du Soleil dancers in a sparkling catsuit and cap, she raises the bar for opera singers’ stage movement skills — not to mention vocal range. She sounds at ease living above high C. Adès often has her yap and squeal, but also gives her a transporting sustained aria that shows off a pristine sound and impressive control. As she scales the vocal stratosphere, she also scales the curtain, swings from a ‘Phantom of the Opera’-style chandelier while disguised as a harpy and writhes like a spider around the catwalk.”
— Ronni Reich,
New Jersey Star-Ledger
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An Inspired and Personal 'Tempest' Makes Met Debut
“The role of the spirit Ariel is written for a coloratura soprano singing in a stratospheric range, here the physically and vocally agile Audrey Luna.… With her radiant voice flitting about in super-high fidgety bursts … Mr. Adès’s Ariel is a dazzling creation, and Ms. Luna conquers the role.” — Anthony Tommasini,
New York Times
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Dazzling and Deep: Ades "Tempest" creates a beautiful storm in Met premiere
“Ariel seems to inhabit a space of pure music. Luna, clad in a skintight hooded catsuit, not only sang each note with eerie precision but delivered them in precarious poses that showed off her dancer’s flexibility. In the high register, her voice sounded like latex: high-gloss, flexible, and thoroughly alienating.”
— Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim,
Classical Review
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The Tempest, Metropolitan Opera, New York
“Lithe and fearless, Audrey Luna made the impossible flights of Ariel seem like coloratura bagatelles.”
— Martin Bernheimer,
Financial Times
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The Tempest
“Among Ades’ melodic innovations is the jaggedly demanding lines he has written for the angry, energetic sprite Ariel (Audrey Luna, who at one point runs through something like 17 high Es and works her lithe body as if caught in a Bob Fosse routine). Moreover, Ariel’s arias are so airy they seem to be operating in a previously unexplored stratosphere. Luckily, Luna soars there…”
— David Finkle,
Theatermania
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Opera review: 'The Tempest' at the Metropolitan Opera
“Oregon soprano Audrey Luna commands as Prospero’s airy, sometimes scary, fairy Ariel — for a couple of reasons. Thanks to Kym Barrett’s glittery getup, she looks like a cross between a Sin City Tinkerbell and Gollum from ‘Lord of the Rings.’ In addition, Adès’ punishing score pitches her notes up to space-jumper territory. … This is an exotic, unforgettable Ariel.”
— Joe Dziemianowicz,
New York Daily News
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The Realm of Magic at Its Imaginative Best
“Ariel [is] the astonishing Audrey Luna, whose stratospherically high tessitura places her firmly in the spirit world. … Ariel, trembling and twitching like a hummingbird (Ms. Luna's physical agility matched her vocal acrobatic skills), torments the courtiers from her perch on a lighting bridge and, in her Act III harpy guise, shrieks imprecations from a chandelier. … This is the Met at its adventurous best.”
— Heidi Waleson,
Wall Street Journal
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`Tempest' at Met: The magic's in the music
“Ades has made the role of the spirit Ariel a tour de force for coloratura soprano, giving her a vocal line that hovers much of the time well above high C. … As Ariel, Audrey Luna not only sings all those high D’s, E’s and F’s with aplomb, she also bravely entrusts herself to various harnesses, wires and acrobats to keep her from falling as she repeatedly defies gravity. …The Met season is only a month old, but it's safe to say “The Tempest” will be remembered as one of its musical highlights.”
— Mike Silverman,
Associated Press
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The Tempest
“The Met could not have improved upon its cast. …The vocal standout of the evening is soprano Audrey Luna as Ariel, whose entire role is written in such a stratospheric range that one might assume only dogs could hear it. Not only does Luna nail every note, she presents such a quivery, highly stylized physical characterization that she seems, appropriately, not of this earth.”
— Eric Myers,
Variety
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Review: The Met's Tempest Blows Hot and Cold
“The stratospheric soprano role of Ariel sounds like nothing else in opera, with vocal lines that feel buffeted by changeable island winds – and amazing sung by Audrey Luna.”
— David Patrick Stearns,
WQXR
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Memories of a summer storm in Quebec
"The real star of this show is however Audrey Luna. She plays the role of Ariel, the spirit under the power of Prospero. This young soprano sings a partition of great technical difficulty - little melody and a lot of high notes - in acrobatic positions of all kinds. She finds herself perched on a chandelier, a scaffold or a suspended ring, head up, head down. Anyway, she delivers a performance combining singing, dancing, acrobatics and traction: a rare combination among opera singers. Congratulations to this talented young performer!"
— Sophie Roy,
Quebec Info Musique
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The Tempest
“Audrey Luna as Ariel proved a stunning acrobat in all senses.”
— Arthur Kaptainis,
Montreal Gazette
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The storm: a splendid success
“Soprano Audrey Luna is impressive, delivering a very physical Ariel, who performs acrobatics even [while] singing.”
— Eric Moreault,
Le Soleil
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World premiere of the opera The Tempest
“Soprano Audrey Luna is impressive, delivering a very physical Ariel, who performs stunts while singing.” — Shirley Christmas,
Info-culture.biz
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National Philharmonic's intriguing 'Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
"Ms. Luna's sweet, much lighter, more ethereal voice added just the right otherworldly, almost childlike ambience to St. Sebastian's ‘heavenly' vocal moments."
— Terry Ponick,
Washington Times
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Music of Debussy at Strathmore
"Soprano Audrey Luna was a celestial presence, floating the high notes of the Virgin Mary's aria in the second part and as the soul of Saint Sebastian singing from heaven."
— Charles T. Downey,
Washington Post
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Trifling with Die Zauberflöte
"Audrey Luna [Queen of the Night], who sang in the performance I attended, would have shocked the pants off the composer with her dazzling accuracy of rhythm and intonation. Such secure virtuosity in the face of outrageous difficulty is rare indeed. Like other Americans, Audrey Luna has a faultless technique, but also a thrilling dramatic involvement in her delivery of the role."
— Jack Buckley,
Seen and Heard International
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"Few Queens of the Night have resumés dotted with works by George Crumb, György Kurtág and Chen Yi. Next season, Luna will sing Ariel in The Tempest when it comes to the Met." Read More...— BRIAN KELLOW Brian Kellow,
Opera News
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'Nixon in China' Opening Night: Kansas City, MO
"But soprano Audrey Luna as the feisty, true believer Madame Mao was most remarkable; she nearly embodied the Cultural Revolution."
— William Carl Ferleman,
PopMatters
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Opera in the age of the sound bite
"Luna channeled bat-shit-crazy mania and authoritarian zealotry as she stalked across the stage watching her disturbing ballet-opera, ‘The Red Detachment of Women.' Her introductory aria, ‘I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung,' is a coloratura's demonic showboat. Wailing away in the extreme upper registers and extolling the virtues of the Cultural Revolution, Luna's pitch-perfect and perfectly manic performance ended with her triumphantly standing atop a pile of executed Chinese."
— Lee Hartman,
KC Metropolis
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