In the title role, Claire Rutter gives a glorious display of bel canto, with elegant legato, supple crescendo and diminuendo, crisply articulated runs, stunning high notes and even a trill. She looks wonderful and moves regally.

The lustrous British soprano Claire Rutter in the title role...  has a gleaming and agile voice. She incisively dispatched the coloratura flights, which sometimes turn demonic, and was engrossing during the long stretches of dramatic recitative. 

Her singing blew me away: unflagging power, crystal clear coloratura.

Claire Rutter is magnificent in the title role. Donizetti always tests his sopranos with show-off coloratura arias that demand a powerful voice, extreme control and a wide range, all of which Rutter displayed excellently.

The excellent Claire Rutter ... makes a real fist of the all-pervasive coloratura, emracing the limpid embellishments and nailing the whopping high notes.

Claire Rutter in the title role has a sumptuous voice, rich and full, and hits the high notes with stunning ease.

Claire Rutter demonstrates a real flair for bel canto style and spins out a seductive, polished and dramatic sound.

Rutter’s muscular coloratura, idiomatic phrasing and sweetly-spun high notes are handsomely delivered.

The talented British soprano Claire Rutter in the title role offered pearly coloratura and top-note precision.

Claire Rutter is wonderfully cast as Lucrezia, with her coloratura precisely pitched and her voice strong and warm throughout.

Claire Rutter has the bel canto style, the top notes, the ability to spin a phrase so that it takes on a beauty of its own.

Claire Rutter is the only British soprano with all the requisite vocal thrills and spills for Tosca, and she delivers big time

"At Grange Park, the technical demands of Bellini's Norma hold no terrors for the extraordinary Claire Rutter, who embraces the meditative hymn of "Casta diva", the coloratura fireworks of the confrontation with Pollione and the Gluckian sublime of her final self-sacrifice with an ease, command and tonal splendour which I haven't heard equalled for a generation.

"...But it's all worth it to hear Rutter's fabulous singing: why isn't she booked into the Met, La Scala, and Covent Garden?"

"...Claire Rutter's extraordinarily vivid and generous performance in the title role... This bel canto Everest was impressively well within her reach, and Rutter even raised the summit a notch by singing 'Casta Diva' up a tone,  in the original key of G.

"All the bel canto effects - steely coloratura, flexible phrasing - were there in their mannered glory, and she had the power for some spectacularly dramatic vocal broadsides in the Act I confrontation with Adalgisa and, even more memorably, in Act 2, when she sets out to kill her children.

"Rutter easily and tirelessly dominated the evening".

"Claire Rutter's Norma discovers her lover's infidelity - and wrestles with her conscience - with total verismo... Rutter's gorgeously steely soprano... Rutter is the star."

"A brief word of praise for Grange Park's roof-raising Norma... In Claire Rutter, Grange Park has secured a thrilling, starry Norma, her voice secure even in the stratospheric top notes. The entire audience leapt to their feet when Rutter took her bow."

"Bellini's opera about a Druid priestess who breaks her vows by entering into a relationship with a Roman enemy is not only one of the peaks of the bel canto repertoire, but also includes what is arguably the most challenging role ever written for the soprano voice. The range of technical skills required, plus its musical and dramatic demands, not to mention its sheer length, place it beyond the means of all but the most outstanding interpreters. It says much for the artistry of Claire Rutter that she assumes it so superbly ... an exceptional portrayal."

But the standout performance is Claire Rutter's Aida, whose tender lyricism and pure tone are shown off best in the daunting aria, O Patria Mia.

Claire Rutter's Aida has both the heft and delicacy for the title role, and she rides the big ensembles to thrilling effect.

In two runs of performances now Claire Rutter has made an extraordinary impression in the much-vaunted and highly challenging title role. She sings the role with great subtlety, finesse, and imagination, making light of the extraordinary difficulties.