Dr. Ying Yeh

Soprano, Ying Yeh's performances have been described as “A true lyric coloratura soprano with fine range, dramatic power and sure coloratura technique.” By the Copenhagen Berlinske Tidende and as“A Star of tomorrow is soprano Ying Yeh. Her portrayal of Lucia was not the usual put-upon heroine” “The soprano impressed one with her brightly focused lyric singing” Recently she has been invited as a honored guest-singer, to join the two most celebrating performances of 50th Chinese Birthday at Tian-an Men Square and the Temple of New Millennium.

The audience hailed her world-class performance.” by Opera News. Her repertoire encompasses roles from opera, oratorio and solo literature. She is one of China's most celebrated singers and the subject of countless Chinese newspaper, magazine, records and TV interviews as well as documentary films.

During the past fifteen years, Ying Yeh has performed leading roles with Washington Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Piedmont Opera Theater, Taiwan Province Opera……She has also concertized with N.Y. Mid America Symphony, Gubbio Music Festival (Italy), Geneva Choir, Tivoli Orchestra 
(Tivoli Music Festival in Denmark), National Arts Center Orchestra (Canada), Aspen Music Festival, Sinphonia da Camera, Recital in Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Kaufmann Hall, Krannert Center, Pacific Music Festival in Japan, Singapore, Taiwan…….

Luciano Pavarotti, stated that “Miss Ying Yeh possesses a soprano voice of beauty, assured technique and a sure sense of musical style. As a winner of the Luciano Pavarotti International Singing Competition, I predicted that she would have a brilliant future in opera.” This prediction is coming true. “Truly this is a splendid voice and talent and her opportunities in the United States and Europe are infinite.”

Ying Yeh makes her home in Chico, California where she teaches at department of music of California State University, Chico, as the director of the Opera Workshop and professor in voice. 

In the past she has won the First Prize of the Metropolitan Opera Audition, Luciano Pavarotti International Singing Competition, Bel Canto Competition, the China National Conservatories and Music Schools competition, Liederkranz Foundation Audition, The Kate Kinley Memorial Award and many others……

Ying Yeh has received Master's and Doctoral degrees at SUNY and Artist Diploma at Univ. of Illinois.

From the Press . . .

“A star of tomorrow in soprano Ying Yeh. Her portrayal of Lucia was not the usual put-upon heroine.... the soprano impressed one with her brightly focused lyric singing. The audience hailed her world-class performance.” ------Opera News

“Ying Yeh has an agility and clarity of voice.” ------The New York Times

“Ying Yeh was the most impressive vocally and acted well, the international-class singer.” ------The Washington Post

“The cast was most impressive, especially the lyric soprano, Ying Yeh.” ------Opera London

“Splendid interpretation of soloist Ying Yeh. The soprano was a true revelation of Gubbio Festival, gifted with vocal technique that is also ideal for Mozart, with an excellent technique, this singer unites to her natural talent, a stage presence and maturity that are not common. These gifts bring her to a level to which few aspire.” ------ Italy Covriere della Umbria

“Her coloratura has an effortless ease....and she reached the high C so painlessly, one feels this note lies in the center of her register, not at the extreme top. A coming star!” ------Copenhagen Politiken 

“Especially the soprano Ying Yeh has an enormous talent. She showed a true lyric soprano with fine range, dramatic power and sure coloratura technique. The sound is right and her ability to characterize fully developed. What Ying achieved with the romantic repertoire is lavish.” ------Copenhagen Berlinske Tidende 

“Ying Yeh's recital nary a warm-up selection. Yeh launched into Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim, filling the Academy Ballroom with an immense yet crystalline sonority. Excellent schooling and practice habits, no doubt account for the solidity with which this lyric voice is supported. The voice is capable of sinuous, elastic phrasing...Let the Bright Seraphim proved a brilliant start to the bel cant demands of Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini, which Yeh met brilliantly. Yeh demonstrated a dramatic understanding of the operatic selections that one hopes she will develop to the fullest. The prima donna role is clearly hers.” ------The Philadelphia Inquirer

As LUCIA “Soprano shines in Piedmont Opera Theatre's Lucia di Lammermoor. A star shone in Winston-Salem Friday night, a star of the East, Lucia di Lammermoor opened at the Stevens Center, and possibly outshone every leading lady the company has seen. Miss Yeh made the role her own in a remarkable performance. The joys of Miss Yeh's voice are a crystal tone and sustained notes that swell and fade as seamlessly as a tide. She can scale nearly any height, pop off a note with ease, pull it back and hold it at a breathtaking pianissimo... Miss Yeh's performance was a lesson in coloratura: there was never a question of pitch, with placement so accurate that scales and intervals became almost visual.” ------Winston-Salem Journal

As LUCIA “A VOICE TO GO NUTS OVER. If all madness were as pleasing to the ear as that portrayed by Ying Yeh, then more opera would be staged in mental asylums.....Ying's powerfully clear soprano was complimented by some degree of acting ability. She managed some marvelously loony faces during her mad scene. She also hit the famed high notes without faltering. More impressive was the soprano and flute duet during the cadenzas of the Mad Scene. Since a flute rarely goes flat once tuned, it forces the soprano to sing with perfect intonation, which Ying accomplished admirably.....Ying received well-deserved, thunderous applause from the audience after Lucia's first aria, and, of course, after the Mad Scene. At the conclusion of the performance, she reviewed a nearly unanimous standing ovation.” ------ Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette 

As LUCIA “The opening night performance of Lucia di Lammermoor at IL Opera Theatre was far away the most exciting evening of opera I have experienced at the Krannert Center in at least a decade...All this enthusiasm was the performance of Ying Yeh as Lucia... She was able to demonstrate in Lucia the full range of her vocal skills as well as the power of her acting talent. Lucia is a tour de force role and Ying Yeh was dazzling in the coloratura bravura sections as well as in the moments of quieter pathos. I have never seen the opera audience in that theatre reach such a pitch of excited response... At the end, she brought the house down... In an opera of the bel canto tradition of Lucia di Lammermoor, there is one element absolutely essential for success and that is great singing. I think we heard it last night from Ying Yeh as Lucia.” ------Broadcast on Will Radio

As LUCIA “Ying Yeh provided a consistently strong performance as Lucia that was often electrifying. The role demands frequently singing in the stratosphere and, Ying had ample ability in that regard. The many coloratura passages were thrilling to hear, and she especially negotiated the lower and upper registers of her voice. Her handling of the mad scene was amazing. In this vocal tour de force Ying completely dominated the stage, while the lover she played slipped into a world visible only to herself. Ying marvelously portrayed various states of estacy, frenzy, and more subtle nuances of madness before she dramatically expired center stage.”------Alendar News

As BUTTERFLY “Her exemplary acting and fine singing were the central focus in a superbly mounted production. Her portrayal of Butterfly's change from youthful coyness in the first act to a devastating realization of her fate in the third was powerful, and her silken sound was wonderful to hear. In the aria ‘Un bel di,' her soaring lines created one of the many emotional high points in the opera.” ------Trial Style

As BUTTERFLY “POT floats, soars in ‘Butterfly.' Ying Yeh proved more than equal to the considerable demands of her role. Her voice was so warm, clear, and well controlled. And she is as convincing an actress as she is a singer. Her stylized gestures were perfectly suited to the stereotyped Japanese ambiance of the opera, and the scenes with her son were particularly affecting.” ------ Greensboro News & Records 

As VIOLETTA “Soprano Ying Yeh was magnificent as Violetta, she sang a most believable Violetta last Friday. Her voice remained beautiful down to the last cough. She moved gracefully, when she sings, a pure, generous voice fills the hall. She triumphed, because her performance was so powerful that by the death scene there was silence in the house.” ------Campaign-Urbana News-Gazette

As VIOLETTA “The star of the evening was Ying Yeh, whose work still continued to delight and occasionally to amaze. Her Violetta was a finely wrought and delicately acted one, and the vocal characterization was in the main effective and affecting. Her forte is clearly brilliant coloratura. The best indicated last night of why her Lucia of last year was such a sensational success was her ‘Sempre libera' This was brilliant singing and in the runs and trills there was also an element of the demonic, conveying some of the mad abandon of the character. Aside from the fire-work, her Violetta was moving in Act II and 
in the death scene.” ------Broadcast on Will Radio

As JULIETTE “This Romeo and Juliet Is a 2-Tissue Triumph. Such a production packed an emotional wallop Friday, sobs were heard and tears shed in the Stevens Center.....nearly anything sung by soprano Ying Yeh as Juliet. Miss Yeh's voice ran like a Rolls-, purring..... 
She wowed them again, not only with agile coloratura, but also with long top notes that rang soft and pure.” ------Winston-Salem Journal

As JULIETTE “ ‘Romeó et Juliette' Brings Tears. Ms. Yeh was Lucia last year, displayed both a fine voice and an enhanced acting ability. They made the young heroine appealing and touching. 
Her performance of the first act ‘Je veux vivre' was a virtuoso moment. Yeh's charming voice and portrayal blended wonderfully.....The final moments of the opera, so wrenchingly acted by Yeh, must moisten the eyes of even the most stoic. The production gave Ying Yeh's beautifully voiced Juliette.” ------Greensboro News & Record 

As JULIETTE “ Undeniable talent and presence of Ying Yeh, who played Juliette. Her high, unearthly soprano conveys the intense emotions of the virginal Juliette. Yeh sings the famous ‘Waltz song' in which she dreams of the raptures of love. Yeh's voice effortlessly glides up and down the virtuoso turns of the ‘Waltz song.' In her final aria, the `potion aria' of Act III, her voice shows its dramatic power. She convinces the audience, through her singing alone, that she is Juliette, about to die for love.”------------The Daily Illini