Musical America
April 2015

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has added the 2015 Richard Tucker Award to her trophy case, a $50,000 prize granted annually to an American singer “on the threshold of a major international career.” Actually, Barton, 33, is already well on her way, having  been named the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World and granted the mantle of “fresh wonder of the opera world” by the ever-influential New Yorker. She is also a winner of the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Kennedy Center’s 2014 Marian Anderson Award.

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Worcester Telegram & Gazette
February 2015

It's understandable that Rome could be an inspiration for an opera singer. That's certainly true for mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, who will give a recital at 8 p.m. Feb. 7 in Mechanics Hall, Worcester, for the Artist Night program presented by Music Worcester Inc. Cardiff, Wales, has also been important for Barton, who won both the Main and the Song Prizes at the 2013 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, a biennial event that has helped several winners achieve sustained international success and acclaim in the opera world. But Rome is where the singing started for Barton. The city of Rome, Georgia, that is (population 36,000 approximately), in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. 

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Chicago Tribune
December 2014

On a recent afternoon backstage at Lyric Opera, Sondra Radvanovsky and Jamie Barton were behaving like the gal pals they are, hugging each other and singing each other's praises. Quite the contrast to the emotional sparring partners the singers are playing in Lyric's new production of Gaetano Donizetti's Anna Bolena — the castoff consort Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, Anne's lady-in-waiting and rival for the affections of the cruel King Henry VIII. Indeed, in conversation, neither the Berwyn-born soprano nor the Georgia-native mezzo-soprano came across as your standard-issue diva, however imperious they behave in the long-awaited Lyric return of Donizetti's bel canto masterpiece, which opens Saturday night at the Civic Opera House.

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Windy City Times
December 2014

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton knew that she would need plenty of plain old luck on top of her considerable talents to forge a career as a professional opera singer. But in Barton's case, winning a number of impressive opera vocal competitions particularly helped. "For me the three big launching points in my career have been because of competitions," said Barton, back again in the Windy City rehearsing her role debut as Giovanna Seymour (Jane Seymour) in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's new co-production with Minnesota Opera of Donizetti's 1830 tragedy Anna Bolena (Anne Boleyn).

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Instant Encore: Classical Music Buzz
October 2014

After a wildly successful role debut of Adalgisa at the Metropolitan Opera in the fall of 2013, Jamie Barton returns to the role this fall in our season opening production of Norma. Her San Francisco Opera debut has been similarly successful leaving critics raving that her performance was "a magnificent Company debut with gleaming vocal tone and emotional urgency" (San Francisco Chronicle). All successes aside, Barton's charming personality shined in this brief interview.

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