Manon Lescaut, Turin, 3/2017

 

Alongside him (Kunde), Maria José Siri is a highly professional Manon. (...) her voice is full, robust and gifted with a beautiful color, sonorous and well projected. She is an attentive and disciplined interpreter, which could be appreciated in a rendition of “Sola, perduta, abbandonata” entirely played according to musical and vocal reasons, with no concession to easy verismo effects, but characterized by a modern essentiality perfectly in line with Noseda's reading.”
Giordano Cavagnino, GBOpera

“Regarding the voices, one highlights, should there be need of it, how Maria José Siri as Manon Lescaut has a particularly dark voice.  It is highly appreciated in a soprano able, as she is, to reach her high notes with a ring uncommon for such a burnished voice (...) who has great temperament and a big desire to display it all throughout the opera. As soon as the drama reaches its climax, we feel her thrills, intensity, all her projection, in an opera where the Act IV “Sola, perduta abbandonata”, proved to be a bravura piece which seemed to have been written with her in mind”.
Natalia Di Bartolo, Opera e Opera 

“Maria José Siri, who a few months ago inaugurated la Scala with Butterfly conducted by Riccardo Chailly also broadcast in movie theaters, has returned to give proof of the quality of her voice (homogeneous, rich with overtones, beautiful, wide-ranging). She had no instrumental problems to deal with this splendid heroine. There were no problems on the vocal side, but from an expressive point of view her performances improved from the half of Act III, when her character becomes more dramatic considering the circumstances she has to endure, with an outstanding performances during the whole act IV (...).”
Fernando Fraga, El Arte de la Fuga