“… with a cast of singers that the Metropolitan Opera would envy…the soprano Anne Schwanewilms brought her dusky-toned and penetrating voice to her affecting portrayal of Chrysothemis…”
New York Times
“Schwanewilms’s radiant voice and elegantly feminine stage persona are ideally suited to Chrysothemis…as a foil to Elektra’s asexualised obsessiveness, she could hardly be bettered.”
musicalcriticism.com
“Anne Schwanewilms is the beautiful-sounding, very frustrated Chrysothemis.”
The Times
“Acting and singing honours of the evening went to German soprano Anne Schwanewilms…Anne Schwanewilms – returning to the house for the first time since her stunning Ariadne four years ago – is an elegant and repressed Chrysothemis, floating glorious sounds and with a dramatic intensity that wipes everyone else off the stage whenever she appears.”
musicomh.com
“Anne Schwanewilms was in superb voice as the wretchedly mewing and whining Chrysothemis.”
Daily Telegraph
“Another triumph is Anne Schwanewilms as a cowering neurotic able to rise to thrilling heights of lyrical fervour.”
Evening Standard
“Soprano Anne Schwanewilms, no stranger to the operatic stage, used that dramatic edge. And she possessed that rare ability to make the music come out of her body – it was not just a performance, it was one which combined both performance ability and spirit.”
Liverpool Daily Post
“Anne Schwanewilms belongs to a pedigree of sopranos almost forgotten today: a line which stretches back beyond Elisabeth Grummer to Tiana Lemnitz, Meta Seinemeyer and, above all, to Delia Reinhardt. All of them, by their bearing and control, and without a single unnecessary effect of gesture or voice, understood how to disseminate a radiance from the stage. They were self-effacing and expressed themselves through word and music alone. By the liquidity of their tone and the naturalness of their expression, they created that sympathy which is the truest communication of all.
With Schwanewilms, there were, first of all, the supreme moments at Glyndebourne. […] In EURYANTHE she rediscovered the lost secret of the heroine whose luminous, silent spirituality is the model for Wagner’s Elsa. In IDOMENEO the raging and follies of her Elettra brought into the open, with a controlled desperation, the inner torments of a conflicted soul. No wonder the characters of Richard Strauss, with their spirit and different levels of soul, inspired by the words and feelings given them by Hofmannsthal, should have pressed themselves on an artist born with the inflexion which says everything because it says just enough. Earlier, as a mezzo, she coloured eloquently the full range of her tessitura. As a soprano, she has chosen to float rather then strike, taking the route of Desdemona, not Salome. She has sung Strauss’s Chrysothemis (the most youthful and unsophisticated of his heroines), Ariadne and, finally, the Marschallin.
Towards the end of Act One on the unhappy stage of the Bastille [in January 2006], the hyperactive production had finally calmed down and the sublime music of solitude and reflection, conducted with ideal transparency by Philippe Jordan, could finally begin. That was when the real curtain rose on this ROSENKAVALIER, with the monologue in which the magical symbolism of words and music began to take hold and make sense. A rapt silence gripped a house whose acoustic up to that point seemed constructed of metal. Now it was all honey and silk, and the melancholy of a painful rift. Somewhere in heaven, Hofsmannthal must have been weeping, while Strauss smiled. This miracle lasted half an hour.
At Salzburg, as the very different Carlotta Nardi in Schreker’s DIE GEZEICHNETEN, equally risky and daring, Schwanewilms created afresh the achievement of Delia Reinhardt in the role. She maintained a classic equilibrium and extraordinary bearing throughout the long act, at first fine and reserved and then, in her bearing, and gift, of herself, scorching. When an artist has this rare ability, on stage, to obliterate the supposed borders and contradictions between the internal and the external, then another kingdom lies open: the Lied.”
By Andre Tubeuf, author of Wagner et Bayreuth; Le Lied Allemand; and Richard Strauss, ou le Voyager et son Ombre
Extract from programme article for Anne Schwanewilms’s Liederabend at L’Opera National du Rhin, Strasbourg, March 8, 2008
“Klaus Florian Vogt and Anne Schwanewilms make a sumptuous couple. Visionary and determined, evanescent and naive, she draws on a rich palette of qualities, singing with purity and a precise top, colouring subtly and phrasing with ease.”
Concerto.net
“…the elegantly imposing figure of Anne Schwanewilms took to the stage. Throughout the songs, she sang with glorious tone, her voice soaring effortlessly…there was no resisting the tonal beauty of Schwanewilms’ lustrous soprano…”
musicalcriticism.com
“Schwanewilms has made something of a specialisation of the Four Last Songs and has already given performances this year in Madrid, Amsterdam, Stuttgart and Bonn. Tonight her clear soprano floated beautifully over a warm, glowing accompaniment from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.”
musicomh.com
“Schwanewilms…is a very experienced (and eminent) Straussian and sang with a relish of the words (impeccable ennuciation) and the rapturous music that Strauss composed as his ‘farewell’. With dignity and restraint, and masterly legato, Schwanewilms, with Young, sustained spacious tempos to mesmerising effect and a glorious sunset without ever indulging in histrionics. The third song, ‘Beim Schlafengehen (On Going To Sleep), was brought off with rapt dedication…but then this was a performance of one’s dreams.”
classicalsource.com
“Tuesday evening Schwanewilms showed us again why she is one of the most interesting singers of her generation, ably served by the piano playing of Manuel Lange…The CD she has recorded of Strauss songs is fabulous, but nothing can beat a live performance, especially in the case of Anne Schwanewilms. She really is the classic example of how to combine perfect singing technique with apparent effortlessly produced sounds…Her sound is heavenly, sometimes so real you think you can touch it…A superb recital…”
Trouw
“After the magnificent CD that came out earlier this year, the wish to hear her live increased. Could she realise our hopes that she has become the leading Strauss singer of today, knowing that she has to fight the shadow of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf? Yes, she could!”
Parool