La ferveur sensuelle d’Anna Stephany en Annius.
Anna Stephany’s Medea is a force of nature.
Anna Stephany is superb in the title role. As singer and actress, she manages to capture her character’s external anger and inner hurt. We believe both that she loves her children and would kill them to destroy her husband Jason.
In the title role, the English mezzo-soprano Anna Stephany rose splendidly to the intensely dramatic scenes of the final acts…
The disc (Gluck: Blessed Spirit, Wigmore Hall Live) is not just a musicological feast but a vocal one, above all for Anna Stéphany…In the Semiramide riconosciuta opener her individual cut and thrust of phrase and tone instantly recalled for me the vibrant, electrifying impression created by the young Josephine Barstow in a similar area of 18th century repertory; later, Stephany takes the parts of Orfeo and – even more inspiringly, in excellent French – Clytemnestre in one of the peak passages from Iphighénie en Aulide.
Glorious singing from Sarah Connolly (Sesto) and Anna Stephany as Annio
Her singing of this demanding role proves stylish, alluring to the ear and attentive to the text. She rose especially well to the intensely dramatic scenes of the fourth and firth acts when the self-styled ‘barbaric mother’ contemplated infanticide
Anna Stephany’s deeply psychological performance strikes the right tenuous balance, wavering over Médée’s love for Jason, for whom she has killed and sacrificed, and yielding to jealous suspicions that become confirmed with each hour. Once Jason arrives, Ainsworth and Stephany convincingly render the sensual tension between this troubled pair.
The soloists were wonderful, and whoever booked them should be praised for finding such perfectly matched voices. Duets between Anna Stephany and Elizabeth Watts were particularly lush and I hope to see them paired up again very soon.