«The quartet was joined by soprano Uliana Alexyuk who made quite an impression as a last minute replacement Gilda in Houston Opera’s production of Rigoletto in January. She negotiated the role’s difficulties with ease and her more lyric voice smoothed out the piping that pepper the performances of many lighter-voiced coloraturas. My review is here. She was every bit as impressive in her selections with the St. Petersburg, in graceful adaptations by Aleksey Aronov. From Glinka’s groundbreaking opera, Ruslan and Ludmila, she sang Ludmila’s aria “Ah ty, dolya-dolushka.” Next came three songs by Rachmaninoff: “Margaritki,” “Daisies” and the best known of the bunch, “Ne poi, krasavitsa, pri mne.” She closed with Alyabiev’s “The Nightingale.” In all of these selections, she spun out a silken vocal thread that ran through every note and connected all of the phrases internally as well as with each other. The Russian diction, which is not as favorable to such legato singing (as say, Italian), did not give her the slightest pause. Admittedly, this is her language, but that alone cannot explain the legato core at the center of her voice. No, that is pure technical mastery combined with a stunning natural gift. It is like a moving stream into which she launches note after note and phrase after phase. This is not to imply that she lacks power or the ability to dramatically drive the voice when that is required. But even here, it is the connecting line that separates her from other singers.»

-Gregory Sullivan Isaacs

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