“The roles of the girls’ parents are important ones, constant presences though they only get a short solo moment as they sing a Walt Whitmann setting round the parlour piano. Victoria Simmonds and Nicholas Garrett played them with immense sympathy and discretion”

“ Victoria Simmonds, from the pit, is a first-class voice”

“Mezzo Victoria Simmonds has made something of a specialism of contemporary music, including Scottish Opera’s recent fine production of Jonathan Dove’s Flight, but she proved herself more than at home with Italian coloratura in her SSO debut. That song (the aria La pace mia smaritta, from Moses in Egypt) was framed by the classic Una voca poco fa from The Barber of Seville and Cinderella’s last song La piu mesta, with the overtures to The Thieving Magpie and The Silken Ladder opening and closing the sequence”

“Alice’s accomplice in feminist revenge, Meg Page, is taken with great comedic skill by the mezzo Victoria Simmonds.”

“Victoria Simmonds’ Meg Page was fittingly uptight, with an undercurrent of mischievousness”

“Victoria Simmonds’ prim, privately jealous Meg Page works well as a humorous counterpoint.”

“ Mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds, making her Scottish Opera debut as the Minskwoman, gives an achingly beautiful performance in the aria “I bought this suitcase in New York”, as the character ponders her fears over the changes about to befall her; moving to a new country, motherhood, departing the life she knows.”

“Victoria Simmonds, who should win some sort of award for the best depiction of a woman giving birth in opera history.”

“The strong mezzo-soprano Victoria Simmonds, as Marie (Angel 2), and the hearty tenor Robert Murray as John (Angel 3) give visceral, fleshed-out performances.”

“The other angels were strong, particularly Victoria Simmonds who doubled as Marie.”

“the narrating Angels – excellently sung by Allan Clayton and Victoria Simmonds”

“It also draws superb performances from a flawless cast: Christopher Purves (the castellan), Barbara Hannigan (his wife), Bejun Mehta (the artist), and Allan Clayton and Victoria Simmonds as the choric angels, who seem to instigate as well as observe the action.”

“But the strength of Katie Mitchell’s production lies in the way the dreamlike momentum of the music (conducted by the composer) is bodied forth by its brilliant cast. Tenor Allan Clayton and mezzo Victoria Simmonds double up as minor characters and ‘angels’ who provide a chilling commentary on the behaviour of the protagonists, each of whom comes across with palpitating vividness.”

“The five singers could hardly be faulted for their contributions. Victoria Simmonds is vividly sensuous as Marie ”

“The performers are all superb”

“Victoria Simmonds is extraordinarily moving as heavily pregnant Minskwoman”

“It’s difficult to imagine a more perfect cast....Victoria Simmonds’ warm mezzo impressed as the ‘Minskwoman’”

“Opera Holland Park’s cast is well chosen and always on the ball...and Victoria Simmonds, probing into the anxieties of the Minkswoman, stand out, but all are good.”

“The cast is so unwaveringly brilliant.”

“Victoria Simmonds as the so-called Minskwoman (she was intending to fly there) makes the aria in which she reflects on her life and contemplates motherhood highly moving.”

“Enter the fresh-faced Boy, aka that protean singer-actor Victoria Simmonds, now notching up another first in her long list of cross-dressed roles.”

“Victoria Simmonds gives a game performance in the central role”

“Simmonds – part Christopher Robin, part annoying Not Now Bernard – is energetic and engaging”

“The performance is first-rate... Anna Devin and Victoria Simmonds doubling as her sister and television interviewer are totally plausible”

“Can this be the best British opera in years? Drop everything and go”

“...and Victoria Simmonds, doubling as A’s interviewer and her cannier sister, comprise the excellent cast”

“whilst doubling the roles of her sister and TV interviewer, Victoria Simmonds switches between the two personas with skill and dexterity”

“All three singers shine, and sing with fantastic accuracy and diction. Victoria Simmonds is the uncomfortably tactless reporter, and A’s sister, a nervous, worried, and slightly demeaning presence in A’s life, mocking her from the very beginning of her relationship with R, before things start to unravel. Her voice is as powerful and clear at the bottom as it is at the top”

“Victoria Simmonds is a voluptuously feisty Rosina”

“Victoria Simmonds, last seen as an outrageously sexy Cherubino in Steven Stead’s sci-fi Figaro, is an enchanting Rosina, all glittery top-notes, bubbling fioritura, flirty baby-blues and swishy hips.”

“…and especially Victoria Simmonds as a beautiful and determined Rosina, are all wonderful, singing with conviction and accuracy and acting as if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.”

“Which leads me to perhaps the star of this show, Cherubino. Victoria Simmonds is absolutely charming (and totally believable) as the petulant teenager, both acting and singing superbly.”

“As teenage sweethearts Cherubino and Barbarina, Victoria Simmonds and Claire Ormshaw excel. Simmonds is quite the sexiest Cherubino I’ve seen.”

“here’s a plucky, sexy, scene-stealing Cherubino from Victoria Simmonds.”

“Victoria Simmonds is a delightful mustachioed Fox”

“The key encounters benefit from three outstanding singers...Victoria Simmonds makes a superbly debonair Fox”

“Victoria Simmonds captures the burgeoning romance between them touchingly”

“the superb Victoria Simmonds was Idamante ”

“The opera is unimaginable without Victoria Simmonds in the title role... Simmonds is funny, touching and utterly compelling”

“wonderfully played and sung by Victoria Simmonds”

“Victoria Simmonds is Pinocchio, complete with superbly sculptured kneecaps and elbows and a glorious, growing nose. She is outstanding.”

“the superb Victoria Simmonds”

“Victoria Simmonds’s supremely winning Pinocchio”

“and above all, as the enamoured page who gets the gal, the dizzyingly beautiful mezzo Victoria Simmonds, whose every note suffused the Oxfordshire evening air with a scrumptious warm glow”

“The finest singing comes from the Cherubino-style page of Victoria Simmonds”

“Victoria Simmonds was a real find as Isolier, a convincing young man as well as a fine Rossinian voice.”

“Victoria Simmonds brings sophisticated, almost understated, dramatic coherence to the role of Isolier, as well as ample vocal flexibility.”