Artist of the Year • Agent of Change

Musical America
November 2020

Among the constellation of stars who appeared in the four-hour Metropolitan Opera At-Home Gala on April 25, Jamie Barton’s performance of “O don fatale” from Verdi’s Don Carlo was a supernova explosion. Barton’s huge, gleaming mezzo and impassioned delivery seemed to expand past the walls of her small room in Atlanta, reaching through the ether to demand our full attention and comprehension.

That commanding presence, and Barton’s sense of her own authority and right to speak, developed over time. Growing up in the mountains of rural Georgia, she absorbed the communal expectations of behavior for Southern women, who are “encouraged to placate, to play nice, to mediate,” she says. “They are not encouraged to feel their anger, or to voice opposition.” At the same time, her “hippie-ish, liberal” parents encouraged and supported her without reservation, whether the issue was pursuing a career as an opera singer or coming out as bisexual in 2014. For Barton, “My journey to finding the voice that was strong enough to speak out against things that are not right comes with knowing I could turn to my parents at any point and find open arms.”

Today, Barton has left that self-effacing Southern girl behind. A steady stream of successes, like winning Cardiff Singer of the World in 2013 and becoming a regular presence at major opera houses, including the Met, where she sang the title role in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Eurydice in 2019, have given her a platform. Now, Barton uses her visibility to speak out about things that matter to her.

Read the full profile by Heidi Waleson via Musical America >