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“Her soprano has real gloss, her coloratura is shaped with expressive grace and her stage presence is gripping.”
OPERA TODAY
PRESS
Traviata © Robert Workman
A Midsummer Night's Dream
2023
HELENA
GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL OPERA
“Lauren Fagan’s bitchy Helena casts a spell of her own with her gorgeous musical expressiveness”
iNEWS
“Rachael Wilson’s dark mezzo as Hermia contrasted well with Lauren Fagan’s creamy soprano as Helena, both relishing the comedy in their sparring”
BACHTRACK
“When anger erupts among the drugged lovers (an excellent quartet of Caspar Singh, Rachael Wilson, Samuel Dale Johnson and Lauren Fagan), there is an alarming degree of vitriol in their voices and body language”
THE TIMES
“But the standout among the astonishingly talented group of performers is Fagan, who so wholly captures the essence of the Countess, drawn between the pain of betrayal and her own desires. When Fagan sings, it's as if time stops. Her rendition of Dove sono, delivered while lying on the steps of the estate's main hall, is achingly beautiful, imbued with pain and anger".
NEXT MAGAZINE
"The vulnerable, yet not entirely innocent, Countess Almaviva of Australian soprano Lauren Fagan in a role debut....her voice is simply gorgeous, etching the lovely long lines of her two great arias exquisitely and with great feeling."
OPERA CANADA
"Fagan's crystalline Countess"
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Dove sono i bei momenti, in which the Countess ponders "where the lovely moments" of her marriage went, is delivered by Fagan with touching conviction and a sonorous, bell-like tone."
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Le nozze di Figaro
2023
COUNTESS ALMAVIVA
CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY
© MICHAEL COOPER
Ainadamar
2022
MARGARITA XIRGU
SCOTTISH OPERA
“Margarita (Fagan) effectively carries the show, and Fagan - fresh from playing the village tart in The Wreckers at Glyndebourne - breathes tearful fervour into every gesture and phrase, scraping a dark, bitter residue of pain from her low notes. She's tremendous, her vocal performance clearly informed."
THE SPECTATOR
“Soprano Lauren Fagan is the actress Maragrita, singing the opening scenes with a deep chest voice but scaling gleaming heights for Margarita's final apotheosis"
THE TIMES
"As Margarita (a part concieved for Dawn Upshaw), Lauren Fagan is superbly foreceful in a part that reaches high both in range and passion."
THE TELEGRAPH
“Lauren Fagan, as Violetta, is beautiful and the range of her music and emotion is fearless. At every moment in triumph and despair, she holds the audience's attention like a star."
THE ADVERTISER
"The voices of both Fagan and Wang are thrilling, displaying remarkable control, enthralling the full-house audience. Vocally masterful, in Act 2, was the way her singing conveyed a dignified resistance to Germont's disdain....with rich emotion and despair she acknowledged this with one of the most moving accounts of "Addio, del passato" I have ever heard"
BACHTRACK
In their lead roles, Fagan and Wang are astonishing. Fagan's uncompromising soprano purity is a joy to listen to. As the consumptive and unapologetic Violetta, Fagan voices the part majestically and delivers the role with sensitivity and subtlety".
STAGE WHISPERS
La traviata
2022
VIOLETTA
STATE OPERA
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
© THE PHOTOGRAPHY PLACE
The Wreckers
2022
AVIS
GLYNDEBOURNE FESTIVAL OPERA
“Lauren Fagan, excellent as always, is the impulsive, unstable Avis.”
THE GUARDIAN
“Lauren Fagan's bright, incisive soprano dominates her scenes"
THE INDEPENDENT
“Lauren Fagan shines as the troubled, jealous Avis"
THE STAGE
"A large cast, of whom the standouts are Karis Tucker as the rebellious wife and Lauren Fagan as her jealous nemesis"
THE TIMES
“Lauren Fagan, plays the death scene with her own dramatic freedom rather than borrowed histrionics. At home in both Violetta’s modes — as strong in the coloratura as the introverted musings — she sings luminously.”
OPERA MAGAZINE
“In Act I Lauren Fagan as Violetta is lyrical, unflamboyant yet technically accomplished, but in Acts II and III mines unsuspected depths of emotion while singing the music with pearly ease.”
THE TIMES
“Soprano Lauren Fagan is entirely assured in negotiating the difficulties of Verdi’s writing with boundless skill and expressivity, presenting his heroine as a multi-faceted human being.”
THE STAGE
La traviata
2021
VIOLETTA
OPERA
HOLLAND PARK
© Richard H. Smith
Ah! perfido
2021
BEETHOVEN CONCERT
SIMONE YOUNG &
SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Her rich and powerful timbre cutting through in Beethoven’s dramatic concert aria, Ah! Perfido (Oh, faithless one), a work which runs the range of emotions and showed why Fagan was selected for Covent Garden’s prestigious Jette Parker Young Artists Program."
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Covid precautions required Australian soprano Lauren Fagan to sing Beethoven’s concert aria Ah! Perfido, Opus 65, from behind the strings rather than front of stage, but she projected with magnificent dramatic power nonetheless, nurturing the central aria with warm expressiveness and rising to thrilling dramatic power at climactic moments.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
"Fagan’s is a powerful instrument and she nonetheless soared across the more immediate sound of the string section with her polished soprano. There were some lovely veiled moments in her upper register early in the aria before she allowed her voice to unfurl in the dramatic climax, easily filling the space with her glossy, commanding sound."
LIMELIGHT
“Lauren Fagan’s Mimì was beautifully sweet, delicate and restrained, but unleashed torrents of powerful emotion, a fact evident from the moment she joined her new lover Rodolfo for ‘O soave fanciulla.’ She was thrilling.”
BACHTRACK
“The quality of the vocal performances is superb. Lauren Fagan, as the doomed Mimi, gives a gorgeous rendition of ‘Si, Mi Chiamano Mimi’, shortly before duetting with Eleazar Rodriguez on a moonlit ‘O Soave Fanciulla’ that proves to be one of the highlights of the evening.”
THE STAGE
Bohème
2019
MIMÌ
OPERA NORTH
© Richard H. Smith
Alcina
2019
TITLE ROLE
KARLSRUHE HANDEL FESTSPIELE
“Rising young star Lauren Fagan dazzles as Alcina. Her laments, and in particular the “Mi restano le lagrime”, are literally gilded in gold, her voice can display pain incarnate, while also asserting powerful nobility and a superb helplessness.”
FORUM OPERA
“As Alcina the gorgeous soprano Lauren Fagan convinces again, completing her six (!) bravura arias between despair and rage, rapture and revenge, with breathtaking, truly magical virtuosity; and in her art of frenzied coloratura, crazy flights of fancy, elegant arcs and daring leaps, demonstrates boundless skill.”
BADISCHE NEUE NACHRICHTEN
“the up-and-coming soprano Lauren Fagan as Alcina…Fagan was a convincing sorceress from the start, with a strong, rich soprano”
OPERA MAGAZINE
“Fagan, one of today’s finest young sopranos, is exceptional throughout and a superb actor. Her tone blazes with existential defiance and desperation, and she possesses both the agility for act one – Sempre Libera is capped by a dazzling top E flat – and the dramatic weight for the closing scenes.”
THE GUARDIAN
“Luckily, these opening moments also reveal that in Lauren Fagan this new production has a Violetta of considerable force, plangent tones and solid dramatic instincts.”
THE TIMES
“the easy grace of Fagan’s coloratura, the warmth and richness of her sound, and her delicately floated high notes, all make this Violetta a delight.”
INDEPENDENT
“More than just technical precision though, Fagan’s performance embodied Violetta’s tragedy and nobility, phrases soaked with emotion which matched the quality of her acting. Fagan alone makes this production worth seeing.”
BACHTRACK
Traviata
2018
VIOLETTA
OPERA HOLLAND PARK
© Ali Wright
Written on Skin
2018
AGNÈS
LONDON / ST PETERSBURG
“As for Lauren Fagan, playing the humiliated wife for whom a taste of real love catalyses her one act of defiance, she achieves a small miracle: dispelling memories of how Barbara Hannigan sang and acted in the premiere. Fagan delivers a fiercer, less enigmatic characterisation.”
THE TIMES
“Most thrilling of all, Lauren Fagan’s gleaming, intense performance showed what a extraordinary dramatic creation the character of Agnès is, one of the great operatic heroines of the past 100 years.”
THE GUARDIAN
“Lauren Fagan (a Jette Parker Young Artist alumna) revealed Agnès’s erotic awakening with conviction and was even more persuasive in her vindictive rejection of her husband.”
CLASSICAL SOURCE
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