“As the Lady, Odessa-born Maria Guleghina confirmed the impression I got in Roma six months earlier: to wit, a tremendous dramatic presence with nearly limitless vocal means.
Powerful and lush, her voice traveled from the deepest doom-laden lower registers through a smooth and even middle, all the way to stratospheric high notes, all without a hint of strain or metallic traces… Along with beautiful ” piani “, ” mezza voce ” and ” smorzandi “, all in moments of abandon alternating with the most extreme darkness, and madness deep enough to sleepwalk… As a matter of fact, in the sleepwalking scene of act IV, her cry of distress and bale is so soft, so smooth, so ravishingly spun, the high note such an angelic whisper, that you forget for an instant that this is Lady Macbeth, serpent and murderess, trailing gore, drenched in blood and perfidy. Great art, indeed!!”