Reviews
“Natalie’s Susanna in my production of “Le Nozze di Figaro” for Welsh National Opera and Opera Australia, was just about what any director would dream of… exquisitely sung and wonderfully acted. Natalie has great natural comedy, a fierce intelligence, and (which is completely unfair) she is uncommonly beautiful. She moves well too. In short – dazzling.”
Neil Armfield, director of Opera Australia’s production of The Marriage Of Figaro, and director of the Belvoir Theatre, Sydney.
“Natalie Christie shining as never before in Adina’s bright coloratura…”
Hugh Canning – Sunday Times, 3rd June 2003
“Natalie Christie…completed one of the best casts Covent Garden had fielded in this opera with her charmingly youthful Zerlina.”
Hugh Canning – Sunday Times, 24th February 2002
“Natalie Christie’s tough, knowing Zerlina sings with roughish exuberance.”
David Blewitt – The Stage, 20th February 2002
“But what casting! Natalie Christie’s tiny, adorable Zerlina…”
Tom Sutcliffe – London Evening Standard, February 2002
“It helps when your singers also act convincingly. As Marzelline…Natalie Christie, forgoing the ditziness that often besets the role, reveals a bright, open timbre that nevertheless carries the necessary emotional weight. Her opening duet with Jaquino emerges as rather more than the wan comedy it usually is.”
Nick Kimberly, Independent on Sunday, 16th September 2001
“Marzelline has more to sing in Leonore and Natalie Christie sang it all with abundant charm.”
Rodney Milnes – The Times, 18th September 2001
“The young soprano Natalie Christie was an accomplished Pamina, with a performance that many a seasoned performed in this role would have been delighted with.”
Mike Smith -The Western Mail, 11th June 2001
“When Natalie has her own TV show, Gounod’s ‘Je veux vivre’ from Romeo et Juliette is likely to be her signature tune!”
Graeme Kay – BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, July 2001
“Australia’s Natalie Christie simply radiated personality by the bucketload in coquettish arias by Weber and Donizetti; the charm offensive continued in songs by Debussy and Williamson (provoking a rare belly-laugh from the audience) and her ‘Sure on this shining night’ by Samuel Barber was moving in the extreme.”
Graeme Kay – BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, July 2001
“Christie, especially, has a voice of youthful, delicious beauty. Her charming performance of Malcolm Williamson’s settings of six songs from RL Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden brought the house down. It was the best thing in the concert.”
Rick Jones - London Evening Standard, Wigmore Hall Recital, 7th July 2000
“I thought the sensation was Natalie Christie as Sophie. She sang radiantly and acted the part better than almost anyone I can recall.”
Michael White – Independent on Sunday, March 2000
“Natalie Christie, Natalie Christie, Natalie Christie. That seemed to be the name on everyone’s lips, at least in opera circles, at the end of this year’s summer season in Sydney. Christie’s performances were judged by many to be a definitive portrait…She was cheered night after night by Sydney Opera House audiences.”
OperaOpera, March 2000
“No complaints with Natalie Christie though…If you could get a ticket to one of the two final performances to hear her, I would urge you to do so. Christie is irresistibly funny, a tiny dynamo effortlessly organising all about her. Where many of our young singers seem to rely on their physical performance to give a clue how their vocal one should be unfolding, Christie offers a seamless marriage of the two. With Christie’s bright and beautifully placed voice at the centre of things, the rest falls into place seamlessly.”
Deborah Jones - The Australian, 2nd March 2000
“The Marriage of Figaro also has the distinction of having one of the most congenial performers of the central role of Susanna to appear in this much-revived staging. Natalie Christie is a young Melbournian, back from study in Europe, who has every attribute needed to make a success of this part. Her height and build, physical resourcefulness and air of pert insouciance amount to ideal specifications for the dramatic qualities of a soubrette; and she matches – no surpasses – this with a clear- toned, accurately aimed soprano voice…Christie, on the evidence of this exceptionally talented performance, would be natural choice for this part whenever Opera Australia chose to stage it…It is hard to imagine a better fit between a singer and an immortal stage identity.”
Roger Covell – Sydney Morning Herald, 24th February 2000
“Second up was Natalie Christie, a soprano who has spent the past 5 years in London, which explains why we haven’t heard more of this captivating young voice. The audience hung on her every word. Into the emotional mastrom of Debussy’s Ariette Oubliees, Christie demonstrated her impressive timbral range, from the mellow lower registers to the brilliance of the top of her voice.”
Harriet Cunningham – Sydney Morning Herald, 18th Jan 2000
“Sister Constance, played and sung here with electrifying freshness by Natalie Christie, is surely one of the finds of post-war opera.”
Stephen Walsh – The Independent, 15th October 1999
“The audience was rightly captivated by a new young star, Natalie Christie, whose Sister Constance was adorable.”
Michael Kennedy – The Sunday Telegraph, 10th October 1999
“The Australian Natalie Christie could march proudly into any of our national companies tomorrow – her soprano is as well-formed as her deliciously diminutive figure.”
Rodney Milnes -The Times, 4th March 1999
“And there’s a choice soprano role, Oksana, taken here by a distinct star on the rise, Natalie Christie.”
Michael White – The Independent on Sunday, 7th March 1999
“Musetta, a dazzling performance by the diminutive Natalie Christie.”
Opera, November 1998
“Café Momus also introduces Natalie Christie’s irresistible Musetta. Her voice leaps out of her tiny, tense body like a champagne cork; and the glinting coloratura within is also able to expand into long lines of reflection which, particularly in the last act, still all around her.”
Hilary Finch, The Times, September 1998