For the final movement,  Mahler turned to a song he had previously written, “Das himmlische Leben” (The Heavenly Life), which offers a child’s vision of a feast in heaven, presided over and prepared by the saints. Soprano Lauren Snouffer is a familiar figure locally from her performances with Seraphic Fire and the Master Chorale of South Florida. Her high, light voice and clear top tones, matched by incisive declamation, sounded appropriately heavenly.

Snouffer’s gleaming middle range and soft tones cast a spell, bringing the child’s imagined portrait vividly to life. The hushed conclusion was beautifully rendered. Honeck held his hands in the air for over a minute, allowing the silence to add to Mahler’s expression of contentment. Admirably, the audience remained quiet and refrained from applauding until he finally lowered his hands and nodded.
South Florida Classical Review, Lawrence Budmen

“No music on earth could be compared to ours,” narrates Lauren Snouffer, a beautiful singer with a vocal and personal demeanor designed for this music. The speaking quality of this soprano’s singing in German is a highly intelligible pleasure to hear. Together with Honeck and NWS, Snouffer’s narration is an exponentially satisfying resolution to Mahler’s 4th.
Planet Hugill, Robert Hugill

Soprano Lauren Snouffer made her house debut as Sarah, Joe’s younger sister, but the role only revealed the tip of her talents.
Seen and Heard International, Rick Perdian

Snouffer was perfectly cast for making this oratorio-esque opera operatic…Abundant stage presence radiated from her big, beautiful eyes, easily visible even from the twentieth row…She negotiated ‘Endless pleasure’ with resplendent spin and a tight vibrato. Her sweet timbre befitted the character’s earnestness, and all those florid runs sounded pleasurable to produce…Semele gets a lot of great music but her best show piece is probably ‘Myself I shall adore.’ Snouffer delivered weightless runs…Snouffer tossed the whole thing off playfully and the audience stopped the show with applause. You have to bring a vivacity to the role or the whole affair can become a bit static. Snouffer thoroughly won the evening.
Opera Wire, Benjamin Torbert

Whatever else one can say about Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking the Waves, one thing is certain: It contains one of the most demanding roles for soprano in all opera…Lauren Snouffer turns in a powerhouse performance as the heroine…And as Bess develops from the girlish fiancée of the opening to the self-sacrificing wife of the climax, she has to radiate commitment at every step. Snouffer does that in spades. Compelling as she has been in roles as varied as Cherubino in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and the cheerful Sister Constance in Poulenc’s The Dialogues of the Carmelites, the intensity and vividness of Snouffer’s Bess on Saturday delivered a whole new impact. Snouffer built the intensity rapidly. She sketched in Bess’ first description of Jan, which opens the opera, in light, playful tones; her voice soared and blossomed to reveal the new bride’s passion. When Jan’s departure for the rig brought on Bess’ first burst of agitation, Snouffer sang with an edge and urgency that suggested Bess had more anxiety waiting to come out. And as events pushed Bess to new emotional extremes, Snouffer’s voice rang with more and more abandon, even taking on the grittiness of desperation at times. When Bess channeled what she imagined as the voice of God—embodied musically and visually by the elders—her dry, bloodless half-singing made the aura all the more nightmarish. Yet Snouffer pulled back from all that and returned to sweet, quiet tones when Bess harkened to the hope and devotion that sustained her. Dramatically, Snouffer also faced a tall order from revival director Sara Brodie: While charting Bess’ trajectory from smiling bride to fatalistic man-chaser, the directors at one point demonstrated Bess’ abjectness by having her shed nearly all her clothes as she begged a man to take her. Snouffer played that out with the same conviction she brought every scene, be it idyllic or horrific.
Texas Classical Voice, Steven Brown

Soprano Lauren Snouffer triumphed in this leading role, mastering Bess’s several modes – girlish delight and naiveté, sexual ecstasy, searing emotional pain, and spiritual transport – both audibly and visually. Her singing voice has an attractively full and smooth tone, but her dramatic power lay in her ability to modulate quickly between youthful-sounding lightness to eerie madness or to strident desperation. Snouffer’s performance alone is worth the price of admission...
Houston Chronicle, Gregory Barnett

Lauren Snouffer embodies Mélisande’s fragile strangeness with a radiant lyric soprano.
Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell

Lauren Snouffer makes the most exquisitely sung – and expressively acted – Pamina I have ever seen. Catch her if you can.
inews.co.uk, Michael Church

Here we get close to the depressive and clairvoyant Justine – phenomenally portrayed by the vocally agile Lauren Snouffer. She becomes a classic opera heroine, dressed in white, seemingly sleepwalking with her stratospheric soprano calling out to a dark and uncomprehending outside world.
Dagens Nyheter, Camilla Lundberg

In this iconic “trousers role,” Snouffer literally bounds into Act I and never stops bounding. Playing a boy who’s continually in love with someone, anyone, but the Countess is his unrequited desire, she’s an utter delight…It’s her voice, of course, that seals the deal, as she gloriously sings her heart out with Mozart as perfect accompanist. Snouffer’s a scene stealer of the highest order, and it takes quite a lot to make an impression with so many other scene stealers in sight in this picturesque co-production from Houston Grand Opera and Glyndebourne Festival.
Houston Press, D.L. Groover

Vor allem Lauren Snouffer, die Sängerin der Titelrolle, weiss die Expressivität der Gesangslinien mit ihrem blühenden Sopran zu nutzen. In ihrer Darstellung der Griet wird die Zerrissenheit der Figur zwischen den banalen Hausarbeitspflichten als Dienstmädchen und ihren aufkeimenden künstlerischen Ambitionen berührend deutlich. Überdies verfügt Snouffer szenisch über ein reicheres Mienenspiel als die etwas wächsern-maskenhafte Scarlett Johansson in der gleichnamigen Verfilmung von Peter Webber.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Christian Wildhagen

L’Américaine Lauren Snouffer, qui reprend le rôle, est plus qu’un prix de consolation : alter ego vocal de Hannigan, dont elle fut la doublure pour la création mondiale de Written on Skin, de George Benjamin, elle possède une belle et originale personnalité, qui donne envie de la revoir et de la réentendre bientôt.
Télérama, Sophie Bourdais

Lauren Snouffer…incarne Gerda. Son timbre doux comme une neige poudreuse reste homogène sur un large ambitus très sollicité. Elle s’acquitte avec succès et précision des difficultés rythmiques de sa partition, mais aussi des défis techniques comme ces lentes vocalises, sinusoïdes parcourant les registres par des lignes escarpées qu’elle accompagne d’un geste de la main.
Olyrix, Damien Dutilleul

Snouffer has the voice and the attitude to grow into a memorable Lulu. She played the temptress with delicious abandon, feline grace and a light, clear soprano that rose easily to coloratura.
Opera News, Roberto Herrscher

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