Soprano Tamara Wilson is quickly gaining international recognition for her interpretations of Verdi, Mozart, Strauss and Wagner and is the 2016 recipient of the prestigious Richard Tucker Award. Other recent honors include an Olivier Award nomination and Grand Prize in the annual Francisco Viñas Competition held at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain. Ms. Wilson’s 2019-2020 season includes returns to the Canadian Opera Company, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Oper Frankfurt and a debut with The Santa Fe Opera. In concert, she will sing Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in a special Christmas performance and television broadcast with the Royal Concertgebouw...
Tamara Wilson
Soprano
“In the title role, Tamara Wilson expertly matches her incandescent soprano to Aida’s dynamic emotions, baring her inner anguish when struggling to reconcile her love for Radames with his role as the probable conqueror of her people; later growing poignant and pregnant with longing when worrying about the fate of her homeland. And a few of her looks – staring daggers at the other principals during the crowded Act II climax, for example – register as powerfully as her voice.”
Chris Gray, Houston Chronicle, 2020
“Hers is a glorious Turandot and is simply the most beautifully sung account of the role I’ve heard since the recordings of Nilsson and Sutherland. The voice is freely and evenly produced and the tone is radiant. The singing is always rooted in legato. The chest voice is present but not forced. The glowing high notes have metal at their core with the high Cs blazing above the orchestra and chorus. She embraces the statuesque stillness of the direction and holds the stage commandingly.”
Ali Kashani, Parterre Box, September 30, 2019 - Title role in 'Turandot' at Canadian Opera Company
“And in the American soprano Tamara Wilson as Leonora, ENO have struck gold: I can’t remember when this auditorium last resounded to a major Verdi role sung with such majestic beauty. Wilson has the power to ride effortlessly over the chorus singing fortissimo, and the artistry to create sublime magic with her harp-accompanied closing aria.”
Michael Church, The Independent - Leonora in 'La forza del destino' at the English National Opera
“Soprano Tamara Wilson fully inhabited her dual role as the prima donna turned Ariadne. Her portrayal of the snarky, offended artist was a delight, and the awakening she went through in the “opera” was a sumptuous vocal feast. Just as her character found a new love of her life (and after-life), Wilson reminded opera lovers of their reason for being.”
Zachary Lewis, The Plain Dealer – ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ with the Cleveland Orchestra
“Ms. Wilson’s voice is most arresting in the laserlike authority of her high notes, but she softens the steel for sensitive moments, as when she dreams of escape with Radames in the third act. Her voice blooms with her palpable involvement in her own story: Her singing is urgent, her physical performance restrained yet powerful…[T]he Met has unveiled a young American who sings Verdi with a passion that surpasses stereotype.”
Zachary Woolfe, New York Times - Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida
“But nowhere were the vocal thrills more copious and unerring than in Wilson’s portrayal of Leonora, who has fallen in love with Manrico, a man loathed and envied by the powerful Count di Luna…Wilson’s immense sound, supple instrument and comprehensive technique may have explained why her paramour Manrico was smitten in the first place. Who wouldn’t be? The ravishing, pianissimo high notes Wilson offered in “Tacea la notte placida” and the impeccable trills and other ornaments she articulated in “Di tale amor che dirsi” gave the opera’s first act the pyrotechnics it demands… In the end, though, this “Trovatore” hinged on Wilson’s and Barton’s imposing vocals, which will be remembered long after the rest is forgotten.”
Howard Reich, Chicago Tribune, November 18, 2018 - Leonora in 'Il trovatore' with Chicago Lyric Opera
“It's not often you think you detect a future Brünnhilde in a soprano performing a great Verdi role, but that was the case when American Tamara Wilson made her UK debut last autumn as a stunning Leonora in the ENO production of Verdi's The Force of Destiny. So would she sing the Ring? Not for 10 years at least, she said. But then Mark Wigglesworth, a conductor she knew she could trust as partner, proposed the final scene of Die Walküre at the Proms, and the rest should go down in history… You couldn’t fault her in verbal intelligence, subtlety and every readable reaction in that beautiful face when she wasn’t singing; but above all it’s the placement of the extraordinary instrument, never too low that it makes any singing in the higher register effortful, which should see her through to a sustained career in the big Wagner roles (though there’s no reason why she shouldn’t keep on singing Mozart and bel canto too).”
David Nice, The Arts Desk - Act 3 of 'Die Walküre' at the BBC Proms