Amneris – Scottish Opera

Scottish Opera’s new production of Verdi’s Aida has its good points. Most of them involve the glamorous Rosalind Plowright. Plowright spectacularly seizes her moment of glory, the electrifying Judgement Scene, singing with thrilling, if wild, abandon and going stark-staring bonkers, her tresses dishevelled, her virgin-white evening gown bloodied. Indeed, Plowright is so much the protagonist of this staging that the opera might be renamed Amneris.
Hugh Canning – The Sunday Times

In fact, were it not for the power of Rosalind Plowright’s portrayal of Amneris’ disintegration in the fourth act, much of this production would not be so much laudable as laughable. As it is, Aida is worth seeing if only for the sheer beauty and affectiveness of that closing scene.
Alexander Bryce – Scotland on Sunday

The best performance came from Rosalind Plowright, as Amneris, returning to the mezzo range in which she started her career. The music lies securely in her voice, she has natural grandeur of utterance, and it was heart-warming to see her enjoying a richly deserved success.
Rodney Mills – The Times

I shall remember the evening because of the sterling performance of Amneris by Rosalind Plowright. The mezzo range suits her ideally now, she sang with total conviction and lustrous rich tone and she looked stunning is a succession of regal gowns. Her magnetic command of the stage recalled Marie Collier to me. A triumph for her.
Michael Kennedy – Sunday Telegraph

Amneris – Opera New Zealand

However the star of a strong cast has to be English soprano turned mezzo, Rosalind Plowright as Amneris. Striking to look at, Plowright showed that lower reaches of the mezzo hold no terrors for her as she fills the house with singing of the highest class. Her final arias in Act 4 Scene 1 are memorable and her stagecraft in a role she clearly knows very well should be experienced by all opera lovers.
John Button - The Dominion

...gorgeous costumes, especially that for the Amneris of English mezzo Rosalind Plowright, who brought a singular fluidity, sympathy and expressiveness, of both voice and movement to the role. What pathos in her Ohime Morir mi sento in Act 4; one almost felt more pity for her than for Aida at the end.
Lindia Taylor - Evening Post

...But it is Rosalind Plowright, as the wicked Amneris, who steals the show literally. Her Act 4 histrionics are pure Joan Crawford, but there is an intelligence in this singer's acting, and the voice is capable of raw power, as well as subtle shading.
Michael Heath - City Voice

This Aida presents us with two stunning singers - mezzo soprano Rosalind Plowright and tenor Carl Tanner - who have quite simply the best voices heard in Wellington for years. As Amneris and Radames, the two Egyptian protagonists, they are quite superb, their voices capable of everything from heart wrenching pathos to blazing pathos. Rosalind Plowright in particular creates a fascinatingly complex and powerful character as Amneris.
Simon Tipping - Capital Times

Amneris - Chandos Records

…..that becomes all too obvious when set beside Rosalind Plowright’s blinding Amneris, a role she sings as to the manner born, with generous phrasing, rich focused tone and a wealth of meaning as regards enunciation of Edmunds Tracey’s translation. This work, as much as any, calls for Italian-sounding voices and a smell of the stage. Except when Plowright is involved it doesn’t really receive those essentials here.
Rodney Milnes – Opera Magazine

If ever there were a n occasion where Verdi’s opera ought to be entitled ‘Amneris’, this is it. In that role Rosalind Plowright, now back in mezzo territory after her exploits as a soprano, gives a blinding account of the Egyptian princess’s love, jealousy and eventual remorse, thus confirming the fact that her character is the most interesting as regards development, in the whole work. All her emotions are expressed in gleamingly dramatic tone and, above all, in an expressive use of Edmund Tracey’s translation, for once entirely justifying giving a work in the vernacular. Her incisive, bold and vocally resonant portrayal is as good a reason as any for acquiring this set…….Plowright’s brilliant attack is unerringly caught, happily so as her superb performance is the best reason for buying this set.
Alan Blythe – Gramophone – April 2002

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