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Madison Opera - Lucia di Lammermoor
"Quinn Kelsey was darkly villainous as the selfish Enrico"
John W. Barker - Isthmus/Daily Page
Metropolitan Opera - La Boheme
"Quinn Kelsey had a wonderful Met debut as Schaunard. This American baritone not only sings accurately, he sings with real flavor."
Jay Nordlinger - New York Sun
Lyric Opera of Chicago - La Boheme
"Kelsey's major-league instrument limned Puccini's baritone line resplendently, and one could be forgiven a stray fantasy of hearing that voice (in a few seasons) as Verdi's Iago."
Mark Thomas Ketterson - Opera News
Quinn Kelsey's More Than Just a Pretty Voice
"Quinn Kelsey has a fine, full and fluid baritone voice, but it was his sheer musicianship that made his Monday night recital at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater so exciting.
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Kelsey's voice is large, healthy, versatile and attractive but, in truth, there are many others out there that are equally sumptuous. What makes him special -- and very special indeed -- is the way he moves into whatever material he sings and inhabits it entirely. William Butler Yeats once mused poetically on knowing the dancer from the dance; it is similarly difficult to separate Kelsey from the music he sings.
He sets a mood immediately -- whether the loopy, comical world of Polyphemus the giant in Handel's "Acis and Galatea" (the aria, here described as "I Rage, I Melt, I Burn," is much better known as "O Ruddier Than the Cherry") or the bleakest despair of the Mussorgsky "Songs and Dances of Death." He is always believable -- indeed, he seems to be living through whatever he is singing about before our eyes and ears.
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956) was not a great composer, but he was an unmistakable one: The three settings of Shakespeare that Kelsey sang, with their tart, tidy dissonances, could have been written by no other artist. A set of three songs by Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler's cycle "Songs of a Wayfarer" all come out of mid-19th century, middle-European folk traditions, but Kelsey imbued the Mahler works with just the additional trace of fin de si?cle neuroticism that they demand. And it would be hard to imagine a more harrowing reading of the ghostly, ghastly Mussorgsky songs."
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Tim Page - The Washington Post
'Butterfly' soars with fluid visuals
"And speaking of Sharpless, Quinn Kelsey shone throughout the evening. Everything comes easy from his beautiful baritone voice. His persona had no flaws and the audience loved him."
Valeria Wenderoth - Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Ready for the Met
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Alice Keesing - Midweek Magazine
Time Out Chicago - #2 of 20 people to watch in 2007
"Burly and imposing, Quinn Kelsey has emerged as a major presence in the Chicago opera scene. But it’s not just his size that has garnered attention: The Hawaiian native began turning heads with his wall-shaking voice while studying at the Ryan Opera Center, the Lyric’s training program, from 2003 through last spring. The talented baritone grew up singing in the insular arena of Hawaiian opera. “I probably know them all,” he says when asked if he knows of any other Hawaiian opera singers. But his whole family is in the business, and it was his music-teacher mother who pushed him to be a vocalist. Kelsey has landed an agent at Columbia Artists Management, a powerful player in the classical music industry, and he has high hopes of singing “at the world’s big companies—La Scala, the Met, the Berlin Staatskapelle.” This year, he reprises his comic role as Ping, a Chinese courtier, in Puccini’s Turandot, beginning Saturday 13 at Lyric Opera."
Marc Geelhoed - Time Out Chicago
Opera Cleveland - Gala Concert
"A few seized their moments splendidly. Baritone Quinn Kelsey revealed a voice of honeyed timbre and an ability to plumb expressive depths in Riccardo's aria, 'Ah! Per sempre io ti perdei,' from Bellini's 'I Puritani.'
The quartet from Verdi's 'Rigoletto' suggested that Kelsey one day will be commanding in the title role, and his teaming with the fine bass Jordan Bisch in a duet from 'I Puritani' was further confirmation of his artistic gifts."
Donald Rosenberg - The Plain Dealer
Lyric Opera of Chicago - Turandot
"...baritone Quinn Kelsey floating admirable legato lines as Ping..."
John von Rhein - Chicago Metromix
Lyric Opera of Chicago - Turandot
"...Hawaiian baritone Quinn Kelsey's Ping is a superb anchor..."
Andrew Patner - Chicago Sun-Times
Grant Park Music Festival - Orff's CARMINA BURANA
"The hardest-working soloist of the night was baritone Quinn Kelsey, whose part has the lion's share of the songs. He heralded the joys of spring, the woes of wasted youth, the habits of a drunken abbot and finally, with the soprano, the
eager anticipation of love. Kelsey's voice grew warmer and more full-throated as the evening progressed, telling the tales with more and more passion."
Dorothy Andries - Pioneer Press
Lyric Opera of Chicago - Rigoletto
"Quinn Kelsey's booming pronouncement of Monterone's curse would scare the hell out of anyone."
Mark Thomas Ketterson - Opera News
Lyric Opera of Chicago - Rigoletto
"Quinn Kelsey's Monterone sends a chill down your back when he pronounces his fateful curse."
John von Rhein - Chicago Metromix
Lyric Opera of Chicago - Carmen
"The solid comprimario forces included...a dose of aural luxury in Quinn Kelsey's plush-velvet Morales."
Mark Thomas Ketterson - Opera News
BBC Cardiff Singer of the world 2005 - Profile
Click Here to see profile
Baritone grew up in a musical Island family
Article about Quinn Kelsey: Click Here
Wayne Harada - Honolulu Advertiser
Marilyn Horne Foundation concert "The Song Continues: A Feast of Folksongs"
"The most memorable moments of the recital belonged to baritone Quinn Kelsey. Mr. Kelsey's ravishing baritone caressed the air, its considerable beauty anchored by fully felt emotions. Lieder singers must be storytellers, and Mr. Kelsey used timing and enunciation to make whatever he sang absorbing."
Patrick Giles - New York Sun
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