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'Les Contes d'Hoffmann' - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
As Giulietta, Christine Rice demonstrated how much her voluptuous mezzo has grown - surely Brangaene, Fricka,
perhaps Charlotte in Werther beckon - indeed, in their duet she outsang Villazón, whose voice seems smaller than
four years ago.
Opera Magazine, February 2009
Hoffmann’s ill-chosen loves were all good, though only Christine Rice, a plausibly Rubenesque courtesan, was as
vocally outstanding as Villazón.
Michael Tanner, The Spectator, 3 December 2008
Christine Rice as the Venetian courtesan Giulietta matched Villazon note for note and was alluring in both voice and
body, confirming her position as one of the country's most versatile and exciting singers.
Keith McDonnell, MusicOMH, 27 November 2008
Christine Rice was dazzlingly erotic and glamorous as Giulietta
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 26 November 2008
Christine Rice oozed fruity charm as Giulietta...
Fiona Maddocks, Evening Standard, 26 November 2008
Handel's 'Partenope' - English National Opera
Rice is now creamier of voice than was in 'Agrippina' with odd deliberate acid touches to make it still more exciting
and, eventually, moving. Quite without intending to, I'm sure, she walks away with the performance.
Michael Tanner, The Spectator October 18th 2008
As Arsace, the most fallible of Partenope's suitors, Christine Rice achieves plangency............and delivers fire-storm
fioritrua.
Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday October 20th 2008
It was Christine Rice as Arsace who sang an absolute blinder. Handel bestows on him/her a couple of his most
ravishing arias, and how beautifully, simply, honestly, she sang them.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent, 14 October 2008
…it is Christine Rice's Arsace who makes the greatest impression. Not only does Rice make an utterly convincing
man but her celebrated mezzo sounds exquisite, and in ornamental passages she mixes tonal assurance with
thrilling risk-taking.
Laura Battle, Music OMH, 12 October 2008
…Christine Rice sang with allure and bravura as Arsace – their (Arsace and Rosmira’s) third-act duet is a highlight.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 12 October 2008
The balance of sympathies lies ultimately with the deluded, anguished Arsace, and Christine Rice gives the
performance of a lifetime in the role.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 12 October 2008
Mezzos Christine Rice and Patricia Bardon have their impressive moments…
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Andrew Holden, The Observer, 12 October 2008
Christine Rice, in the Senesino role of Arsace, was exceptionally persuasive as a young man, singing with elegance
and style and a cultivated insouciance entirely appropriate to the production – both ‘O Eurimene’ in Act One and
‘Non chiedo, oh miei tormenti’ in Act Three were finely done.
Melanie Eskenazi, The Classical Source, 11 October 2008
…Christine Rice, in luscious voice...
Richard Morrison, The Times, 11 October 2008
…Christine Rice a beautifully sustained Arsace.
Andrew Clark, The Financial Times, 11 October 2008
Christine Rice was astoundingly brilliant in the trouser role of Arsace – truly, a suspension of disbelief was not
required ...the attack and vigour of her singing was admirable.
Dominic McHugh, MusicalCriticism.com, 10 October 2008
Birtwistle 'The Minotaur' - Royal Opera House
(World Premiere)
Christine Rice as Ariadne, the longest role here, sings with consistent beauty.
John Allison, The Sunday Telegraph, 20 April 2008
The superb mezzo-soprano Christine Rice as Ariadne is strikingly at home with Birtwistle's vocal manner...
Paul Driver, The Sunday Times, 20 April 2008
...the performances of Reuter, Rice, and Tomlinson faultless.
Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday, 20 April 2008
Just as impressive was Christine Rice in the taxing role of Ariade, her voice hugely agile and rich over her wide
range.
Keith Clarke, Musical America, 17 April 2008
Christine Rice is superb as Ariadne, and her honeyed rich voice throbs with all the pain of her character.
Warwick Thompson, Bloomberg, 17 April 2008
Christine Rice was magnificent as the flinty Ariadne.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph, 17 April 2008
SCO 'Theodora', City Halls, Glasgow
Her performance captured something of the gleaming certainty of the fanatic.
Rowena Smith, The Guardian, 3 December 2007
Royal Opera House - 'L’Heure Espagnol' - 2007
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Christine Rice emerges now as one of the major operatic stars on the international scene, her voice more lovely
with every role she sings, her capacity to incarnate a huge diversity of characters quite stunning. She conveys
Concepcion's irritable horniness so well that when she says she'd like to scream one feels like doing it for her, such
is her power of engendering empathy. There is no hint of operatic overacting, she is a comedienne who doesn't
need to exaggerate : the complete artist.
The Spectator, April 7th 2007
Concepcion is played, from one hot flush to another, by the excellent Christine Rice - a talent rightly nutured by the
Royal Opera.
Edwards Seckerson, The Independent, 3 April 2007
But Macfarlane's realisation of the cukolded clockmaker's lovingly kept shop is also stylish, built to be inhabited by
such prime comic performances as Christine Rice's Concepcion, her seaside-landlady voluptuousness translated
into Spanish.
George Hall, The Guardian, 3 April 2007
In contrast, Jones treats Concepcion's desire seriously, and it's a master stroke. Mezzo-soprano Christine Rice
presents the character as a perfectly normal person, although one who happens to look something like Gina
Lollobrigida, in the grip of a totally understandable urge, and it gives the comedy the tension it needs… Christine
Rice brings a warm and rich sound to Concepcion, and manages her to-the-audience asides with aplomb.
Warwick Thompson, Bloomberg News, 3 April 2007
Antonio Pappano’s conducting captures the music’s woozy sensuality as well as its sly allusiveness, and the crack
team of Christine Rice, Christopher Maltman, Yann Beuron, Bonaventura Bottone and Andrew Shore sing and act
out the joke with nicely understated style and ease.
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph, 2 April 2007
It is deftly sung here, particularly by Christopher Maltman as the charming and improbably lyrical mule-driver, his
velvety top notes effortlessly caressed; and Christine Rice as the sex-starved and increasingly histrionic
clockmaker’s wife.
Richard Morrison, The Times, 2 April 2007
English National Opera - 'Agrippina' - 2007
For the right female leads, which ENO has, it is an extraordinary showcase, and the uninhibited vocal and dramatic
virtuosity of Connolly, Crowe and Rice make this a production that even those who are tired of irony should relish.
The Independent on Sunday, Anna Picard, 11 February 2007
It's not often a mezzo in a 'trouser role', in this case the excellent Christine Rice as Nerone, is required to remove
those trousers for a quick flash.
Anthony Holden, The Observer, 11 February 2007
Christine Rice is equally good as an appalling coke-snorting punk of a Nerone, the depth and warmth of her timbre
making the kid almost sympathetic.
Rupert Chistiansen, The Daily Telegraph, 7 February 2007
And will I ever again be able to hear Nero's vengeance aria without picturing Rice, her head rearing up in a cloud of
cocaine to rip like a spitfire into the vocal histrionics? Hers is a conspicuously special voice at the service of a
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special talent.
The Independent, 7 February, Edward Seckerson
Her brilliant foils are Christine Rice’s Nerone and Lucy Crowe’s Poppea, both a fusion of acting and singing in the
finest Handelian tradition.
The Financial Times, 7 February, Andrew Clark
Glyndebourne Touring Opera - 'La Cenerentola' - 2005
Christine Rice’s Angelina is a long-cherished operatic dream come true. She commands as rich and supple a
mezzo as anyone on the operatic stage today, and the coloratura of the closing minutes was electrifying. What was
even more impressive was her command, both as actor and singer, of every aspect of the role, indeed she performs
the rare feat of enlarging one’s conception of what is already complex. As Tom Sutcliffe points out in a thoughtful
programme note, there is some tension in this opera between virtue being its own reward, the traditional Christian
idea; and ‘virtue triumphant’, the subtitle of the opera. In Rice’s performance this tension was perfectly captured.
Her generosity and warmth of heart, for example, in dealing with the ‘beggar’ Alidoro … is genuine and not selfserving. But she doesn’t disguise her eagerness to go to the ball and to become a Princess, and her magnanimity at
the end, in forgiving her atrocious relatives, is partly a piece of moral one-upmanship. One doesn’t know, with this
Angelina, which, her virtue or her beauty, she would sacrifice if she were made to choose. That is a tribute to Rice…
Michael Tanner, The Spectator, 26 November, 2005
Linbury Studio, Covent Garden - 'The Rape of Lucretia' - 2004
Impossible to praise Rice’s performance too highly, but then that goes for everything I have seen her do. She has a
uniquely poised stage presence, an openness of manner which is affecting before she starts to sing, and the most
glorious velvety voice, injected with a tanginess and vibrancy when needs be. She may be the true successor to
Brigitte Fassbaender – there, I’ve said it.
Michael Tanner, The Spectator
For Rice, whose insouciant voice has shades of Susan Bickley at her finest, whose appearance has the curvaceous
prettiness of the young Elizabeth Taylor, and whose acting reveals yet more intelligence in each successive role,
this Lucretia is another stepping stone to an impressive career.
Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday
The other key role is Lucretia and Christine Rice was outstanding – she was a terrific Carmen for Glyndebourne on
Tour, and there was a generosity and sensuality in her Lucretia that made the ambiguity over her attraction to
Tarquinius disturbingly erotic.
Peter Reed, The Sunday Telegraph
Christine Rice’s Lucretia looked and sounded handsome, with a voice made more telling by the depth of feeling that
governs it.
Edward Seckerson, The Independent
The Rape of Lucretia showcases some of the singers apprenticed to the Vilar Young Artrists scheme, alongside the
excellent Christine Rice, a lovely English rose of a Lucretia, whose humiliation in Act 2 was very moving.
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph
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Christine Rice, the only member of the cast not a past or present Vilar Young Artist, breathed life into the often
statuesque Lucretia as a warm, humorous, loving woman, and sang with dignity and grace.
Richard Fairman, Financial Times
Glyndebourne Touring Opera - 'Theodora' - 2003
Rice performs the central role with massive dignity, utter command of musical line and feeling, a way with words
that brings a violent accuracy of meaning to the librettist Thomas Morell’s most tortured circumlocutions: an
examination of loss, sacrifice, hope, despair and love of a standard you rarely see.
Robert Thicknesse, The Times
At the centre of this account is the Irene of Christine Rice, who through no fault of hers stole the show. She
represented a standard of authority in presence and in her marvellous singing, which I will always remember. For
her alone I would see the production again, though in fact there is a great deal more to see it for.
Michael Tanner, The Spectator
Christine Rice plays Irene, the Christian leader, as a woman whose convictions are tinged with fanaticism as her
beautiful voice blazes with fire.
Tim Ashley, The Guardian
Garsington Opera - 'Il Barbiere di Siviglia' - 2003
Christine Rice’s Rosina was in a class of her own. She has the vocal range, high and low, and her singing sparkled
in florid passages and had a lyrical tenderness elsewhere.
Michael Kennedy, Telegraph
The casting is good, with mezzo Christine Rice turning Rosina into a Sofia Loren figure and coping masterfully with
the coloratura.
Edward Greenfield, The Guardian
Glyndebourne Touring Opera - 'Carmen' - 2002
She is not one of your incendiary devices – none of those rancid chest-notes, a low smoulder-rate – but does it all
with the voice, a warm, languorous , controlled stream of chocolatey sound, no overdone mannerisms but lots of
little scoops, stresses and breathings, and an erotic, half-voiced seguidilla and castanet dance.
Robert Thicknesse, Times
Her singing is glorious, subtle, wittily suggestive and sensual.
Hugh Canning, Sunday Times
Her interpretation of Bizet’s heroine has intelligence and dignity.
Rupert Christiansen, Telegraph
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