Denis & Katya
OPERA PHILADELPHIA | MUSIC THEATRE WALES
"This performance benefited from the perfect casting of mezzo-soprano Emily Edmonds and baritone Johnny Herford. Edmonds, fresh-faced and pretty, brought an energetic, almost naive sense of wonder to her various personas. Her almost breathless narratives immediately captivated me, as did her singing."
"Emily Edmonds is an acting mezzo soprano who not only sings richly but delivers her lines with just the right rhythms and cadences."
BERKSHIRE FINE ARTS
SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL
"Edmonds and Herford’s stage magnetism via sensitively handled character portrayals with baritone and soprano delivery keep the hook on the storyline, as do the pairs own individual storytelling qualities."
ENTERTAIN WALES
"The singers, Emily Edmonds and Johnny Herford are beyond praise. Onstage throughout the seventy minutes of the work, and required to talk, speak over each other’s singing, move chairs and change places to exact timings, and eventually sustain long lines of vocal polyphony after an hour of role-playing, they perform with riveting artistry."
THE ARTS DESK
"Johnny Herford and Emily Edmonds …..both give utterly committed and rigorously unsentimental performances."
THE TELEGRAPH
"With such lean performing forces, quality counts, and we get it in spades in Edmonds’ molasses-and-honey mezzo…"
BROADWAY WORLD
"Mezzo-soprano Emily Edmonds and baritone Johnny Herford, already much acclaimed in last year’s Opera Philadelphia premiere, project these with objectivity and passion."
THE GUARDIAN
"Their testaments, and descriptions of the couples’ stream, are spoken and sung in role-play by superb singer-actors, Emily Edmonds and Johnny Herford. With controlled tension they jump-cut between witnesses, framed by four, lyrical London Sinfonietta cellists stationed at corners of a bare stage."
THE STAGE
"At a minute to go the singers, Johnny Herford and Emily Edmonds, enter…. The two singers take the roles of teacher, friend, neighbour, doctor, journalist. Their range and versatility are exemplary."
THEATRE IN WALES
"Herford and Edmonds give blistering performances."
THE SUNDAY TIMES
"Emily Edmonds and Johnny Herford were hugely impressive. … it was the ability to switch between multiple roles and make them sound distinctive which required a more creative and deft artistry."
OPERA TODAY
