Nancy Armstrong, soprano
Quotations from Press Reviews

(Arranged by Composer)

Handel

"Nancy Armstrong won a triumph in the title role of Semele ... Her tone is full and startlingly beautiful and astonishingly flexible; her enunciation is of exemplary clarity; her emotional commitment to word and situation is complete. It is hard to think of anyone in the world today who could excel Nancy Armstrong in this role."
The Boston Globe, 1981.

"Many sopranos have given me great pleasure in live performances of Messiah ... But none sang everything as well as Nancy Armstrong sang the entire soprano part. Whenever Armstrong stepped forward to sing, the already excellent performance went onto another level of communication. Her tone was radiant; she delivered the text with sympathy and fervor; and she sang out of a heart that was full."
The Boston Globe, 1984.

Reviews from Handel's "Teseo" performed at the Boston Early Music Festival in 1985:

 

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong brought her unique voice and acting ability to bear in a telling portrait of the sorceress Medea."
Opus

 

"The Boston Medea, Nancy Armstrong, was by far the strongest personality in the cast and spat her music with venom ..."
The London Times

 

"Nancy Armstrong sang with fluent coloratura and vivid, expressive declamation ... she sounded perfectly at home in Handel's music."
St. Louis Post Dispatch

 

"Nancy Armstrong, one of Boston's great musical treasures, sang with her customary supreme confidence and flair."
The Boston Herald

 

"Armstrong, as Medea, had the juiciest role and made the most of it; she's a fine actress as well as singer, able to convey as much in a flash of her eyes as many another singer needs a whole act to do."
The Berkshire Eagle

"And there was no need for a libretto when Nancy Armstrong sang. She was delicious as she urged the 'warbling quire' to 'hush' because it had awakened her 'fierce desire'. She was imperious as she dismissed Polyphemus and his menu of swill; and at the end she sang of her grief with a heartbreaking simplicity that might well move the gods."
The Boston Globe, 1987.

"Armstrong has communicativeness, drama to spare, built into her warbling tones and impeccable diction. Her every entrance made you sit up, pay attention, and be thankful that you were once again in her presence."
The Boston Phoenix, 1989.

"Nancy Armstrong, the shining star of these endeavors for a decade, again stood out for beauty of sound, strength and depth of feeling, and clarity of enunciation; Boston boasts few musical pleasures greater than listening to Armstrong sail through a long Handelian roulade and finish it off with a dazzling smile."
The Boston Globe, 1989.

"Armstrong is the most completely fulfilling of all the 'Messiah' sopranos this listener has heard; others sing this aria or that as well as Armstrong, but not the whole part. She has beauty and fullness of tone, apt ornamentation, fluent coloratura, superlatively clear words, which she delivers with intense involvement and rapturous felling. She made her principal competition up the street sound like a nonentity..."
The Boston Globe, 1991.

"For all the luminous beauty, poignancy and grace of soprano Nancy Armstrong's singing, it was always rhythmically exact and textually alive. These days Armstrong really commands a stage. When are local opera producers going to seek her out?"
The Boston Globe, 1992.

"Of all the excellent 'Messiah' sopranos who have passed through Boston during the last 20 years, Nancy Armstrong ranks with Jeanne Ommerle as the most completely satisfying ... Armstrong's glory is the aureate glow that halos her sound and the unrivaled conviction she brings to her delivery of the text; her 'I Know That My Redeemer Liveth' was memorable for the sheer sound of belief that shone through it."
The Boston Globe, 1993.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong, as Galatea, produced a pure and energized tone with rapid and smooth vibrato. Her light but strong sound, utilized in carefully shaped phrasing, made for consistently excellent singing in the sea-nymph role."
Woodstock Times, 1993.

"Armstrong, annually featured in the Cecilia series from 1982 until two years ago, returned armed for bear. She has the most glowing of all early-music voices and the most passionately involved diction ... She imitated Orpheus' 'warble' with the flexibility of a great virtuoso, and her participation in the final duet was pure bliss ..."
The Boston Globe, 1996.

"Nancy Armstrong, one of America’s great Handel singers, was in superb voice! She sang the fourth of Handel’s nine German arias, 'Susse Stille', with ravishing tone and tenderness which touched the heart. The aria was a marvelous prelude to the dramatic cantata 'La Lucrezia'. Armstrong left behind the soft beauty of 'Susse Stille' and soared into the cantata ... a veritable opera in miniature ... she brought biting declamation, brilliant coloratura, soaring lyricism and heartbreaking poetry to the myriad moods of the 14 minutes of this unique work. The audience sat stunned at the cantata’s end and roared their approval in an ovation."
Register-Star/Hudson Valley, 2000.

Purcell

"Miss Armstrong is a splendid exponent of early music; her voice, eschewing the angelic innocence of many Baroque sopranos, has a warm and appealing earthiness. It was an afternoon of wonderful music, sensitively performed."
The New York Times, 1983.

"Armstrong sang Purcell's sublime ground-bass songs with seamless line, pure tone and expressive ornamentation. Sensitive to the composer's text painting, she brought out the meaning of poetic words and phrases. Aware of the music's harmonic richness, she sang chromatic passages with exactness. Especially affecting was her delicate interpretation of 'O, Let Me Weep' from 'The Fairy Queen'. Providing bright contrast was her lively performance of 'I Attempt from Love's Sickness to Fly' from 'The Indian Queen'."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1986.

Reviews from Purcell's "King Arthur" performed at the Los Angeles Ojai Music Festival in 1988:

 

"Nancy Armstrong - the Purcell Prima Donna of our day - took the soprano roles with brio and accuracy."
The New Yorker

 

"The evening offered a performance by soprano Nancy Armstrong that was strikingly fine. Armstrong has a voice of quicksilver agility and radiance, and she dispenses it with wit and a keen sense of musical characterization. Let's get her back to San Francisco right away."
San Francisco Chronicle

 

"Soloists for Purcell's 'King Arthur' were headed by the skilled and boisterously funny Nancy Armstrong . Properly to trumpet Armstrong's praises, as a baroque stylist of impeccable skill and a wise vocal actress of, let's say, awesome breadth would, I fear, require several more columns as long as this."
Los Angeles Herald Examiner

 

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong brought an actress's ability to her role, appearing in a bright orange and navy dress that suggested beguiling heroines of ancient tales and projecting a variety of whimsical moods. She was alternately piquant, prim, petulant and oh-so-smugly satisfied after winning a sealing kiss from the gallant Arthur ... Her face was a mirror of lively emotions ... Armstrong's vocal prowess matched her miming skill. A clear, brisk soprano voice with impeccable articulation enabled her to tell the tale while making exquisite music."
San Francisco People

 

"Armstrong brings more color and emotional range to her part than most baroque sopranos."
The San Francisco Examiner

"Armstrong's voice is a ripe apple of gold, fit for a goddess' prize ... Armstrong had the great lament 'O let me weep', which she sang with eloquent and elegant passion..."
The Boston Globe, 1988.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong, recently anointed by the New Yorker's Andrew Porter (who should know) as 'the Purcell prima donna of our day', refused to disappoint expectations. Brilliant in comic coloratura (and wearing a remarkable blue and copper gown - designed for a performance of Purcell's 'King Arthur' - with faux crenelations that looked like a Castle in a 'Through the Looking Glass' chess match), she also made the sublime 'plaint when Flora mourned for her departed love' ('Oh let me weep, forever weep ... and sigh, and sigh my soul away') the emotional high point of the evening ... If you've heard Armstrong before, you can imagine how heartrending she made Purcell's 'sighing' (falling, practically collapsing) cadences."
The Boston Phoenix, 1988.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong once again speculated that in a past life she must have lived in Purcell's household. It certainly seemed so last night. When she begins a long, disjunct, fussily embellished phrase of Purcell, her sound is so warm, the ornaments are so neatly folded into the lifts and dives of the melody, her projection of the text is so natural and her confidence so sure, that you sit back and relax knowing that she'll take care of everything. She was charming in the snappy 'Let Us Love' duet with David Ripley, both of them bickering over who should be 'constant' and who should be 'kind'. Naturally, Armstrong wanted 'kind'. Would that more directors cast her in opera, for she is a captivating stage actress. In her lowcut, puffy shouldered, orange and black crinoline dress, she looked like she belonged in a banquet scene in a Errol Flynn movie ... For me, 'King Arthur' came most alive when Nancy Armstrong was singing, believing utterly in it. You knew her Cupid was someone who likes his job."
The Boston Globe, 1990.

"Nancy Armstrong's performance of Purcell's wrenching sacred song, 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation', was as dramatic as it was exquisite ... She had ample opportunity to enthrall the audience with her musical ability and lovely sound."
Woodstock Times, 1991.

"Armstrong created a different passion in 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation', Purcell's dramatic aria showing the anguished Mary's panic at Gabriel's abandonment of her and the young Jesus. This harmonically complex work was obviously by the hand that composed 'Dido's Lament', but it is far more difficult and colorful. Armstrong's was a penetrating, persuasively acted interpretation."
The Berkshire Eagle, 1991.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong sang a wonderfully wise Belinda, powerless to aid her mistress but devoted to her cause. Their early scene in the palace, weighing the virtues of romantic entanglement with the 'Trojan guest', featured subtle but immensely effective emotional interplay ... Her 'Music for a While' - it wouldn't be a Purcell concert without this number - was profoundly beautiful."
Great Barrington Union News, 1992.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong certainly justified the expense of flying her in from Boston; the crystalline purity of her voice and her own great technical ability acted as the polestar of the entire performance."
Santa Barbara Gazette, 1992.

"Soprano Nancy Armstrong, favored by New Yorker music critic Andrew Porter in a review of the Ojai Festival performance of 'King Arthur', enjoys a spacious, bright-headed voice and commands an experienced performance."
Santa Barbara Metro, 1992.

"Boston soprano Nancy Armstrong controlled her lovely voice with an expressive wit. She brought an extra degree of awareness to the performance ... her ecstatic high notes made 'No joys are above the pleasure of love' an apotheosis."
Santa Barbara News-Press, 1992.

"Highlights of 'The Fairy Queen' included Nancy Armstrong's celebrated and still-unrivaled performance of 'The Plaint' ... She was the best of all possible Belindas, as she has been for years, mingling spunk with sympathy, singing with impeccable enunciation and radiant tone. Now that Armstrong's middle voice has come into full bloom, somebody should have the imagination to ask her to sing Dido."
The Boston Globe, 1995.

"Armstrong's great accomplishment in English song of this period is to achieve an ideal balance between word and tone. She delivers text with unparalleled clarity and intelligence of intent; she doesn't hold with the common belief that sopranos don't sing words ... She is a very witty artist, adroit at double-entendre; her experience with Rodgers and Hart comes in handy when singing a naughty song like Lawes' 'Love in a Calme' or when a song tells a story like Lawes' 'Tale out of Anacreon'. She is also capable of bringing a rapt spiritual dimension to what she sings, as she demonstrated in the shimmering final 'Hallelujas' in Purcell's 'Evening Hymn on a Ground' ... Most of all, her singing is always richly human and emotionally immediate - this told in her celebrated performance of Purcell's 'The Plaint' and, most of all, with the range of conflicting feelings that achieve resolution in 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation'. In music like this, Armstrong sings out of her own life, and speaks to ours."
The Boston Globe, 1995.

"One of the greatest musical pleasures our city has had to offer for the better part of 25 years has been the sound of Armstrong's golden soprano wrapping itself around the music of Purcell and ripely enunciating his texts… Her upcoming CD will include such Purcell hits as 'Sweeter Than Roses', 'Music for a While', 'If Music Be the Food of Love', and 'The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation', as well as the soprano airs from 'The Fairy Queen', which Armstrong sang so matchlessly in numerous performances..."
The Boston Globe, 1999.

Bach

"Nancy Armstrong, heroine of many a Banchetto Musicale event, returned in the second half for the less familiar of Bach's two solo wedding cantatas for soprano, 'O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit' ... The cantata is a long virtuoso sequence of four arias linked by five substantial recitatives, and Armstrong sang it marvelously, with characteristically full tone in every register, particularly beautiful sustained notes, a lively and highly communicative sense of text, and fluent coloratura. She finished off a long run in the first aria with such flourish that the audience gasped with pleasure. The highlight of the performance was a long, hauntingly expressive duet aria with the solo flute ... Armstrong's presence raised the energy level and the emotional temperature. Any concert she is in is better because she's there."
The Boston Globe, 1992.

"The evening ended with a boost from a performer who always provides a lift: soprano Nancy Armstrong. She sang 'O holder Tag, erwünschte Zeit', Bach's other wedding cantata, a work so long and technically intimidating it's rarely performed. I'd never heard it before. Armstrong, in radiant voice, showed few signs of strain, even in the most breathtaking coloratura of the first aria, with its endless vocal leaps and turns, curlicues within curlicues that leave the singer hardly a second to breathe - her unmistakable and unforgettable sound both pointed and rounded, like the tip of an ultra-fine high-end ballpoint pen ... The cantata presents a kind of philosophical debate about the value of music, and the soprano, who never stops singing, takes both sides of the issue. Armstrong was vocally and visibly engaged, and she argued with conviction and concern. In a dazzling duet with the flutist, she kept commanding the flute to be silent - even as both their fluty voices were intimately entwining ... There were major obbligati for oboe d'amore, for which Armstrong injected an even greater warmth and plushness into her tone ... For me, the high point of the cantata, and the emotional high point of the evening, was her exquisite and poignant spinning out of the lullaby-like 'Ruhe hie, matte Töne'. With her perfect diction, her arching lyricism, her rhythmically alert and pointed phrasing, her intense concentration and utter conviction (dramatic yet never overstated), her stamina and generosity, she injected Boston Baroque with the shot of adrenaline that rescued it from its own refinement."
The Boston Phoenix, 1992.

"Armstrong displayed a voice of unusual reedy texture, exacting intonation and an ability to blend with the instruments as if she were one. This does not denigrate the clarity of her singing; her articulation was clear and her German pronunciation was precise. She is an ideal chamber music singer with rare qualities."
Woodstock Times, 1994.

"The concert closed with three Bach arias from Cantatas 30, 162 and 57. Most sopranos have a difficult time with Bach’s unvocal instrumental writing in many of his cantatas. Not Armstrong. She sailed through them with a combination of awesome vocal technique and expressive genius, recreating the joyous Bach ... after a standing ovation, the audience reluctantly went to their cars."
Register-Star/Hudson Valley, 2000.

Other Classical Composers

"Gifted with a lovely voice of crystal clarity and a fluent technique well-suited to baroque intricacies, Armstrong fit beautifully into the Museum Trio's refined musical world. In Buxtehude's sacred cantata, 'Gen Himmel zu dem Vater Mein', she sang with flutey tone and clear diction. In Vivaldi's secular cantata, 'Lungi dai vago volto della mia bella Elvira', she caught the lyrical character of the shepherd's music and negotiated florid passages with agility."
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1986.

"Rameau's 'Hippolyte et Aricie' was revived last month by Concert Royal for two performances at Merkin Hall ... Nancy Armstrong may not have the dark tones of tragedy in her voice, but to the great role of Phaedra (which Janet Baker and Jessye Norman have sung in our day) she brought character and feeling."
The New Yorker, 1989.

"Nancy Armstrong had a busy weekend: the previous night she had been soloist for the Boston Cecilia's performance of Handel's 'Alexander's Feast', the Baroque repertoire for which she has been justly praised. Pro Arte had the imagination to enlist her in a contemporary American masterpiece, Samuel Barber's melancholic and moving 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915' ... Armstrong turned out to be a sublime interpreter of this work. Barber's imperfect skill at setting words does not make the projection of Agee's text easy for the singer. The music swings with sing-song, Italianate musical rhythms, but the text is abrupt, plain-spoken and American. Armstrong handled it as well as I've ever heard it, even when following dutifully the composer's seemingly impossible instructions to sing the high-lying lines (including a sustained high B-flat) pianissimo. The vocal purity, simplicity and emotional insight of Armstrong's performance were exemplary. Not soon will I forget her way with the line, 'Who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening..."
The Boston Globe, 1992.

 "Nancy Armstrong was unforgettable in the tragic role of Ottavia, Nero's cast-off wife, her golden and infinitely responsive voice delivering the text with rare imaginative power; her farewell to Rome also earned an instant ovation."
The Boston Globe, 1996.

"The highlight of Aston Magna's twenty-fifth anniversary program was a group of recitatives and arias from Monteverdi's 'Incoronazione di Poppea' ... Nancy Armstrong put her powerful voice and her ear for gradations of color and dynamics to fine use in her wrenching accounts of Ottavia's 'Disprezzata Regina' and 'Addio Roma'."
The New York Times, 1997.

"Armstrong opened the second half of the concert with a searing projection of Henry Purcell's great scene 'From Silent Shades', also known as ‘Mad Bess of Bedlam'. The stunning clarity of the English and her perfect Italian and German (elsewhere in the program) were hallmarks of Armstrong’s great gift of communication."
Register-Star/Hudson Valley, 2000.

"Armstrong was featured in two groups of songs and the wonderful vocal chamber work 'The Shepherd on the Rock.' She's a wonderful singer, with a clear, focused voice that she uses with subtlety. The virtue of restraint is beautifully gilded with intelligent and perceptive flecks of color and nuance of word inflection - as in the repetitions of the words 'liebe' and 'treue' in Goethe's 'Liebe schwarmt auf allen Wegen' - that add not only variety to the technical execution but meaning to Schubert's setting... it is a joy hearing her sing."
Boston Globe, 2001.

Broadway Musical Composers

"Armstrong brings to these songs her golden voice, her pellucid diction, and the manner of a good little girl who's up to no good ... the program of 22 songs was full of wonderful things ... Armstrong bouncing the maracas in 'Just Another Rhumba', her instant about-faces in 'I Hate You, Darling', her dowager demeanor in Gershwin's 'Back Bay Polka' ... she can match Joan Morris at her own game."
The Boston Globe, 1987.

"Armstrong is no diva deigning to sing Broadway show tunes. To be sure, she has a voice that can spin out the high-soaring line of Kern's 'Make Believe' or Gershwin's 'The Man I Love' with operatic opulence. But her sound is distinctive in the manner of the great show music vocalists. Her voice is not a generic, pretty, white-noise soprano, but a plaintive, humane instrument. Moreover, she is an intelligent artist who cherishes words, especially these clever, sweet and sassy show-tune lyrics, and puts them across with simplicity and conviction ... It's hard to know where to begin singling out the best of the songs in the program. In Kern's 'Bill', Armstrong was uncommonly affecting. I'm never going to give up my Leontyne Price recordings of 'My Man's Gone Now', but Armstrong's poignantly beautiful rendition will become a cherished musical memory."
The Boston Globe, 1992.

"Not many operatic voices are suited to show songs. Armstrong and Honeysucker understand that the trick is not to sing with less voice, but to put the voice at the service of the lyrics. Armstrong sang 'Somebody from Somewhere' with achingly beautiful sound and supple phrasing. Yet it was the conversational simplicity of the way she delivered the words that made this ballad of searching for love so touching and stylistically right."
The Boston Globe, 1993.

"Armstrong, too, is a marvel - she has entered her full radiant vocal prime, and in this kind of music she is equaled today only by Joan Morris, Angelina Reaux and possibly Frederica von Stade. Her tone on sustained notes is liquid gold, and she has a wonderful way with text; the way she sings the word 'embraceable' in 'Embraceable You' makes it unmistakably clear she's not going to stop with an embrace. She's got Broadway Baby looks now and a personality that would pose Santa some problems - she is both naughty and nice."
The Boston Globe, 1993.

"A musical Valentine I wished would never end was provided by soprano Nancy Armstrong, baritone Robert Honeysucker and the inventive pianist Darryl Cooper in a benefit program of great American theatre songs ... Armstrong could break your heart with the delicate intimacy of 'The Man I Love'. Poignance and soaring passion ('You Are Love') alternated with playful hilarity (Armstrong's 'You'll Be Surprised', 'De-lovely' in duet). How about a production of 'Lady Be Good' or 'A Connecticut Yankee' for this embraceable duo?"
The Boston Phoenix, 1994

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