“When it comes to hurling recitatives with frightening power, baritone Mischa Bouvier inhabits a rare high echelon”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(“Messiah vis à vis El Mesías” with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“But when joined by demons — commanding baritone Mischa Bouvier and cackling countertenor Drew Minter — the mob’s viciousness clearly proved one of Rossi’s singular achievements.“

Alan Artner, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
(Rossi’s Oratorio per la settimana santa with Haymarket Opera)

“Bouvier depicted Handel’s evocation of spiritual darkness in ‘The people that walked in darkness’ and its recitative with the strength and infinite detail of a Rembrandt oil painting.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(Handel’s Messiah with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“Among the soloists, baritone Mischa Bouvier stood out, offering an eloquent, articulate delivery characterized by a bronze timbre that was complex yet clear.”

Elizabeth Bloom, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
(Purcell’s The Fairy-Queen with Chatham Baroque)

“in Mischa Bouvier’s rich baritone voice, the words of Tennessee Williams found that South… Four Charles Ives songs also were absolutely welcome fare on this program. ‘The Circus Band,’ ‘Tom Sails Away,’ and ‘Memories’ are the less often heard, ‘The Cage’ being more familiar. Again, Bouvier adapted his refined artistry—this time to back home Americana yielding a musical fusion of sorts. Between the Americans came ‘In the Silence of the Secret Night’ of Sergei Rachmaninoff. Its Russian atmosphere, its culture and Bouvier were an even better match.”

David Patterson, THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
(In recital at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival)

“his beautiful tone illuminated diverse selections”

Sherri Rase, QONSTAGE
(Platt’s Paul Muldoon Songs for the New York Festival of Song)

“a fully realized, affecting character”

Mark Swed, LOS ANGELES TIMES
(Handel’s La resurrezione with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“The comic effect of Bouvier’s stumbling, lascivious performance in the ‘Gloucestershire Wassail’ was heightened by memories of the baritone’s dignified demeanor earlier in the evening... [and] Bouvier’s fall from dignity was complete in the Australian Christmas novelty song ‘Six White Boomers’ by Rolf Harris and John D. Brown, in which he portrayed, in a screechy falsetto, a ‘joey’ (baby kangaroo) reunited with his mother by Santa”

David Wright, NEW YORK CLASSICAL REVIEW
(“When Icicles Hang by the Wall” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“Could anyone ask for more from Mischa Bouvier as Polyphemus? His robust, muscular, yet remarkably defined baritone could shift from fervent wooing to fearsome threat in a nanosecond. And he conveyed an apt menacing undertone to his virtuoso aria ‘O ruddier than the cherry,’ an aspect rarely encountered when this solo is excerpted for a vocal recital.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(Handel’s Acis and Galatea with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“Mischa Bouvier was superb as Jesus, with a warm, full baritone.”

James R. Oestreich, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(Bach’s St. John Passion with TENET Vocal Artists)

“La actuación del tenor Aaron Sheehan como el Evangelista... junto la del barítono Mischa Bouvier en la voz de Jesús, fueron sobresalientes.”

Luis Hernández Mergal, EL NUEVO DÍA
(Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Puerto Rico)

“When Mischa Bouvier thundered Jehovah’s threat to 'shake the heavens and the earth' with his opulent, virile baritone, I suspected even atheists in the audience began to worry. His ability to navigate Handel’s daunting passagework with uncanny precision while sustaining his massive sound might be one of the seven wonders of the modern opera world.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(Messiah with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“A quartet from the vocal group Tenet, led by its artistic director, the soprano Jolle Greenleaf, sang the Evangelists beautifully.”

James R. Oestreich, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(Pärt’s Passio for David Lang’s “collected stories”)

“The baritone Mischa Bouvier sang with dignified solidity”

Zachary Woolfe, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(Fairouz’s Furia with The Knights)

“On the word ‘Freude’ (Joy), Mr. Bouvier’s voice soared effortlessly in beautifully turned melismatic phrases.”

Joanna Bramel Young, CLASSICAL SONOMA
(“Bach Favorites” with the American Bach Soloists)

“Mischa Bouvier executing with aplomb the difficult runs in ‘Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder!’”

Lewis M. Smoley, CLASSICAL SOURCE
(Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Orchestra of St. Luke’s and Musica Sacra)

“Bass Mischa Bouvier pumped up the dramatic suspense in his recitative preceding ‘Trompeta anunciad,’ then launched into a thrilling tour de force duel with natural trumpet virtuoso Josh Cohen, gloriously encouraged by Valenzuela and the strings. Sending out polished arcs of molten brass—and playing from memory—Cohen stood at the front of stage right while Bouvier declaimed his bold, burnished themes opposite him stage left. If the archangel Gabriel indeed sounds his trumpet on the biblical Day of judgement, it should sound this good.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(World premiere of El Mesías with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“sur la douce musique de Rangström, la mélodie ‘Sorg och glädje’ est impeccablement interprétée par le baryton Mischa Bouvier avec Bernt Wilhelmsson au piano.”

Hugues Rameau-Crays, MUSIC & OPERA
(“Sounds of Swedish Poetry” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“Mischa Bouvier was outstanding”

James Roy MacBean, THE BERKELEY DAILY PLANET
(“Bach Favorites” with the American Bach Soloists)

“Given a world premiere, Charles Fussell’s 'Venture' (2000) is a setting of four poems by Toni Mergentine Levi for baritone and piano. Luminously sung by Mischa Bouvier, the songs ventured compellingly into mystery even when being whimsical.”

Andrew L. Pincus, THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
(Fussell’s Venture at the Tanglewood Music Center's Festival of Contemporary Music)

“Mischa Bouvier was a delight to encounter for the first time. He possesses a powerful bass voice, its dark colors strongly projected throughout the entire range, which he uses with intelligence and commitment.”

Mark Canny, PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
(Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium with Bach and the Baroque)

“Hugo Wolf’s song “Nachtzauber” (Night Magic) not only gave the concert its title, but throbbed at mid-program with dark rumblings in Max Hammond’s piano, while baritone Mischa Bouvier’s oak-toned, finely-supported singing told of a valley drenched in moonlight and pangs of lost love. But it was Zauber of another sort that stopped the show a few songs earlier, as Bouvier and soprano Mireille Asselin lit up the stage with Papageno and Papagena’s delirious love duet (“Pa…pa…pa…”) from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.”

David Wright, NEW YORK CLASSICAL REVIEW
(“Midnight Magic” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“Bass Mischa Bouvier, a Birmingham-area native whose career is climbing, gave powerful and measured performances in several airs, nailing each melisma with pinpoint accuracy while keeping a firm pace with Stubbs' sometimes demanding tempos.”

Michael Huebner, THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS
(Handel’s Messiah with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra)

“fiery baritone”

Bryant Manning, CHICAGO CLASSICAL REVIEW
(Handel’s La resurrezione with Baroque Band)

“The final scenes, introduced in stentorian voice by baritone Mischa Bouvier as Bardolph…”

ABQJournal News Staff, ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
(Getty’s Plump Jack with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra)

“It’s easy to miss how much skill it takes to back, for example, Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘My Name is John Wellington Wells,’ which baritone Mischa Bouvier sang with joyous comic mugging.”

Jon Sobel, BLOGCRITIC
(“Midnight Magic” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble at Merkin Hall)

“The firm, rich fullness of bass Mischa Bouvie [sic] rumbled out in ‘¿Por qué los pueblos furiosos van conspirando?’ (‘Why do the nations rage?’) and brilliantly carried ‘Trompeta anunciad que la muerte acabó’ (‘The trumpet shall sound’).”

Christian Hertzog, THE SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE
(World premiere of El Mesías with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“The all-male early music group the Concorde [sic] Ensemble joined the pair for several songs. These highly trained voices could have cast a cruel light on Sting’s less-even timbre, but the rocker restrained himself in their presence. The ensemble sang spiritedly, probably tickled to be making new fans with a repertoire that generally attracts only the discerning few.”

Ann Powers, LOS ANGELES TIMES
(Sting’s Songs From the Labyrinth at Disney Hall)

“excellent”

Zachary Woolfe, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(Fairouz’s “The Poet Declares His Renown” with the Mimesis Ensemble)

“The last ‘Gloria patri’ seemed to occupy multiple rooms, Thompson and Mischa Bouvier singing insistent roulades over the choir’s deliberate serenity.”

Matthew Guerrieri, THE BOSTON GLOBE
(Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Green Mountain Project)

“Mr. Bouvier’s delivery was powerful, rising to a crescendo that dominated the church. His delivery of the tightly-written bouncing between nearly adjacent notes sounded like a trill that eventually wound out in vibrato-soaked singing that was stunning.”

Pat Rogers, THE EAST HAMPTON PRESS
(Bach’s Weihnachts-Oratorium with the Choral Society of the Hamptons)

“Mirelle Asselin delivered Debussy’s seductive ‘La Flûte de Pan’ (text by Pierre Louÿs) gorgeously, followed by ‘Le loup et l’agneau’ (The wolf and the lamb) by the often-underrated André Caplet, with burnished baritone Bouvier inhabiting the world of the two animals.”

Susan Miron, THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
(”Journeys” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“bass-baritone Mischa Bouvier sang with satisfying richness of tone”

Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Green Mountain Project)

“Bass Mischa Bouvier brought gravitas to the part of Polyphemus, but also captured the exaggerated humor of the role. Sixteenth notes rumbled out effortlessly and his sustained tones had an appropriate force suggestive of a giant.”

Christian Hertzog, THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
(Handel’s Acis and Galatea with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“Baritone Mischa Bouvier appeared after an impressive first choral entry celebrating the glory of the Lord being revealed, and he remained a welcome presence throughout the evening. He had some of the work’s most memorable numbers, including the shaking of “the heavens, the earth, the seas and the dry land” — but especially “The trumpet shall sound” in which he was accompanied by trumpet player Josh Cohen sounding glorious while standing high in the church pulpit.”

David Gregson, OPERA WEST
(Handel’s Messiah with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“Baritone Mischa Bouvier has a warm and flexible voice that served him well in the lesser role of Lucifer. He performed the challenging chromatic aspects of his recitative ‘Qual insolita luce’ with aplomb, effectively conveyed Lucifer’s violent arrogance in the aria ‘Caddi è ver,’ and finely captured the pitiful surrender yet smoldering defiance in Act II’s ‘Per celare il nuovo scorno.’“

Arlo McKinnon, OPERA NEWS
(Handel’s La resurrezione with the Helicon Ensemble)

“young, suave, and assured”

Nancy Plum, TOWN TOPICS
(Handel’s Hercules for the American Handel Festival)

“Another villancico, Joseph de San Juan’s “Una noche que los Reyes,” paints a boisterous village scene where the local holy fool Anton stubbornly refuses to sing a carol for the Wise Men on Epiphany, a role bass Mischa Bouvier carried out splendidly with scripted huffing and complaining interspersed between his polished vocal lines.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(“An Empire of Silver and Gold” with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“The recording is luminous. The singers of TENET Vocal Artists, both solo and tutti, exude a sense of refined pathos and rhetorical gesture apropos for the work’s original intimate courtly setting.”

Karen Cook, EARLY MUSIC AMERICA
(Schmelzer’s Le Memorie dolorose on the Olde Focus Recordings label)

“Baritone Mischa Bouvier was vocally and dramatically larger than life as the bumbling giant and murderous monstrosity that Polyphemus is.”

Niels Swinkels, SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE
(Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the American Bach Soloists)

“stentorian, ringing baritone”

David Kulma, CLEVELANDCLASSICAL.COM
(Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with Apollo’s Fire)

“Mischa Bouvier dignified these portraits of a smaller, claustrophobic world… with a raw, rugged intensity, finding drama in the seemingly mundane without going over the top”

Lisa Bielawa, LUCID CULTURE
(Platt’s Paul Muldoon Songs for the New York Festival of Song)

“Tenors Owen McIntosh and Lawrence Jones, and bass Misha [sic] Bouvier formed a bright and brilliant trio in Confitebor tibi Domine, a technical tour de force that pits them antiphonally with and against a larger group of singers joyously enumerating God’s creations.”

Tom Schnauber, THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
(“Vespers for the Feast of St. John the Baptist” with Green Mountain Project)

“silky baritone”

Niels Swinkels, SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE
(“Bach Favorites” with the American Bach Soloists)

“Mischa Bouvier, as the cyclops Polyphemus, was convincingly powerful and terrifying. His voice reached unbelievably deep notes with ease.”

Madeline Zimring, THE DAILY CALIFORNIAN
(Handel’s Acis and Galatea with the American Bach Soloists)

“As Lucifero, Mischa Bouvier used his vigorous, penetrating bass to give his character’s strident declamation and virulent fioritura a deliciously fearsome edge.”

Ken Herman, SAN DIEGO STORY
(Handel’s La resurrezione with Bach Collegium San Diego)

“deep-toned baritone voice”

Mark Gresham, EARRELEVANT
("St. Cecilia’s Day Celebrations: Music From 17th- & 18th-Century London" with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra)

“The metamorphosis in Ricci’s demeanor in ‘Labri belli, dite un po’ is indicative of her submersion in the text, and she reacts alluringly to Bouvier’s vigorous but sensitive voicing of his music. Mezzo-soprano and baritone make of this duet a vibrantly hypnotic dance, approaching words and music with caressing sensuality.”

Joseph Newsome, VOIX DES ARTS
(“O barbaro amore” on the Musica Omnia label)

“Bouvier performed Debussy’s song ‘L’échelonnement des haies,’ to a text by Paul Verlaine, with admirable sweep and abandon.”

David Wright, NEW YORK CLASSICAL REVIEW
(“Reflections and Projections: 25 Years of Mirror Visions” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“Bouvier sang it with delicious self-pity”

Eric C. Simpson, NEW YORK CLASSICAL REVIEW
(Caplet’s “La cigale et la fourmi” with the Mirror Visions Ensemble)

“In the final ‘Gloria patri,’ the echoing coloratura of baritones Thompson and Mischa Bouvier, singing from opposite sides of the choir, was as strong and exhilarating as if it were the beginning of the program.”

David Schulenberg, THE BOSTON MUSICAL INTELLIGENCER
(Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 with the Green Mountain Project)

“Bouvier's rich timbres were a treat throughout ‘The Trumpet shall sound.’”

Richard Scheinin, THE MERCURY NEWS
(Handel’s Messiah with the American Bach Soloists)

“Jory Vinikour leads an acclaimed entourage of musicians, including vocalists Andréanne Brisson Paquin, Sherezade Panthaki, Reginald Mobley, Scott Brunscheen and Mischa Bouvier. Their performances are expressive and nuanced and succeed in seamlessly blending together the high drama of the opera house with the intimacy of the drawing room—an amalgam that could not be more apt for this wonderful, captivating repertory.”

John McKean, EARLY MUSIC
(“Agostino Steffani: A son très-humble service: Duets for Sophie Charlotte of Hanover” on the Musica Omnia label)

“And Misha [sic] Bouvier, a baritone with a rich timbre and a fine sense of line, brought considerable character to songs by Brahms and Paul Bowles.”

Allan Kozinn, THE NEW YORK TIMES
(“Love Letters to Haiti” with the Metropolis Ensemble)

“In two duets Mobley is joined by bass Mischa Bouvier, whose precise agility evokes wafting breezes in the virtuoso solo opening of Aure, voi che volate (one of several duets receiving their first recording).”

David Vickers, GRAMOPHONE
(“Agostino Steffani: A son très-humble service: Duets for Sophie Charlotte of Hanover” on the Musica Omnia label)

“Mischa Bouvier's Lucifer dealt confidently with music that ranges widely, from self-justifying to venomous.”

Alan G. Artner, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
(Handel’s La resurrezione with Baroque Band)

“He certainly possesses the vocal prowess necessary for this demanding role, with grace and agility in high passages, and a rich, sonorous lower range… In these pieces, all the musicians were clearly having a great time, and the performances showed Bouvier’s greatest assets: remarkable technical facility and precision. Had an instrumental movement been interspersed, or something contrasting and slow, both Bouvier and the audience might have had a chance to breathe. But I suppose that the feat of endurance the singer undertook was a statement in itself. Bouvier has chops.”

Jonathan Rhodes Lee, SAN FRANCISCO CLASSICAL VOICE
(Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and select Bach cantata arias with American Bach Soloists)

“As Alwan, Mischa Bouvier is authoritative and grand, with a soothing, cavernous baritone that can soar to heights of lyric beauty, as on the line ‘I ask God to calm your agitated soul.’”

Joshua Rosenblum, OPERA NEWS
(Fairouz’s Sumeida's Song on the Bridge Records label)

(Updated January 2024)