Calleja's most treasurable quality is that he treats the music lovingly, often beginning and finishing his phrases with a caressing mezza voce."Gay City News
REVIEWS: ELISIR D'AMORE
1 performance of Donizetti's opera Elisir d'amore at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, April 2009
An Unamplified Voice
“[...] Nor can Nemorino carry the entire show, though Joseph Calleja gave it a good shot. I've written much about him before, and I won't try to describe his instrument yet another time. Enough to say that on the night it sounded like the unquestionably significant thing it is. His generally grand and ardent lines were a bit clipped by coordination hiccups (in this regard the show sounded like what it was: Calleja's first and only time in this production, probably with minimal rehearsal) and a certain restlessness that's appeared in his singing this season, breaking the old-style, nearly-decadent composure and firmness of underlying time that he's shown before (most recently in Macbeth). Whether the latter is a phase in his singing or just some difference of conductors, I'm not sure. Still, a remarkable display. There is very little clowning in Calleja's stage persona, nor much of the raw everyman appeal of a Pavarotti. But he still made Nemorino work, not so much as a good-hearted village idiot but one too earnest and naive for plain success at love, both hapless and dignified at once."
An Unamplfied Voice (blog), 22 May 2009
Classical TV
“[...] when Calleja stepped in at the Metropolitan Opera for Villazón recently as Nemorino in Donizetti's L’Elisir d’Amore, he demonstrated a winning stage presence and great comic élan. His voice was even stronger and more assured than on his recordings. And his performance of that operatic chestnut "Una Furtiva Lagrima" brought the house down. That's saying something: Even in this age of the automatic standing ovation, it is still rare to hear such ardent cheering at the Met for a relative unknown."
Robert J Hughes, Classical TV
Gay City News
"The young Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja was always scheduled for the last show on April 22, and this proved to be the best of the run. A tall husky man with a broad open face and warmly engaging personality, Calleja's voice is still developing yet already a thing of complex and distinctive beauty. The sound is large yet narrowly focused, with a slightly reedy vibrato in the middle that gives the sound a plaintive urgency. The timbre is honeyed and the top notes in recent years have taken on a more focused golden ring. But Calleja's most treasurable quality is that he treats the music lovingly, often beginning and finishing his phrases with a caressing mezza voce. Also showing strong stage presence and acting ability, Calleja performed Nemorino as a naive yet exuberant teddy bear with a heart bigger than his brain that ultimately took him where he needed to be [...] By the end of the evening, the entire audience seemed to be feeling the effects of Dulcamara's love potion and gave Calleja a roaring ovation as he took the final star bow."
Eli Jacobson, Gay City News, 14 May 2009
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THE METROPOLITAN OPERA, Elisir d'amore
22 April 2009
| Nemorino | Joseph Calleja |
| Adina | Nicole Cabell |
| Dr Dulcamara | Simone Alaimo |
| Belcore | Franco Vasallo |
| Conductor | Riccardo Frizza |
| Orchestra/choir | The Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orchestra |
