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06/2018
Mary Johnson, Fellow Travelers, Minnesota Opera
Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, known and loved by Minnesota Opera fans, shines in a pivotal role as Mary Johnson. She works for Hawk and befriends Tim. Tolerant, compassionate, level-headed and kind, she’s the conscience of the story. And Zabala’s singing is terrific.
Pamela Espeland
MinnPost
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06/2018
Mary Johnson, Fellow Travelers, Minnesota Opera
In supporting roles, vibrant mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala excelled as Mary Johnson, a friend of Hawk's who eventually sides with Timothy.
Terry Blain
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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06/2018
Mary Johnson, Fellow Travelers, Minnesota Opera
…involving and unfailingly well-executed production full of vivid characterizations and outstanding singing…As their lone mutual confidante, Adriana Zabala deftly segues from compassionate support to explosive urgency.
Rob Hubbard
St. Paul Pioneer Press
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2018/04/28
Paula, Florencia en el Amazonas, Madison Opera
The eloquent and affecting mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala and easygoing baritone Levi Hernandez have sharp comic timing as a long-married couple who can no longer stand the sight of each other. In a particularly moving scene, Zabala’s Act II lamentation aria when she believes her love is gone has the maturity and resonance of a performer at the top of her craft… The most moving moments in “Florencia” come when magical realism reveals real emotions, as in Zabala’s poignant Act II aria or a heated duet of denial between the young lovers.
Lindsay Christians
The Capitol Times
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2017/11
Cherubino, Le Nozze di Figaro, Minnesota Opera
And one must not fail to mention at this point the stellar and wildly wily performance of Adriana Zabala. Heralded by The Wall Street Journal as showing "tremendous stamina and boy-like flair" in her performance of the title role in the American premiere of Jonathan Dove's The Adventures of Pinocchio, Zabala performed Cherubino splendidly. Among the singer actors in this production, she ranks premier as she understood so well the bearing and swagger of a young, arrogant, handsome adolescent boy. Her understanding, in fact, was so spot on that there were times in which I forgot I was watching a female performing in boy’s clothing…Zabala was astounding to watch and marvelous to hear. A true delight.
LifeInReview Blog
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2017/11
Cherubino, Le Nozze di Figaro, Minnesota Opera
Adriana Zabala is fearless as the lusty Cherubino.
Jay Furst
Post Bulletin
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2017/8
Composer, Ariadne auf Naxos with Bershire Opera Festival
“Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, in the trouser role of The Composer, gives a passionate, lithe…and utterly Byronic portrait of the artist as a young egotist. Her vibrant, throbbing, white-hot vocalism is ribbed with steel in the role’s moments of unsurpassed indignation, yet melts into translucent rapture as the character succumbs to the charm and blandishments of the coquette Zerbinetta…the ravishing Zerbinetta/Composer duet that climaxes the Prologue is here rendered sizzlingly memorable via the exquisite vocal chemistry between Haslett and Zabala.
Charles Geyer
MyScena.com
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2017/8
Composer, Ariadne auf Naxos with Bershire Opera Festival
“Zabala has the richness of the role to play, a young man whose talent is music and whose inclination is to love sopranos. She gives a strong and healthy impression with her strong mezzo-soprano tones to the firmness, and the finesse, of the unnamed artist. I have always felt that the authors were playing here with their own sense of unreasonable anonymity as creators of a work brought to life by the vocal artists they employ. Zabala brings that very sense of compassion to the role making her voice ring with the occasional hollow tone that expresses the loneliness he feels seeing his Diva and meeting Zerbinetta, queen of the comedians. This is a superb performance.”
J. Peter Bergman
The Berkshire Edge
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2017/8
Composer, Ariadne auf Naxos with Bershire Opera Festival
“Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala took the difficult first act role of The Composer and made it her own. Singing with vivacious expression her voice has a refined quality, so easy on the ear. A great performance, met by wild applause.”
Rex Hearn
The Berkshire Record
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2017/8
Composer, Ariadne auf Naxos with Bershire Opera Festival
“As to Adriana Zabala, the Composer, Nicole Haslett as Zerbinetta and Marcy Stonikas as Ariadne, we cannot imagine, at least last night in that house, greater perfections. Zabala, lithe and trim in the pants role of (a male) composer, sang movingly (with perfect soupçons of adolescent cosmic angst) in her exquisite mezzo. Exiting the theater, glamorously accoutered as a real star, she confided to us how much she loves this role. Charming and disarming.”
Tom Schlemmer
Boston Music Intelligencer
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2017/3
Dinner at Eight, world premiere with Minnesota Opera
The opera’s most finely crafted aria comes from Adriana Zabala as a woman opening her heavy heart to her unfaithful husband.
Rob Hubbard
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
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2017/3
Dinner at Eight, world premiere with Minnesota Opera
…each of the nine principal characters gets one short aria. Some of them connect: The waltzy “Don’t bother, dear,” sung by Adriana Zabala, forthright as Lucy Talbot…has some heft and feeling.
Heidi Waleson
The Wall Street Journal
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2017/3
Dinner at Eight, world premiere with Minnesota Opera
…but Adriana Zabala steals the show with Lucy Talbot’s smoky cabaret blues arietta.
Parterre.com
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2017/3
Dinner at Eight, world premiere with Minnesota Opera
As his long suffering wife Lucy, mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala brings unexpected beauty to her aria, torn by her husband's betrayals, yet still in love with him.
Arthur Dorman
TalkinBroadway.com
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2016/7
Cherubino onsite Marriage of Figaro at the Hill House
Another standout performance among this astonishing cast was Adriana Zabala as the hormone-crazed pubescent Cherubino. Zabala brought a delightful and always-welcome stage presence to the proceedings, managing to bring different colors and layers to each moment she was onstage.
Lydia Lunning
Twin Cities Arts Reader
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2017/1
Amore in Diana's Garden (L'arbore di Diana)
As Amore, though, Zabala steals every scene she is in, embodying both the vocal artistry and physicality that marks this production.
Lydia Lunning
Twin Cities Arts Reader
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2017/1
Amore in Diana's Garden (L'arbore di Diana)
Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, a company favorite, is in her element in the trouser role as the impish Amore, with personality to spare and a vocal boldness and clarity that has characterized her many other roles in St. Paul
Jay Furst
Post Bulletin
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2017/10
Sister Carrie, world premiere with Florentine Opera
Adriana Zabala created a sympathetic Carrie whose actions were entirely understandable. Zabala’s warmly-textured lyric mezzo registered enchantingly, with an easy fluidity reflective of her capability in Baroque music, and she resonated to text insightfully. She was given a lovely aria “Everything is Paid For” in which she deftly revealed the girl’s frightened need to find a safe place.
Mark Thomas Ketterson
Opera News
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2016/10
Sister Carrie, world premiere with Florentine Opera
Magnificently sung and acted by its two leads, the world premiere of Sister Carrie was presented by the Florentine Opera on Oct. 7 and 9. It is hard to imagine a better Carrie than mezzo Adriana Zabala… Zabala’s posture becomes an acting element, conveying allure, demands, humor — whatever role Carrie has molded herself into… For anyone who might long for the bel canto trills of classical opera, these are provided in rapid abundance during a backstage “mash notes” duet by Zabala and fine soprano Alisa Suzanne Jordheim.
Dominique Paul Noth
Urban Milwaukee
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2016/10
Sister Carrie, world premiere with Florentine Opera
Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala gave a dramatically compelling, beautifully sung performance in the title role on Friday. Baritone Keith Phares was strikingly well matched to Zabala in the role of Hurstwood, both in dramatic presence and focused, refined, vocal deliveries.
Elaine Schmidt
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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2013, 5/11
Le Nozze di Figaro with Florentine Opera Company
Mezzo Adriana Zabala put on a singing clinic as Cherubino. What a brilliant, clear, utterly controlled voice, unified top to bottom, pristine in pitch and aglow with rich and harmonious overtones. Her phrasing, the opposite of the Countess’ sighing, opened expansively to model her dear boy Cherubino’s runaway enthusiasm, his tangle of love, lust and starry, poetic romanticism. She sang thus amid some of the best and most athletic physical comedy you’ll see in an opera. Her Cherubino darts like the mouse in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
Tom Strini
Third Coast Daily
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2014, 3/29
Giulio Cesare with Florentine Opera Company (Sesto Pompeo)
Mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala gave a strikingly believable performance in the "pants" role of Sesto. She blended vocal clarity, a youthful emotional directness and a light-footed stage presence to create a highly sympathetic character.
Elaine Schmidt
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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