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“Amongst the singers I would like to single out Jessica Rivera whose voice has a dark timbre, exhibiting a sonorous and sensous lower range. “
Zeitschichten

"The third major role is Nuria, Margarita's most devoted student, movingly performed by the vocally luminous young soprano Jessica Rivera."
Anthony Tommasini - New York Times
"Seeing Life as Passion Play, in García Lorca's Shadow"

“Jessica Rivera pours out gleaming sound as Xirgu's student.”
Richard Dyer - The Boston Globe

“Singing very well was the young soprano Jessica Rivera, in the role of Nuria, Margarita's student. She showed a solid technique and a pure, interesting sound - a sound not unlike Dawn Upshaw's, actually. A major career form Ms. Rivera seems inevitable.”
Jay Nordlinger - The New York Sun

"...Xirgu's student, Nuria (the fine Jessica Rivera) wondered if Lorca knew that his fate would mirror Pineda's."
Chris Shull - Opera Now

"Jessica Rivera as Margarita's student Nuria, embodied horror at the past and a faith touch of hope for the future."
Simon Williams - Opera News

"...the vocal lines took on a hallucinatory power as sung by...the silvery soprano Jessica Rivera as Xirgu's student, Nuria."
John von Rhein - Chicago Tribune

"As Nuria, Jessica Rivera offers a pure, beautifully projected voice."
John Stege - Santa Fe Reporter

"Jessica Rivera sang Nuria with a gorgeous high soprano."
Mark Swed - Los Angeles Times

"Jessica Rivera was a gentle, lyric, and touching Nuria, with a silvery soprano and a character alternating between impulsiveness and obedience."
Craig Smith - Pasa Tiempo

Online Reviews:

"No less satisfying was Jessica Rivera’s feisty, outspoken maid, Despina. She possesses a light, charming soprano with enough punch and flexibility to mock and provoke when needed. Her Despina was a delight from start to finish, which is exactly as it should be. Ms. Rivera also gave us a surprisingly effective psychological moment during the lyrical tempo change in ‘In uomini, in soldati’ where Despina suffered a sudden wave of bitterness towards her own lost lover – a memorable moment."
Peter Frisch - Santa Barbara News-Press

"Ms. Gustafson, Mr. Gilfry and Jessica Rivera, as Anastasia, were all terrific."
Bernard Holland - The New York Times

"A recent song, "How Slow the Wind," for soprano and string quartet,...demonstrated [Osvaldo] Golijov's increasing ability to find the core of emotional expression in pure music, every transparent gesture beautifully conceived.  Jessica Rivera was the shining soprano."
Mark Swed - Los Angeles Times

"...soprano soloist Jessica Rivera's radiant voice emerged magically from the choral texture."
Wayne Lee Gay - Fort Worth Star Telgram

"Soloists Keith Phares and Jessica Rivera were outstanding throughout the two-hour-plus program that culled a few of the gems from musicals by Rodgers and Hammerstein...Rivera, who has the sort of lyric soprano voice that is naturally ideal for these songs, also brought something special to every number, including a lovely reading of Hello Young Lovers. And her duet with Phares on Surry with a Fringe on Top made you want see these two play Curly and Laurey."
Punch Shaw - Fort Worth Star Telegram

"The program began with Barber's Hermit Songs...Jessica Rivera was the excellent soprano... [She] gave good character to each song and let the music do the rest...Rivera's clear soprano delivery was also notable for a lovely quality that resists definition."
Darrell Rosenbluth - New York Concert Review

"The performance of the young soprano was impeccable and earned her the acclaim of her audience, the recognition of her colleagues, and a position as Resident Artist with the Los Angeles Opera..."
Damian Kessler - La Opinion

"Jessica Rivera sang Mélisande with shimmering clarity."
Michael Smith - The Santa Barbara Independent

"The smaller parts are all sung well, notably Jessica Rivera [as one of] the Gypsies."
Michael Smith - The Santa Barbara News-Press

Emerging young artists are the lifeblood of the classical music business; without them, the field would turn, in short order, into a museum filled with mostly dull relics. Instead, they keep turning up, to our delight. Sunday afternoon at Pepperdine University in Malibu, the young artist who emerged, highly accomplished, fully equipped and most promising was soprano Jessica Rivera. The California-trained soprano has a healthy voice, the beginnings of expertise in connecting words and sound, admirable enunciation and high notes to burn. She should go far.

What she delivered, on the prestigious Sunday afternoon series in Raitt Recital Hall, was a program of important music by American composers, writers from Mrs. H.H.A. Beach (born in 1867) to Alan Smith (born in 1955). Also included was Samuel Barber's masterpiece, the "Hermit Songs" (1953) and four pieces by the great but sometimes underrated Lee Hoiby. To all of these varied musical expressions, Rivera and her able collaborator, pianist Elvia Puccinelli, applied pointed musicality, intelligent pacing, generous but not finicky articulations.

Smith's inventive and handsome settings of four folk songs, in which Rivera and Puccinelli were joined by violist David Walther, became the high point of the afternoon. Here, the soprano's dramatic presentation matched the ardor and contrasts of Smith's brilliant arrangements, with pianist and violist contributing wholeheartedly to the total. Rivera's first encore was Copland's "Why Do They Shut Me Out of Heaven?"

copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times