Yvonne Fontane - Reviews

"Yvonne Fontane was another who caught my eye. First as the Mother and then as the Witch, her acting was superb, demonstrating her versatility both in the way she created characters and used her vocal colours. She sang ‘Da liegt nun der gute Topf in Scherben!’ with true emotion and was brilliant in ‘Halt!’ as the Witch, casting a spell over Hansel and Gretel, ‘Hokus pokus, bonus jokus’."

(Hänsel und Gretel Mutter & Hexe 2008, Diva Opera, OPERA NOW)

"Yvonne Fontane used her assured body language and smokey contralto to give us an ideal Carmen."

(CARMEN/RTE Concert Orchestra 2007, Irish Times)

"Dark and luscious, her fabulous mezzo soprano has all the fluidity of melted chocolate."

(Cavalleria Rusticana Santuzza 2007, North West Evening Mail)

"Among the soloists, I particularly enjoyed the gorgeously rich tones of mezzo Yvonne Fontane."
(Mozart C Minor Mass 2006, Oxford Times)

"Yvonne Fontane, who also directed the production, was an outstanding Dorabella, strong throughout her mezzo range, splendidly flamboyant in her 'Smanie implacabili'."
(Cosi fan Tutte, Stowe Opera 2005, OPERA)

"Mezzo Yvonne Fontane makes something of the underwritten role of Clotilda."

(KOANGA, Sadlers Wells Theatre, THE STAGE 2007)

Queensland Opera, Brisbane Carmen 2004

"Yvonne Fontane's performance here is sensationally effortless...Her voice is magnificent and upon this the real power of the opera hangs...Fontane hits just the right note, in both voice and mood. She is a film noir Carmen of shadows and cigarettes but eventually a profoundly emotive and radiating star."
(Emma Elms/www.reviews.media-culture.org.au)

"Opera Queensland could scarcely have cast a better Carmen than Yvonne Fontane. She is young, sexy and...believable. She truly presents herself as a woman for whom a man would throw it all away. The fact she has a voice to match the considerable demands of the role seals it."
(Brisbane News)

"Yvonne Fotane is stunning as Carmen. She manages to combine a sublime vocal ability with a wonderful stage presence and skillful acting. The result is that the audience cannot take their eyes off her."

(http://www.theblurb.com.au/Issue43/Carmen.htm)

Stowe Opera, UK Carmen 2004

"The mere fact that this Carmen presented so many paradoxes, and invites so many conflicting responses, is a measure of how far Fontane has managed to penetrate plot and personality, and get others to do so around her."

"Defiance she had in abundance -- rendering her disdainful tralala to a trilliping, nicely metallic-sounding flute. In the bar scene, her dance in front of the 'jealous' Jose, kept by Secret to a wonderful pianissimo as she tap-taps on her silver salver, dances on the table now stripped to her negligee, and massages him above and below with her in filmy apricot, was mesmerising."

"Fontane absolutely is a Carmen, and the strength of her vocal delivery is that it's never full-pelt: she seems to have so much in reserve. Wrapped around by the re-emerging cello 'fate' theme (from the overture and the card game), she sounds overawing -- potentially a great voice, with faint shades of Josephine Veasey as Dido at her most pained, or an anguished Agnes Baltsa. She can do the low notes wonderfully ('La mort')." (MVDAILY.COM, Roderick Dunnett)

"The year's (other) revelation was Yvonne Fontane, who (amazingly) both directed and sang the title role in Stowe opera's Carmen."
(OPERA NOW - WHO'S HOT, Roderic Dunnett)


"In the opera...Fontane really makes her presence felt, incorporating ideas that make much dramatic sense...Fontane not only directs, she also sings Carmen. It soon becomes clear, however, that manipulating everybody else into the shadows is not part of Fontane's agenda...In a curiously touching scene, Michaela doesn't just limply proffer a letter from Jose's mother, she arrives complete with rug and picnic, to firmly remind him of the pleasures of home cooking.

But the major dramatic focus is on depicting Carmen and Jose as social equals - from utterly, and explosively different social backgrounds certainly, but equals nonetheless."
(Oxford Times)

 
"Things really catch fire with the appearance of Yvonne Fontane's leggy, vampish witch, a performance that mixes panto with torching sexual ardour and genuinely artful singing - a kind of feral forest Carmen."
(Hansel and Gretel, Stowe Opera 2003, The TIMES)

"The Mother (Hansel and Gretel) of Yvonne Fontane was (similarly) full of character. She portrayed the change from deep despair to joy with subtlety of movement enhanced by a sensuous voice."
(Hansel und Gretel, QEH, OPERA NOW)

"Yvonne Fontane, mezzo-soprano from Munich is perfect in the travesty roles: Don Ettore and Volpino - a discovery."
(La Canterina & Lo Speziale, Schloss Esterhazy Festival Eisenstadt, Austria 2001, KLEINE ZEITUNG GRAZ)

Mid Wales Opera, UK Rigoletto 2004

"Her (Gilda's) anguish and that of the betrayed Maddalena is all too palpable, and Yvonne Fontane conveys this strongly."
(The Guardian)

"With a total cast of only eight singers, Yvonne Fontane has to sing three roles. This she does with complete dramatic and vocal versatility and effectiveness."
(IC Wales)

"Yvonne Fontane was excellent as Maddalena."
(The TIMES)

"Helmrath's trick to have memorised the score to such an extent that he hardly ever had to look into his music gave the interpretation an intensity which was strengthened by the flawless singing of the soloist Yvonne Fontane (mezzo soprano)."
(Tehellim by Steve Reich, Dresdner Sinfoniker's inaugural concert, 1997)

"..was much helped by the Carmen of Yvonne Fontane, who WAS indeed the real Carmen - Sultry, sexy, remorselessly calculating yet betimes wildly abandoned and driven as much by impulse and an apparent desperately sustained need as by calculating seduction. Miss Fontane was less the actress or the singer playing the role than the role itself. For surely, Carmen with all her inner turmoil and torments and her apparently unstoppable animal appetites and instincts must become the actress/singer if the role is to be realised in all its greatness and indeed, this is how I reacted to Miss Fontane - all expressed in glorious voice with the assured confidence of an excellent singer." (Carmen, Castleward Opera 1997, Belfast Newsletter)

"A mezzo soprano of great charm, impeccable diction, and a superb command of the Lied which she sang so expressively, displaying a beautiful tonal quality. She is an intelligent singer whom I fully expect to make her mark in the highly competitive world of lieder which demands much more than just the possession of a fine voice and Yvonne Fontane has all the necessary qualities."
(Schubert Society of Great Britain, 1999)

"The culmination of the Jenufa symposium at the University of Nottingham was a concert performance of a new reconstruction of Act 2 in the version heard at the Brno premiere in 1904 - the young German mezzo Yvonne Fontane generated great emotional power as a formidable Kostelnicka."
(Jenufa, The Czecj and Slovak Music Society 1999)

"Yvonne Fontane's sensuous, credible, living-in-the-moment Carmen. She kept the character vivid an alive and, reasonably for a change, justified Carmen taking over the stage whenever she appeared."
(Carmen, Columbia Artists' US tour 2001, Los Angeles Times)

"Yvonne Fontane's interesting, dark-voiced Cherubino, quivering with apprehension."
(The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Holland Park 1999, The TIMES)