PRESS

Seen and Heard International, Rick Perdian

“Equally impressive was Chrystal E. Williams as Rebecca, Parker’s first wife, whom he married when he was fifteen and she three years older. At the end of the opera, Williams was heartbreaking when she sang bitterly that her husband abandoned her and their children for such a place as Birdland, the Manhattan jazz club where he was a headliner.”

Pittsburgh Opera again beats the odds with live performances of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird

onStage Pittsburgh

“Chrystal E. Williams, a mezzo-soprano new to Pittsburgh Opera but not to the role of Rebecca Parker, made an excellent impression, and the brief passage she shared with Ms. Muhammad lamenting the challenges of being wife and mother to a troubled black man in Jim Crow America was riveting in its vocal and dramatic intensity.”

onStage PittsburghConnecting Theater Goers and Theater Makers in the Greater Pittsburgh Area“Charlie Parker’s Yardbird” Flies on the Wings of Song at Pittsburgh Opera

The New Definition of Diva: Chrystal E. Williams
https://www.csmusic.net/content/articles/the-new-definition-of-diva-chrystal-e-williams/

“Christian Thurston and Chrystal E. Williams were the dynamic duo of Stewards for the “Minnepost Airlines”. They perfectly embodied the face splitting smiles and charms of stewards of all airlines.”
Callie Cooper

Chrystal E. Williams’ Biggest Talent May Be Giving to Others
https://www.google.com/amp/s/classicalpost.com/read/2019/12/16/chrystal-e-williams-biggest-talent-may-be-giving-to-others%3fformat=amp

 

“Chrystal E Williams’s Katerina is sensuously sung – the voluptuous promise of her middle-register absolutely fulfilled at the top.”  Alexandra Coghlan, Inews 2021

“Being able to experience her variousness at close quarters is a privilege when the soprano is as electrifying and engaged as Chrystal E Williams … Every top note is a full flare, not easy in a role with a taxingly high tessitura…”
David Nice, The Arts Desk

“The mezzo-soprano Chrystal E Williams deserved her roars of praise for her portrayal of Katerina, fearless and expressive, raw but nuanced.”  Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

“One difference this time came with the venue itself: marginally smaller and warmer than BOC’s usual disused factories, it turned out to have a pretty decent acoustic. That meant that the quiet moments actually worked — never a given with these promenade productions — and we could hear just enough compassionate softness in Chrystal E. Williams’s steely, seductively phrased Katerina to make her into a character rather than a cartoon.”
Richard Bratby, The Spectator

“Chrystal E Williams lights up the room as the gloriously murderous Katerina. It’s a nice touch that Block 9’s eclectic costume designs have her initially dressed in West African-style fabrics with gaudy prints of fungus and rodents – her first victim, her father-in-law, will be seen off in the kitchen with rat poison in his mushroom stew. Later, alone in her wedding dress on the ballroom floor, she holds the audience rapt with her aria of broken-hearted disillusionment.” Erica Jeal, The Guardian

“As Katerina (the Lady Macbeth of the title), Chrystal E Williams is purringly magnificent – a gorgeous creature who is desperate for more action than her weedy husband (Joshua Stewart) and leering father-in-law (Eric Greene, a velvet-voiced bully) can provide.”
Amanda Holloway, The Stage

Rebecca Parker in Charlie Parker’s YARDBIRD 2018
“Mezzo Chrystal E. Williams, the only artist who sang in the Philadelphia premiere and the Phoenix production, was a knowing Rebecca. As the first Mrs. Charlie Parker, she sang with a sultry sound as she proved she knew all of her husband’s tricks.”
Maria Nockin

“Chrystal E. Williams [gave] a recital of such artistic scope as to belie its mere one-hour duration. Williams…responded with great plasticity – of sound, stylistic treatment, of emotion. She is a singer of rare power and clarity….Williams beautifully controlled the balance between delicacy and digging deep down for drama. Parts of [Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été] leave singers exposed, and Williams made easy work of both moments that required coming in out of nowhere, as well as sneaking in with velvety sound. There is a certain raw, unguarded color some singers find in Falla’s Siete canciones populares Españolas, and Williams inched right up to it….the real stunner was John Musto’s Shadow of the Blues… It was here – in the reassurance of Williams’ sensitive inflections – that you could hear America in all of its complexity and contradiction.”

“Mezzo-soprano Chrystal E. Williams sang and acted the sultry Dulcinée to perfection…she has a tremendous amount of range as an artist. But the most amazing thing about Williams, besides the fact that she can sing virtually any role, is her physicality. She knows how to use her body as an instrument as well as she uses her voice, and she has an effortless grace whenever she is on stage that makes her a pleasure to watch.”