American Record Guide critic, Ralph Locke, declares John Osborn’s A Tribute to Gilbert Duprez recording a “wonderfully fresh way of putting together a ‘calling-card’ CD”:
“…a gifted and intelligent singer who has something to offer. Osborn can be heard, on CD or DVD, in the main tenor roles of Rossini’s Otello, Semiramide, and William Tell, and of Bellini’s Norma. His is a major voice, of a type that the opera world is going to continue to need. I have seen a video of him singing ‘Ah, mes amis’, from La Fille du Regiment. There, as here, he hits the numerous high notes (the famous Cs) securely without shouting; and he adds a brief, sweet D. On this CD he throws in what seems to be an unwritten high E (in the Martyrs aria), in an intense semi-falsetto. … All in all, Osborn offers, consistently, better tenorizing than what we have sometimes heard over the past decade on Saturday-afternoon broadcasts from the Met. Excellent orchestral playing by the Lithuanian orchestra, clear and suitably resonant sonics, and—from conductor Orbelian—first-rate shaping of tempos and phrasing.”
