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Freud: Traum Recital, Brown University:
"'Dreams,' a song recital performed Saturday night at the Hope Club, proved to be an elegant end to this weekend's Fall Humanities Weekend. . . . As for the singers, both Miller and [tenor Richard] Cox commanded their pieces with nuanced emotion and superior vocal skill. Miller, an experienced vocalist whose repertoire includes such roles as Verdi's Desdemona and Copland's Laurie, filled the room with her impassioned soprano notes."
The Brown Daily Herald
Des Knaben Wunderhorn, The Austrian Cultural Forum:
"Meagan Miller, a soprano, offered some of Mahler's "Knaben Wunderhorn" settings, which range from the fanciful and wryly amusing. . . . Ms. Miller, too, used the intimacy of the setting to create finely calibrated characterizations. Both singers are young and have attractive voices, and both sing with a keen awareness of the text."
The New York Times
Recital, Marilyn Horne Foundation, Merkin Concert Hall:
“Meagan Miller, a soprano, gave an eloquent recital at Merkin Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon . . . .[The program] gave a fair impression of Ms. Miller’s considerable communicative powers. It also showed her to be an agreeably flexible interpreter. She began the first song in her Strauss group with the dark, almost mezzo-like tone that suits Strauss so well, but she also quickly showed a bright, powerful top. Elsewhere, she evoked other sides of Strauss from the gentler . . . to the more dramatic. She was her best, though, in the French songs that made up the heart of the concert. Her readings of [two Poulenc cycles] were beautifully characterized and nuanced . . . . Similar qualities animated Debussy’s "Proses Lyriques," which also included especially passionate accounts of "De Fleurs" and "De Soir". . . . She sang with a combination of gracefulness and energy that got to the core of the music she offered.”
The New York Times
Recital, New Jersey Performing Arts Center:
“Miller conveyed a singer’s version of that sentiment herself in performance, latching onto Larsen’s imaginative sequence of mini-arias and making each of these women burn with the intensity of a candle about to be snuffed out. From the dark Catherine of Aragon to the dramatic Anne Boleyn, the bitterly ironic Anne of Cleves to the pitifully defiant Katherine Howard, Miller turned moods on a dime and, like Larsen, teased the listener with a snippet of what she could do with that character if she had more time . . . .This music, too (Poulenc), serves a dramatic purpose—at least in Miller’s hands—the soprano managed to channel the spirit of Vilmorin herself.”
The Newark Star-Ledger
Recital, American Academy in Rome, Weill Recital Hall:
“Meagan Miller, a soprano, closed the first half of the program with Robert Beaser’s fiery, seductive “Four Dickinson Songs” (2002), a set that includes not only a demanding vocal line but also some powerful and beautifully detailed writing for the piano.”
The New York Times
Marilyn Horne Foundation Gala:
“The evening’s highlight was, however, veritably operatic: the world premiere of Libby Larsen’s ‘Try Me, Good King: Last Words of the Wives of Henry VIII,’ in which the soprano soloist portrays five different women . . . . Meagan Miller was a commanding presence.”
The New York Times
Debut Recital, Merkin Concert Hall:
“Meagan Miller made enterprising and challenging choices for her song recital on Tuesday . . . .Indeed, this was what a debut recital ought to be: a personal selection, reflecting a musical taste and a self-awareness – an awareness in Ms. Miller’s case of what best suits her gorgeous and lively tone as well as her feeling for the long phrase . . . . Often she sings through a smile and her engagement with her audience is likeable. …Suddenly [in the Wolf] she was thrilling. Highly aware here of the music’s irony, she was lighter and defter, her vibrato tamed to a silver or golden shine. She has begun to make a career as a Mozart singer, but her Wolf group gave a hint that some day she could be singing roles in Strauss. Best of the Debussy was the very fast song ‘Wooden Horses’ which was beautifully poised in its mercurial agility.”
The New York Times
“This gifted and accomplished singer met the varied linguistic and stylistic challenges of this varied program with considerable bravura, stage smarts and real vocal charm. She is a pretty, vivacious performer ideally suited to 18th century roles . . . . She was happily able to sing English as a legato language, with an easy high range . . . . Vocally, she was admirable, showing and even range and no problem with transitions, an admirably clean singer. Six Debussy pieces were perhaps the highlight of the evening. Ms. Miller’s French diction is excellent, and she hit the sensuous chord of regret in these works to a fine artistic effect . . . .The recital wound up with Wolf, delivered with a smiling sense of the pleasure principle. She had convincing hoydenish charm, not the archness of so many singers in this repertoire . . . . There is every reason to think that Ms. Miller will be a considerable star just a couple of years from now.”
New York Concert Review |
