Madama Butterfly : Tulsa Opera 2020
Tulsa World "What makes Tulsa Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly, which opened Friday at the Tulsa PAC, truly take flight is the extraordinary performance of Maria Natale in the title role.
This is only the second time Natale has performed the role of Cio-Cio San, the teenaged girl who unwittingly gives her life over to a callous American sailor in Giacomo Puccini’s opera. Yet Natale inhabits this character fully, with a vocal performance of such expressiveness, character and control that the distinction between performer and part practically disappear."
Madama Butterfly : Opera San Jose 2019
Opera Chaser "Natale gave her everything you could wish for in an Act 2 and 3 of soaring beauty and diving grief. And the tears rolled on cue! Natale impressed immensely in Act 2’s “Un bel dì vedremo” ("One fine day we shall see") - another poignant Puccini moment with the tone of pathos in music sung with radiant hope - her vocal agility in full flight with emotional expression that welled with naturalness from within. And the more distant she appeared as hope was finally fading, the more you sensed that Natale was barrelling towards a kind of ‘mad scene’ that culminated in a riveting and horrifyingly tense final aria she plunged into with compelling power, “Tu? Tu? Piccolo iddio!” ("You? You? My little god!"), as Cio-Cio-San bids farewell to her young boy. "
For all Events- Reviews "Maria Natale leads the cast as Cio-Cio San, or Butterfly, with a remarkable performance. She commands the role throughout with great vocal acuity, having both lovely tone and robust intensity"
Pagliacci : Opera San Jose 2018
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For all Events- Reviews "As Nedda, Maria Natale is a fiery temptress and magnetic presence – as cruel as she is beautiful. The role calls for vocal strength with lyric beauty, and Natale delivers on both counts. Her powerful and controlled vibrato fill the hall as does her persona."
Opera Chaser "Blazing soprano Maria Natale was perfectly cast to portray a determined Nedda, singing her with full- throttled lushness and freedom. Natale’s brilliantly nuanced depiction in successive encounters with her suspicious husband Canio to the perverted Tonio and then to Silvio her lover showed how capable she is as an artist. And in Nedda’s part as Colombina, Natale lit up the stage-within-a-stage with comic charm before the doom draws achingly over her demeanour."
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Peninsula Reviews "Bound towards this impending doom, Natale played a great femme fatale and was particularly skilled in the over-the-top acting required of her in the acting troupe scenes. Her doll-like character and exaggerated facial expressions were perfection. With the entrance of her lover, we saw her softer side and her extended love scene with O’Hanlon as Silvio caused a notable murmur of note throughout the usually-hushed audience."
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LA TRAVIATA : OPERA MAINE 2017
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Opera News “Appearing as Violetta for the first time, Maria Natale met the role’s formidable vocal challenges and made a most appealing heroine. Graceful and lithe, she was especially effective in acts II and III, as Violetta became more vulnerable and frail…in act I, Natale nevertheless handled the fireworks in “Sempre libera” with aplomb, and her powerful soprano easily filled the house…in “Addio del passato,” in which her unforced, supple sound supported her affecting portrayal of Violetta’s desperation. “Dite a la giovine” was also beautifully and movingly sung”.
Maine Classical Beat “Soprano Maria Natale, who not only has a glorious voice and acting ability, but actually looks the part. I had not remembered how difficult her role is to sing at all. Verdi’s score is as full of flourishes, ornaments and gigantic leaps in pitch as anything by Handel. To sing it with appropriate expression is terribly difficult, but Natale accomplished it believably, even in the prolonged death scene.”
MACBETH (BLOCH): 2014
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Opera News “With the compelling Maria Natale as his wife… Natale ruled the stage… including the opera’s parsimonious sleepwalking scene, thanks to radiant stage presence, merciless dramatic focus and… high-voltage vocal thrills in the top register.”
The New York Times- Anthony Tommasini “Maria Natale brought a plummy, penetrating soprano voice and wily sensuality to Lady Macbeth. Verdi’s Lady Macbeth has a tour-de-force aria in the chilling sleepwalking scene. In Bloch’s opera, that scene becomes an unearthly soliloquy, in which the guilty queen seems in a trance, performed here with glossy-eyed abandon by Ms. Natale.”
Opera News "Natale ruled the stage...thanks to radiant stage presence, merciless dramatic focus and ...high -voltage vocal thrills in the top register."
TURANDOT: SARASOTA OPERA 2013
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Sarasota Tribune "The waifish Maria Natale fooled us with a strong and lovely lyric soprano voice for Liu’s floating high B-flat as she recounts Calaf’s smile and her love for him. She later flexed her dramatic muscle, giving Turandot a run for her money musically with two back to back arias in the third Act. Natale’s gossamer lines of “Tanto amore segreto” and “Tu che di gel sei cinta” offer an example of self-surrendering love in contrast to Turandot’s frigidity."
Your Observer "Maria Natale is the honorable, beautiful young slave girl Liu who has aided Timur on his travels until he’s reunited with his son. Sometime in the past, the Prince smiled at Liu and she fell madly in love. In her first aria, “Signore, ascolta,” Natale’s warm lyric soprano simply melted the final words, “ah … pieta … ” and the audience instantly fell in love with her."​
Brooklyn Daily Eagle​ "Liu, a young slave, was exquisitely sung by Maria Natale, whose beautiful heartfelt lyric soprano provided some marvelous pianissimi in “Signore, Ascolta” and a poignant and ravishing tone in her dramatic suicide scene.."​ New Outpost "First in this line up is the young soprano Maria Natale... She is a real find: A ripe, lyric soprano voice of considerable volume and an unequivocal Italian sound, its tone is capped by that difficult to describe dome which, when unleashed through the scores of the composers of the Italian giovane scuola, is capable to create a special magic. In both presentations we attended, the voice never failed to charm by the beauty of its sound alone, first heard at its best during her uninterrupted confession to Calaf “Perché un dì nella reggia m’hai sorriso.” Here, the steady stream of warm and breezy sound, reminiscent of a junior Freni, culminated in a delightfully suspended piano at the high B flat. She again impressed towards the end of the first act in her lament to Calaf, the famous “Signore ascolta,” gracing the music with a young, un-tampered sound.
​The introduction of Ms. Natale to the operatic firmament alone makes Sarasota’s Turandot a must see event. As of now, her proclivities make her poised to make a rapid ascent towards the big time."​
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