| Guiping Deng - Selected Reviews | bio and resume |
As Cio Cio San in Calgary Opera's "Madama Butterfly" |
| "Calgary Opera's production of Madama Butterfly played to the warmest reception received by any of this season's productions, drawing a standing ovation for Chinese soprano Guiping Deng in the title role. Physically a perfect incarnation of the doomed Japanese heroine, Deng also sang the role to virtual perfection, her voice clear and sweet but also possessing the power to soar over the richly scored orchestral accompaniment." |
| - Opera Canada, Fall 2001 |
| "Madama Butterfly" with Calgary Opera, 3/01 |
| "Puccini's Madama Butterfly opened its four-performance run at the
Jubilee Auditorium Saturday night to the warmest reception given to any of
this year's Calgary Opera productions, drawing a standing ovation for Chinese
soprano Guiping Deng in the opera's title role.
Physically a perfect incarnation of Puccini's protrait of the doomed Japanese heroine, Guiping deng sang the role with a clear, beautiful tone that, when needed, also had the strength to soar over the composer's richly scored orchestral accompaniment. Fundamentally, Guiping Deng possesses a lyric rather than a dramatic weight voice, and in keeping with her vocal endowment, she offered an intimate, personal interpretation of Butterfly that stressed the simplicity and charm of her character. It is, of course, these very qualities of simplicity and charm that most appealed to the composer himself, qualities that are imbedded within the music and which Puccini plumbed to create a character of great operatic pathos and audience empathy. Responding fully and sensitively to Puccini's highly nuanced, emotional music, Guiping Deng was the complete vocal and dramatic artist, shading the melodic line with the finest of feelings without succumbing to its potential for maudlin sentimentality. From the opening act with its child-like anticipation of marriage, a finely gauged account of the impassioned 'Un bel di vedremo' in the second act, to the emotionally wrenching final scene, Guiping held everyone in her thrall, the magnet for all eyes, the focus of the unfolding action on stage." |
| - Kenneth Delong, Calgary Herald, 3/26/01 |
"Madama Butterfly" with Sacramento Opera, 2/01 |
| "Soprano Guiping Deng...is a compelling Butterfly....Deng not only conquers the audience but also the cavernous Community Center Theater. With clarity of voice and gesture, she makes the opera intimate." |
| - The Davis Enterprise, 2/18/01 |
"Madama Butterfly" with Boston Lyric Opera, 10/00 |
| "Deng is stunning in the title role of Butterfly. She totally embodies the essence of a young girl in love in the first act, sweeping up the audience in her joy, then dropping them into the reality of her fears at a dizzying rate. The aria where she confesses that she has given up her religion.... is sung with such honesty and passion by Deng that you almost want to jump on the stage to stand by her when she is subsequently denounced by her uncle....Deng makes an outstanding transition in her character between the first and second acts, going from a bright and hopeful young girl to a young woman whose desparate yearning for her husband to return is almost palpable. Her final aria and death scene are heart-rending. |
| - John Black, DCB Entertainment Editor 10/6/00 |
"Deng has a gentle, slender, plaintive bamboo-flute soprano that she guides over the hurdles with intelligence, skill, and musical sensitivity....She uses the text, her eyes and her hands to deliver every flicker of Butterfly's emotions...she launched "Un bel di" with a floating pianissimo and delivered it as an expression of belief, not a show stopper. She strives for and achieves spontaneity and truth. |
| - Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe, 10/6/00 |
"Madama Butterfly" Hawaii Opera Theatre, 2/00 |
| "Guiping Deng gives Butterfly her proper three dimensions as she moves through a lifetime of emotions compressed into three stage years. To speak only of how Deng sang the famous "Un bel di" aria (flawlessly) would be to miss the entire unerring personality she brought to the role. |
| - Gregory Shepherd, The Honolulu Advertiser, 2/27/00 |
As Lauretta in Opera International's "Gianni Schicchi" |
| "Her famous aria 'O mio babbino caro' could not have been more sweetly delivered". |
| - J.F. Greene, The Washington Post, 8/7/00 |
For Mimi in "La Boheme" with Nevada Opera |
| "Guiping Deng as the doomed Mimi performed with stylish grace and an underlying 'edge' of manipulative feminine wiles. Her luminous soprano voice was satiny and showed stunning control." |
| - Naomi Grady, special to the Reno Gazette-Journal, 10/30/99 |
"Soprano Guiping Deng, also a superb Puccini artist, sings the doomed Mimi from the heart, with warmth and feeling. Miss Deng's 'Mi chiamano Mimi' is radiant. Her finest moments come in Act III, where the sincerity of Mimi's grief allows none of the sentimentality that often diminishes the poignancy of this scene. |
| - Jack Neal's Theatre Reviews, 10/29/99 |
"Madama Butterfly" - Central City Opera, 7/97 |
| " And Yet I recommend you see this "Butterfly" for one very good reason: The heroine Cio-Cio San is sung and acted with heartfet sincerity and considerable vocal prowess by Chinese soprano Guiping Deng. From the moment she condemned her old Japanese gods as fat and lazy before pouring rich, rounded tone into the aria "One Fine Day," Deng's unblinding faith in Pinkerton's return became the opera's lifeblood. Her "That Your Mother" (Che tua madre) scene with her child later in the act was thrilling. And finally, just before her ritual suicide, Deng sang her difficult final aria "You, You, My Little Idol" (Tu,tu, piccolo Iddio) with sumptuous feeling and excellent pitch." |
| - Jeff Bradley, The Denver Post, 7/1/97 |
"What makes Deng great and gripping is that she portrays Cio Cio San first and foremost as a woman. Outward trappings are only incidental to her concept. She goes for the heart of the heroine, avoiding the cuteness that sometimes defines Puccini as the heir of Gilbert and Sullivan. Deng, for example, makes "One Fine Day" an interior monologue that leaves listeners feeling they have never heard this greatest hit of the opera world done right before." |
| - Wes Blomster, The Boulder Daily Camera, 7/1/97 |
"but it's Guiping Deng who steals Puccini's show, from her poingnant arias to her eloquent death scene. Her metamorphosis from a gentle, chatty child bride to a faithful wife and mother to an abandoned and desolate woman is exquisite agony to watch, and hear---but be sure to bring a handkerchief because her broken heart is an enduring experience." |
| - Kay Turnbaugh, Mountain Ear, 7/97 |
" The beautiful andpowerful voice of Guiping Deng as Madam Butterfly is a delight. Seldom can someone singing from the back of the Opera House stage be clearly heard throughout the hall. Her opening night entrance showed that this can indeed be done." |
| - Bob and Anne Hunter, The Weekly Rgister, 7/97 |
"As the unfortunate girl, Guiping Deng triumphs mightily, though. Potraying the most sympathetic and tragic figure in the entire opera in vulnerability and sensitivity, Deng brings a sweet, pathetic quality to her performance. Her voice epually sweet and sensitive, making "Tu, che di gel sei cinta" and, especialy, "Signore, ascolta" very affecting arias indeed." |
| - Michael Rydzynski, The Irvine World News, 9/26/96 |
"Guiping Deng triumphs mightily, though. Portraying the most sympathetic and tragic figure in the entire opera in vulnerability and sensitivity, Deng brings a sweet, pathetic quality to her performance. Her voice is equally sweet and sensitive, making "Tu, che di gel sel cinta" and, especially, "Signore, ascolta" very affecting arias indeed." |
| - Irvine World News |
"Without a doubt the star of the show, Guiping Deng (Butterfly) sustained her role superbly through a gamut of >emotion, earning the evening's only showstopper hand of applause in an otherwise uninterrupted performance with a memorable rendition of her signature aria "Un bel di" Nick Humez- Portland Press Herald "Deng looked like a porcelain doll on stage... making an attractive Butterfly. Her singing was equally attractive... Her registers were well-blended and her phrasing unsullied by heavy vibrato or overwrought vocal histrionics." |
| - Pam Dixon, The Orange County Register |
"a pretty and expressive instrument. Her physical movements, like her musical phrasings, were smooth, graceful, touching..." |
| - The New York Times |
"In Puccini's 'Chi il bel sogno di Doretta', Guiping Deng's light, sparkling introduction evolved to stunning high notes that were enough to send chills down your spine. Here exquisitely controlled soprano moved through the delicate trills in Gounod's 'Jewel Song' as easily as it captured the rhythmic humor of the folk song 'Driving Horses Toward the Mountain." The Washington Post "Guiping Deng, in the pivotal part of the Governess,... boasts a soaring lyric soprano of true operatic quality, and she has learned to enunciate English with more clarity than some American-born singers." |
| - The Boston Globe |
"Guiping Deng as Donna Elvira [is] a spitfire actress with a sweet voice that vaulted through the steeplechase of her aria... unlike most of here colleagues, she knows how to use Italian as an acting as well as a singing language." The Boston Globe "[Guiping Deng] demonstrated the strongest voice. Not only does she have a well-focused lyric soprano, she knows how to use it. She filled it with the plaintive innocence and vulnerability that makes Micaela such a touching character. She would seem to have a major career ahead of her." Detroit Free Press "The real pleasure and surprise of the evening was soprano Guiping Deng's star turn as Despina. A heretofore unrecognized comedienne, she obviously relished clowning as the fake Doctor and fake Notary. And she was a delight to watch and hear." |
| - The Boston Herald |
"a voice of uncommon warmth and depth, and she invested the music with a sensuous appeal." |
| - Berkshire Eagle |
"Soprano Guiping Deng sang the Rorem songs with sure technique and an exceptionally beautiful quality of tone." |
| - The Boston Globe |
"And what opportunities [Andy Vores's 'T'ang Poems] give to such a singer as Guiping Deng, a soprano with a distinctive timbre and an ear for pitch as surely as surely exact as a first-class violinist's. It was a starry performance." |
| - The Boston Globe |
"voice was as mellow as a summer day and as freshly crystalline as a running brook. She held the audience in the palm of her hand." The Kennett Paper (Delaware)"Deng is a sweet and self-effacing Mimi, from her shy acceptance of her lover's attentions with a charming 'Mi chiamano Mimi' to the bittersweet reminiscence of her final 'Te lo ramenti.'" |
| - The News Journal (Delaware) |