“Australian soprano Lauren Fagan, making a most belated Opera Australia debut, brought the house down with her lustrous, deeply felt Suor Angelica.”

“However, it is Fagan who gives the performance of the evening. Her vocal performance is exceptional – her Senza Mamma is one of the finest operatic performances one can remember on the stage of the Joan Sutherland Theatre – and her final top notes are heart-rending. Fagan delivers them with her back to the audience, arms outstretched to the heavens, emphasizing just how hopelessly alone she is – even cut off from the sympathetic audience. When Fagan falls to her knees to scatter her son’s ashes in the earth, her anguish is truly palpable.”

“Cause of all this mayhem is Marcello’s ex-girlfriend, the outrageous Musetta, played and sung with coquettish abandon by Australian soprano Lauren Fagan – until she comes up against sober reality in Mimì’s final moments.”

“Lauren Fagan sings and performs a heartfelt Gutrune.”

“Fagan’s Helena especially noteworthy for her beauty of tone.”

“The vulnerable, though 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“As Margarita (a part conceived for Dawn Upshaw), Lauren Fagan is superbly forceful in a part that reaches high both in range and in passion.”

“Fagan sang convincingly and compellingly – so believable were her singing and acting.”

“Lauren Fagan – making her Australian mainstage operatic debut – was utterly compelling in the role. Her rich vocal tone and impressive range of colours and nuances really drew the listener into Violetta’s emotional states.”

“Lauren Fagan’s bright, incisive soprano dominates her scenes”

“Lauren Fagan, returning to the cast alongside the other two 2018 principals, 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.”

“Lauren Fagan’s Violetta saw her in absolutely commanding – and extremely moving – form.”

“Lauren Fagan sang Giulietta capriciously, also boldly, challengingly, as befits the figure.”

“As Simone Young told the audience the Australian singer, making her SSO debut, would have no problem projecting – and she didn’t, her rich and powerful timbre cutting through in Beethoven’s Ah! Perfido, a work which runs the range of emotions and showed why Fagan was selected for Covent Garden’s prestigious Jette Parker Young Artists Program.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“Lauren Fagan was on commanding form as both actor and singer, and she looked sensational and vulnerable in her fin-de-siècle gowns. Her coloratura in ​‘Sempre libera’ was light and secure, her Act 2 scene with Germont père, showing off a fine control of tone and hushed dynamics, was done with considerable restraint, and her death scene faltered and faded very movingly.”

“Lauren Fagan encompassed repressed stillness and seething passion as Agnès, retaining her precision of attack and creamy tone at even the most exposed high climax”

“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.”

“Australian soprano Lauren Fagan sang a commanding Donna Anna with dramatic recitatives, laser-like projection and clean fioritura. ​“Non mi dir” was the highlight of the evening”.

“Lauren Fagan was a brilliantly wild and flighty Musetta, until the final scene where the Carmen-like mask dropped and the softness of the woman beneath was movingly revealed. Her powerful voice, with remarkable control, even at the peak of her range, mellowed beautifully by the end.”

“Lauren Fagan shone as Gounod’s Mireille… Her stunningly rich tone and vibrant timbre rose above the incongruous design and later, as Mimì, she showed that she has range of colour too.”

“contrasted with the bright ring of Lauren Fagan’s Sister Genovieffa, surely an Angelica in waiting”

“…Lauren Fagan as his love-interest, Leila, [was] simply superb. She slinked around with perfumed exoticism as the beautiful young princess and he could barely contain his passion for her… These two fine singers proved they were worthy of headlining any Pearl Fishers cast and deserved the prolonged ovation they received.”

“Fagan had a lovely silvery sheen to her soprano as Léïla pleaded for Nadir’s life, fuelling the flames of Zurga’s jealousy. Sparks flew!”