Search - Hui He :: Hui He Sings Verdi & Puccini

The leading Chinese soprano strutting works by Verdi and Puc

Abel | Hong Kong | 07/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording was made shortly after Ms. He (surname) gave a concert performance of Madama Butterfly in my city. My experience at that live performance was utterly dumbstruck.

Ms. He is tremendously powerful in using her voice as a dramatic vehicle. Her tone is warm, rich, affecting, and very dynamic. Her big voice is able to hush into pianissimo with ease and flair whenever the music demands it. While she sings with the prowess and stamina of Tebaldi, she also has the ability to move audiences by her timbre that in certain respects is reminiscient of Maria Callas' in the latter's early years with that slight tragic twist that marks both sopranos off as superb exponents of the repertoire of Verdi.

While most Chinese sopranos are being limited to roles of CioCio San and Liu in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Turandot, Ms. He has proved that she handles any soprano role of these two Italian masters with equal, if not more, aplomb and plushness.

If Ms. He could but further horn her Italian (she is fully idiomatic, though not outrightly 'forceful' in this foreign language of hers), she will definitely be the 21st century's greatest interpretor of Verdi and Puccini, in the soprano fach or otherwise.

A truly magnificient debut recording, made possible by two generous Japanese sponsors."