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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Interpretive brilliance.
Comment: Okay, there are some who thinks that Herr Damrau does not have the ability to manage such a wide diversity of roles.
This impression, in my humble view, is much more apparent than real.
Damrau is a wonderful musician; not just a good soprano. Mozart requires greatness to muster - instrumental or vocal alike. Compare Damrau's Mozart album here with her other wonderful compatriot Annette Dasch, and you'll see what I mean.
Dasch has it all - a wonderfully full voice (which Damrau does NOT have; at least no longer these days). Yet, and yet, in terms of intonation and expression, not really up to Damrau's finesse.
If there are any problem at all with this album, it lies in the accompaniment. The period ensemble is not giving the singer the full-bodied support as do by other full orchestras. So, the reviewer who have heard numerous 'modern' versions (full operatic versions) of Mozart's well-known tracks would feel 'what a watered down performance'. Nor is the conducter really on par with Damrau in some interpretations.
That said, as for Herr Damrau herself, the voice isn't as full as it 'used' to be in the early 2000s when she first stunned the world with her Queen of the Night. The effect of 15 productions of Die Zauberflote does has its mark on the voice. However, it would be going too far to claim that it has robbed the singer of her ability to express.
True, of all tracks here, the Don Giovanni arias offer the least attractive package. It used to be said that a soprano who can both tackle Donna Anna and Donna Elvira would be none other than a great soprano. Damrau's voice does not sit comfortably in either of these. BUT hers is not a dramatic or spinto soprano. Neither Anna nor Elvira would give a lirico coloratura leggiero any comfort.
As for the rest, there is well-nigh no fault to be found with Damrau's impeccable renditions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: On my Top 10 List
Comment: This is one of the best opera CDs to be released in the last decade and definitely on of my Top 10 CDs for the last year. She already has recorded the best Queen of the Night since Edda Moser 30 years ago. Now she has recorded one of the best CDs of Mozart arias ever. If she isn't already considered a superstar, then she is well on her way to becoming one. This is a voice that is even from top to bottom, dramatic without pushing, and lyrical, yet with some bite when needed. If you buy one Mozart CD, this should be it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A talented singer - but a bridge too far, too soon
Comment: I can see that I am going to be out on a limb compared with previous reviewers - but I notice that an Amazon.fr reviewer thinks similarly to me, so here goes anyway:
I was looking forward to reviewing this disc, having been impressed by Diana Damrau when I heard her live as Zerbinetta and, like everyone else, wowed by her Queen of the Night on DVD and "YouTube", where her rendition of that fiendish aria has had hundreds of thousands of hits. She has since declared that she will no longer be performing that rôle, but, judging by this collection of arias, I wonder if that decision is premature.
Undeniably, Damrau is hugely talented: lapidary precision in coloratura, no hint of shrillness in her top notes, absolute security of intonation, an assured stage presence and considerable personal charms - she has many sterling qualities which combine to make her a gifted singer of the modern type that productions worldwide cry out for. She is, nonetheless, still a relatively young and inexperienced singer and I wonder if she has not allowed herself to be pushed too soon into assuming the grander kind of Mozartian rôles to which her voice is not (yet?) ideally suited. I need to be specific if I am to make my case, and I am aware that some will think that I am being unnecessarily harsh, but while listening to the majority of the arias she undertakes here, I inevitably found myself comparing her with earlier, favourite artists, as I felt that there was something wanting.
Let's start with Pamina's aria from "Die Zauberflöte. I reached for three other versions for the purposes of comparison: one by Gundula Janowitz (a hissy, venerable 1964 recording with Klemperer conducting), one by Barbara Bonney (her 1992 recording on a recital disc), and a third by Barbara Hendricks (the complete 1991 set conducted by Mackerras). These performances vary hugely in speed, ranging from a pacy 2'28" with Mackerras to a leisurely 4'09" with Klemperer. Bonney comes in at 3'26, so Damrau's 3'59" is also quite relaxed, yet compared with the Klemperer/Janowitz version it seems to drag and plod; there is little feel for rubato or flexibility of phrasing in Rhorer's conducting. By comparison, Mackerras (Hendricks) and Östman (Bonney) ought to sound as if they are galloping through the aria, but, on the contrary, they simply sound natural and unforced; their singers are able to phrase sensitively and project a real personality. Janowitz' Pamina, in any case, is sung with such heavenly phrasing and tone that we do not notice how long Klemperer takes over it. Nor is it a question of period style versus modern instruments; Östman directs a period band whereas Klemperer has the LPO and both are equally successful in their way. I find myself subconsciously disconcerted by Rhorer's use of "correct" original lower pitch for all the arias in this recording; once you have heard Janowitz float her B flat, Damrau's equivalent note, pitched somewhere around a quarter tone lower, sounds distinctly flat, being closer to a modern A - but that might not necessarily bother others. Finally, it is a question of quality of voice. All of the other ladies I use for the purposes of comparison, have, to my ears, a greater intrinsic beauty of sound, more individuality of utterance, more variety in tone, dynamics and vocal colouring. Each seems to do a better job bringing Pamina alive and gives her what the late "Gramophone" critic Alan Blyth used to call more "face".
It follows naturally that if Damrau is somewhat outshone by her predecessors as Pamina, then it is still less likely that she will be a satisfactory Countess, Donna Anna, Donna Elvira or Vitellia- and so it proves. She simply hasn't the breadth and heft of voice to sing these deceptively demanding rôles. She can sing all the notes but essentially trills her way through them as if she hasn't really digested the music. Most of the time, whatever she is singing, she sounds like a Susanna - which, along with her Constanze, the arias from the early operas and the two concert arias, form by far the most successful portion of this recital. Damrau is essentially still a light lyric soprano with a voice too small of scale to rival, say, Renee Fleming, Martina Arroyo or Eleanor Steber in the "grande dame" rôles in Mozart opera. I took down Dame Janet Baker's assumption of Vitellia to reassure myself that I was not being unfair to Damrau - and there I found the attack, the variety of colour, plaintiveness of phrasing, richness of lower register and, above all, the ability to use coloratura to enhance emotion - all of which are lacking, or present to a lesser degree, in Damrau's singing of "Non piu di fiori". She certainly makes it sound easy, but she rarely moves us. Her Donna Anna is young and vulnerable but ultimately forgettable; even when she is singing Susanna, her characterisation pales in comparison with a singer such as Lucia Popp. In truth, I was bored by much of this recital, despite her accomplishment.
Le Cercle de l'Harmonie is certainly a talented band; they play with verve, accuracy and technical brilliance but Rohrer seems to favour extremes: they are sometimes driven too hard and at others seem too relaxed.
I am reminded of an anecdote from Beverley Sills' autobiography in which that celebrated singer remarked that she did not think Norma was that difficult a role and that some lines in "Norma" always made her "want to giggle". This, her stern detractors remarked, explains her lack of proper commitment and gravitas as Norma. I do not say that Damrau is guilty of such flippancy, but I wonder whether she has not fallen into the trap of severely under-estimating the challenge of the grander arias she has undertaken here. She is a major talent but this CD represents, for me, a bridge too far, too soon.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exceptional performance of Mozart
Comment: The more I hear of Damrau, the more amazed I become.
This array of Mozart arias demonstrates her exceptional vocal capabilities and astounding range. There is nothing lacking in style and articulation.
But what is most astonishing is not vocal technique. It is the ability of this singer to express herself through the medium of singing.
Vitellia's aria from La Clemenza di Tito is a hideously difficult piece of vocal writing, so hideous because, as musical historians found out, Mozart himself hated Vitellia. The more he hated this character, the more difficulty he injects into her music.
Just listen to Damrau's handling of this hideous piece. I have heard many top sopranos/mezzos singing this before - Eva Mei, Anne Sofie von Otter, just to name two recent ones. None of them, however beautiful they handle the piece, could sound convincing enough. And Rene Jacobs' version of La Clemenza a couple of years ago introduced a fiendishly capable Vitellia in the form of Bulgarian coloratura Alexandrina Pendatchanska. No lacking in expressiveness, I thought then that this Vitellia is unsurpassable.
Well, let me report that Damrau does indeed surpassed Pendatchanska's interpretation. Damrau's Vitellia is so alive and believable: fear, regret, remorse, hesitation, resolution, all bound up in Mozart's musical lines, and so effectively articulated by Damrau. The aria becomes at once totally explicable - Mozart did NOT in fact lacked one jot of empathy for his Vitellia, however much he might have disliked her.
Thank you, Ms. Damrau, for your great interpretation.
Customer Rating:
Summary: So Lovely!
Comment: Diana Damrau is unparalleled in her vocal talent. Her voice is full and has an almost lyric quality, but she still hits all those high notes at the very center. Beautifully done! She is the most natural-sounding soprano, and her voice is simply pleasant to hear. Unlike Dessay (who has her own qualities, to be sure), Damrau has more power and silvery beauty to her voice.
The only reservation I have was with the CD itself. Who the heck produced these pictures? They looked as if I printed them out on my ink-jet printer at home. Such a lovely woman, such nice photos, but such terrible photo quality.
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