Reviews
Here is what critics have to say about Stefania Dovhan’s portrayal of Cleopatra in “Giulio Cesare” by G. F. Handel:
„Soprano Stefania Dovhan is a great talent nurtured in Theater Hagen. With her Cleopatra the young singer is now presenting a breathtaking performance which will likely provide a springboard for her career. Her Cleopatra is a brisk blend of a warrior princess and a vamp, with accurate, completely effortlessly placed coloratura, glowing high notes and flawless trills.” (Monika Willer Westfalenpost jan14, 2008)
„… the crown – just like in Händel’s time – is due to a soprano. Stefania Dovhan displayed a true firework of coloratura. There is no doubt: she knows what she is able to do, and she flaunts it – her Cleopatra is all energy and all zest for action.” (Christoph Schulte im Walde www.opernnetz.de and Westfälische Nachrichten Münster Jan 2008)
“With her winsome coquetry, she not only charmed her Roman emperor, but in the meantime rapidly became the public’s favorite. It was a bliss to see her immersing herself in the Egyptian queen and easily firing cascades of coloratura into the round. In her final aria she performed with such an aplomb and lunacy that at the late hour, the audience in Hagen erupted with spontaneous and frenetic exultation.” (Dirk Altenaer der neue merker Jan. 2008)
„… Stefania Dovhan is a Cleopatra who arrests our eyes and ears. Barely audibly affected by a previously announced cold, her smooth soprano cajoled and moaned, raged and hesitated. She gorgeously decorates the da-capo-parts of her arias with ornaments and thus shows what coloratura in baroque opera really is: exuberant emotion and a celebration of life.” (Anke Demirsoy Westfälische Rundschau Jan.14, 2008)
„Stefania Dovhan supplies a brilliant role and as a flirtatious sex bomb she is portraying one of her most powerful roles.” (Karsten Mark Westfälischer Anzeiger Hamm Jan. 15, 2008)
„… Stefania Dovhan, a singer with a youthful and bright timbre and sensual colour of tone. Also in her highest register she gleams splendidly, at first confident in her victory, later, when the situation turns against her with a beautiful legato sound…Physically, she is an exotic beauty with a modern Egyptian aspect.” (www.omm.de)
About Annina in ”Eine Nacht in Venedig” by Johann Strauss:
„…lead by a sensuous, coquettish Annina, into whom Stefania Dovhan partly due to her exuberant joy of playing, breathes the most energetic life. Her opening song “Frutti di mare” is bursting with wit and her solos constitute the climaxes of the evening. Here, an operetta diva par excellence.” (Dirk Altenaer der neue merker online Nov. 19, 2007)
„Stefania Dovhan, the multiple prize-winning, highly gifted young soprano from (Theater) Hagen, has the lightness and the effortless altitude to transport Annina’s mercurial temper. Additionally, her soprano voice is gaining more and more presence and radiance.”(Monika Willer Westfalenpost Oct. 29, 2007)
About Sister Rose in Jake Heggies’ ”Dead Man Walking:”
”… eine exzellente Leistung bot -stellvertretend hervorzuheben war diesbezüglich die vollendete Darbietung der Sister Rose durch die junge Sopranistin Stefania Dovhan.” (W. Borchers DAS OPERNGLASS 10/2007)
About Adina in Donizetti’s ”L’Elisir D’Amore:”
”Soprano Stefania Dovhan will certainly make a big career, she sang with such a radiant timbre and with such effortless tops, that not only Nemorino must have fallen in love with her.” (M. Willer Westfalen Post March 19, 2007)
”Stefania Dovhan (Adina) with a great charm underwent a transformation from a capricious into a love-stricken, richly multi-faceted woman (character), all that have been reflected in her clear, beautiful soprano.” (Doro Kirchoff Westfalisches Rundschau March 19, 2007)
About Olympia in Offenbach’s „Les Contes d’Hoffmann:“
“Stefania Dovhan does not shape Olympia’s coloratura as an abstract exercise on style, but with a warm and radiant voice, she succeeds in the balancing act between artistic vocalism and erotically coloured declaration of love for Hoffmann. This is one of the few moments of the evening in which the dramatic core of a character is revealed and at the same time music and performance fuse into a great moment.” (S. Schmöe www.omm.de 2006)
About Nanetta in Verdi’s ”Falstaff:
”Especially magical was the bird-like light line (singing)of Stefania Dovhan who portrayed a girl (Naneta) in-love.” (A. Hirsch Westfälischer Anzeiger 06/2006
”The strongest female voice belonged to Stefania Dovhan in the role of Nanetta.” (K. Lipinski Ruhr Nachrichten 06/2006)
About Max in Knussen’s ”Where the Wild Things Are:”
„As Max, young Stefania Dovhan introduces herself to the audience in Hagen with a demanding part which she masters brilliantly…the role requires young dramatic capabilities which the singer supplies with great presence.” (S. Schmöe Online Music Magazine 09/2005)
„Stefania Dovhan as Max in “Where the Wild Things are” performed passionately, ready for risk-taking in her vocal performance.“ (C. Vratz Opernwelt 11/2005)
Translated from German by Dominik Freiberger: www.dominikfreiberger.de
Review of the recital at the Grazhda Music and Art Center, NY(USA):
”…Dovhan appeared as a young princess possessed, with the powers at her command – a vocal instr ument fusing beauty and clarity to lacerate hearts and cut orchestras, and interpretive gifts suffusing lines with out-of-body vision and poignacy – seeming to come through her from beyand, like Jeanne d’Arc’s voices.”
”…Pensive or flamboyant, the intelligence, the innate poetry of her soul lights all arias and songs. How wonderful to have her give us the human, vocal animation with a riding flamenco chest voice in ”Siete canciones Populares Espanolas” (Seven Spanish Folk Songs) for a dimention merely chased by instrumentalists.”
”…Lyric, dramatic, Dovhan’s soprano is not limited to the register, but, rather, shaped and shaded by demands of each work. She is the diva for the world to love.” (Kitty Montgomery the Daily Freeman July 19, 2004)