As Norina in Don Pasquale

Mark J. Estren, The Washington Post

The production's vocal star was Meghan McCall, a Norina of bright flirtatiousness and delicious comic timing. Her entrance aria, "So anch'io la virtù magica," had the flair and sparkle of operetta, and her transformation from innocent to harridan was wonderfully pointed.

Bel Cantanti Opera, “The Past & The Future”, September 27, 2008

Stephen Neal Dennis, www.allartsreview4u.com

"As always, McCall and Lee were particularly outstanding, bringing a lively stage presence to their various roles...Meghan McCall increasingly seems to have the potential of a young Renée Fleming, and her career will be watched closely by those who have watched her develop in the Washington area."

In concert with Opera Lafayette at The National Gallery

Charles T. Downey , The Washington Post, Tuesday, May 13, 2008

In "Le Déserteur" Genial soprano Meghan McCall and resonant baritone Darren Perry were well matched in a pleasing duet...In Félicien David's "Lalla Roukh" McCall displayed some impressive coloratura pyrotechnics in "Si vous ne savez plus charmer."

As Don Giovanni (Acrimante)

Charles T. Downey, IONARTS

"The earliest opera selected here was Alessandro Melani's L'Empio Punito (1669, Rome). It featured two talented singers from the University of Maryland and a chamber assortment of instruments, including Ryan Brown on first violin...Meghan McCall (reviewed last spring in Conrad Susa's Transformations) as Acrimante, the first Don Juan of the evening, [brought] a clear, silvery treble...[and] gave a lovely performance in one of the opera's simple but effective duets (Assistimi Amore / Resisti mio core). The most beautiful piece from this opera was Acrimante's slow minor-key aria Se d'Amor la cruda sfinge, sung with clarity by McCall and a heart-rending manipulation of the clashing dissonances between the two violin parts."

As Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Mark J. Estren, Tuesday, March 4, 2008; The Washington Post

"The two who were most fun at Sunday's matinee were Meghan McCall as Blondchen, blending superb comic timing with vocal accuracy in a winsome and winning performance; and Kwang Kyu Lee as Osmin, using his very full bass voice to toss off the coloratura passages in "Wie will ich triumphieren" with aplomb -- even managing to touch the two low D's. The confrontation between these two made for a hilarious bathtub scene in Act 2, with cigar-chomping Osmin wearing a wet suit that made him look, aptly, like a giant hornet."

As Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail

Stephen Neal Dennis, www.allartsreview4u.com

"Meghan McCall, who appeared last year as Susanna in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro for Bel Cantanti Opera, was again a smashing success, this time as Blondchen, the confidant of Constanze. McCall has a considerable comic talent for acting, and moves confidently across the stage in whatever scene she appears in. When McCall and Lee Kwang Kyu were able to sing a duet, the two voices were well balanced, and their equivalent comic talents made any of their joint scenes electric."

Handel’s Messiah: A Sold Out Performance

The Cape Gazette, Milton, DE

"Meghan McCall particularly delighted the audience. On stage, she paints a “picture-perfect”, lovely romantic portrait. Her radiant face exudes inner beauty and her voice carries the music effortlessly to the highest range, never shrill, in a totally rewarding experience for the listener...This was indeed a memorable performance, that will long be remembered and talked about."

As Miss Jessel in Turn of the Screw

Alan Montgomery, Opera News

"Meghan McCall's extremely well sung Miss Jessel elicited unusual sympathy for the character and was actively frightening in Act II."

As Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw

Donald Rosenberg, Plain Dealer Music Critic

"Meghan McCall makes Miss Jessel, the deceased governess, a figure of agonizing despair, her shining voice blossoming on high."

As Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore

Mark J. Estren, Tuesday, May 29, 2007; The Washington Post.

"Meghan McCall was just about letter-perfect -- and note-perfect -- as the flirtatious, don't-pin-me-down Adina, her exceptionally pure tone melding with a gift for physical comedy. "

As Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor

Mark J. Estren, Tuesday, May 1, 2007; The Washington Post.

'Lammermoor': Soprano McCall Aces the Test
"The mad scene in Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor" is justly famous -- and often parodied, as in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Ruddigore." And it is extremely unfair to rest the weight of this coloratura showpiece on the slender shoulders of a young and developing soprano. But Bel Cantanti opera company has done just that, casting Meghan McCall as Lucia; it is to McCall's tremendous credit that she rises so far. Literally rises: The high E-flats in the mad scene are stratospheric...Her Act 1 "Regnava nel Silenzio" was passionate... this opera belongs to Lucia -- and on Sunday, it belonged to McCall."

As Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor

Rich Massabny, Arlington Weekly News TV, Channel 69

"All the singers are top-notch, but I must pay special attention to Meghan McCall’s magnificent acting and voice in Act III’s “mad scene”. "

As Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor

T.L. Ponick, The Washington Times

" In the vocally challenging role of Lucia, soprano Meghan McCall was impressive, navigating her way through Donizetti's wicked ornamentation with smooth professionalism. She astutely underplayed Lucia's famous "Mad Scene," an extended solo that can get a little histrionic. This was a good dramatic choice as it added a great deal of sympathy to her character."

As the Princess (#1) in Conrad Susa's Transformations

Transformations: An Opera That Excites the Senses, by Karren LaLonde Alenier

"[I have] lots of praise for singers such as Kara Morgan and Meghan McCall because not only could they articulate notes and words well, but they could also do scintillating body rolls."

As the Princess (#1) in Conrad Susa's Transformations

Charles T. Downey, IONARTS

"Most of the young girl roles are played by the character called Princess, sung with naïveté and vocal strength by soprano Meghan McCall (reviewed previously in two Opera Bel Cantanti productions). In particular, Morgan and McCall had a beautiful duet in the Rapunzel scene ("A woman who loves another woman is forever young")."

An Interview and preview on snging Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro

Chris Slattery, The Gazette

OK, first things first: say it. You know you want to. Figaro. Fee-ga-ro. Figaro, Figaro, Fee-ga-ro. Now then, take note: The libretto at hand does not contain that most famous of operatic riffs, although it does have a main character with that marvelously melodic name: Figaro. So get it out of your system — Fee-ga-ro! — because Rossini’s ‘‘The Barber of Seville” is not the Figaro of the moment. We’re talking Figaro, the servant of the Count Almaviva, the fiancé of the housemaid Susanna, the hero of the opera written in 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Yes! Because here we are in the final month of 2006, the year that marked the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in Salzburg, Austria. Now, maybe you’ve spent a lot of time remembering the rascally 18th century musical genius, or maybe you’ve been remiss. Either way, when Bel Cantanti Opera Company stages ‘‘Le Nozze di Figaro” (‘‘The Marriage of Figaro”), you don’t need to be a Mozart maniac or even an ogler of operas to enjoy it. ‘‘Mozart wrote comedies,” points out Meghan McCall, the petite flame-haired soprano who plays Susanna, Figaro’s intended. ‘‘In ‘Nozze de Figaro,’ it’s so lighthearted. There are so many sticky situations people are trying to get out of left and right. Everyone’s running around, trying to find a back door.” McCall herself found a back door into opera performance, getting started at age 22. ‘‘Opera was never in my house,” admits the Silver Spring native, who is working on a master’s degree in opera performance at the University of Maryland. ‘‘My mother is now growing to love it as I do, but I was never exposed to it. I had to play catch up.” That wasn’t the case for Bryan Jackson, who plays Figaro. Born in Birmingham, Ala., and reared in Rochester, N.Y., Jackson grew up doing voiceovers: ‘‘I was one of those bratty kid actors,” he laughs. When he was 9, his mom took him to two operas in one weekend: ‘‘Aida” and ‘‘Porgy and Bess.” ‘‘She’s a music fan,” Jackson explains, ‘‘and she finds opera interesting, especially these two with their African themes.” She was hoping her son might turn out to be the next Al Jarreau, not a baritone singing operas all over the world, Jackson says, but that’s how it turned out. He studied labor relations in college at State University of New York at Potsdam (‘‘I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of working for the union”), but went on to study at the Opera School at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. ‘‘I came to music by way of theater, I was plucked from another discipline,” he says. ‘‘In my 20s, I discovered I could sing. I was the liberal arts student with the big voice.” Opera house Even though they are highly trained, accomplished and experienced opera singers, McCall and Jackson and many of the other performers in the Bel Cantanti Opera troupe are, well, young. That’s why general and artistic director Katerina Souvorova founded this little company in the first place. ‘‘Of course, the most important [thing] is, for the young singers, to give them an opportunity to perform nice music, healthy music, ‘bel canto’ music,” says Souvorova, a newly sworn-in U.S. citizen who retains the Old World accent of her native Belarus. Back there, she studied piano. ‘‘My professor in conservatory belonged to the very famous Russian piano school. The main criterion for her was you have to play the way people sing,” she says. So Souvorova started working with singers and coaching them. In the European tradition, she explains, there is always a strong connection between the conservatory and the opera house, and European opera companies are much more prolific than those in the U.S. ‘‘If you are good and you graduate, you enter the opera house,” she says. ‘‘Here the system is a little different.” Here, someone like McCall needs to land a contract (she has; she joins the Young Artists Program of the Cleveland Opera after graduation) or create a freelance artistic career like Jackson has. But Souvorova, who coaches opera at Catholic University, started Bel Cantanti four years ago to give young artists a place to showcase and to give audiences a taste of classic opera. Jewel box ‘‘For me, as a singer, my relationship to the audience is crucial,” says McCall. She has the pert prettiness of a 1960s ingénue, and an incongruously big soprano voice. ‘‘There’s an important dynamic with the audience, an energy that I feed off of, and that’s what’s so important about people coming to see opera. ‘‘Feeling that energy is what’s worth the ticket.” ‘‘Thirty dollars and you can almost touch her,” jokes Souvorova, and yet here in the small but perfectly formed theater of the Gaithersburg Arts Barn, it’s easy to see the truth of it. Every note, every gesture, every expression is delivered up close and personal, albeit in Italian with English surtitles. ‘‘Having sung on cavernous stages around the world, I can tell you it’s like singing into a cave,” says Jackson. ‘‘Here, the pressure of shouting something out to a 4,000-seat house is gone, and you can really pay attention to the colors, the layers. ‘‘Especially with Mozart, you want to have all those details in place.” Among the details are period costumes from the Washington Opera. McCall describes the effect as ‘‘an art form ... a fantasy land ... a fashion show.” Jackson figures the detailed costumes serve to reinforce the attention to detail that characterizes the whole Bel Cantanti experience. And Souvorova, ever the teacher, notes that ‘‘It’s very important to give them their experience: how to walk onstage, how to sit, how to speak, how to behave. ‘‘It gives them perspective.” It gives the audience perspective, too — perspective on opera. The Arts Barn stage is too small for the string quartet that will accompany performances at the Austrian Embassy and at the old Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, but Souvorova will accompany on piano. And McCall and Jackson promise that between the programs, the surtitles and the acting, the audience will completely get the plot, which goes kind of like this: Figaro wants to marry Susanna; his boss, the Count, has designs on her, too, which annoys everyone including the Countess Almaviva. But older woman Marcellina has a thing for Figaro, and she gets a wealthy doctor to help her set a snare for him. Music and mayhem ensue, as they say, and after a couple of hours (including intermission), everything settles down again. ‘‘If people don’t know anything about opera,” says McCall, ‘‘This is the one to start off with.”

As Susanna in "Le Nozze di Figaro"

T.L. Ponick, The Washington Times

Miss McCall, was a blooming, vivacious and confident Susanna

As Susanna in "Le Nozze di Figaro"

Rich Massabny, Arlington Weekly News TV, Channel 69

McCall’s beautiful voice and acting ability give credibility to her role as Susanna...giving a bell-like rendition of “Deh vieni, non tardar” (Beloved don’t delay).

As Susanna in "Le Nozze di Figaro"

Stephen Neal Dennis, www.allartsreview4you.com

Meghan McCall made a superlative Susanna on the opening night. The "group" arias in Acts III and IV were lovely in their blending of distinctive voices, though Meghan McCall was consistently the most outstanding voice in all combinations.

The Artistry of Francois Loup with Opera Lafayette

Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post

"Meghan McCall...danced and cavorted around the stage with frothy confidence, thespian humor and resplendent voice"

French Opera Gala "Salut a la France"

Charles T. Downey, IONARTS

"Meghan McCall was a very strong Marie in the group's La Fille du Régiment last year, and she had fine turns as Manon, as well as reprising two of the big Marie pieces."

French Opera Gala "Salut a la France"

Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post

"soprano Meghan McCall handled the "Chacun le sait" aria from "La Fille du Regiment" with humor and energy"

Joe Banno, The Washington Post

"The finest and most finished work came from . . . McCall and Lozano (her bell-like clarity and fine control and his juicy, Italianate ring at their most exciting in the love-duet from "Lucia di Lammermoor")."

As Marie in La Fille du Regiment

Charles T. Downey, IONARTS

"The two lead women were quite good, especially soprano Meghan McCall (Marie, the title role), who handled the vocal pyrotechnics and the comic acting of her role capably. She has just begun the masters program at the University of Maryland's Maryland Opera Studio, as a student of bass-baritone François Loup, so we will hopefully have more opportunities to hear her in this area for the next couple years."

As Gretel in Hansel and Gretel

Cecelia Porter, The Washington Post

"Soprano Meghan McCall combined a radiant, full-bodied voice with some tricky but smoothly and effectively executed stage antics."

Mozart's 250th birthday celebration at the Gaithersburg Arts Barn

Annabelle Corrick Beach , The West Highland Press

"The lyric soprano voice was beautifully and flawlessly operatic and revealed Mozart’s import and lively style."