Azucena in IL TROVATORE

Royal Opera House Covent Garden

“Jamie Barton provides the dramatic spark as the haunted, raddled Azucena — she chomps into text and music alike with wonderful vibrancy.” 
–The Times

“A great role for American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and she sang the living crap out of it. Her character has been to hell and back and is properly haunted. Barton's mezzo has a juicy bite and a fierce chest register – her cry of “Parola orrenda” at the word “stake” was terrifying and is probably still reverberating around the auditorium right now.”
–Bachtrack

“It is Barton’s Azucena who sweeps all before her, with a riveting stage presence and a voice that seems to hold limitless colours, at its most astonishing when spitting out the curses in her darkest register.”
–iNews

“Out in front was Jamie Barton’s Azucena, her obsession with avenging her mother’s cruel death clearly driving the action. Her mezzo proved ideally scaled to both the role and the venue, while her commitment to each phrase and equally every move and gesture felt complete.”
–Opera News

“Barton finds depth of expression in Azucena’s every line.”
–The Guardian

“Central to the story, Azucena, a vengeful gipsy, is played brilliantly by Jamie Barton. Her shabby and dishevelled old woman is a storyteller and an actress – at times placid and gentle, at times enraged and violent.  Vocally she excelled throughout and her ‘Stride la Vampa’ was impassioned, bitterly emotive and chilling.”
–London Unattached

“Barton’s a standout as Azucena, and her voice gathers weight and colour as the opera gets darker.”
–Evening Standard

“The real revelation of the evening, however, is Jamie Barton in the role of Azucena. When it is so easy to play the part as a caricature, and in a production that might have appeared to have encouraged such an interpretation, Barton, with her superb mezzo-soprano, succeeds in presenting the gypsy as a very feeling and multifaceted character.”
–Opera Online

“Barton is in complete control of her character, Azucena. The voice has gained in breadth and roundness over the years, and its abyssal bass, certainly very chesty, has acquired an ebony color. Equally at home in the vehement moments of ‘Stride la Vampa,’ where her treble cuts through the roof of the venerable house with vivacity and metal, or in the more languorous and linked phrasings of the final duet where her breath seems to have no limits, she is greeted at the curtain by an explosive and deserved ovation.”
–Olyrix

“The standout performance comes from American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton as the crazed and conflicted ‘gypsy’ Azucena. It was a remarkable performance, with blazing top notes and a truly terrifying bottom. Her cajoling of Manrico, her blazing defiance of the count, and her final brain-addled lullaby, went to the beating heart of one of Verdi’s most absorbing characters.”
–Limelight Magazine

“Barton certainly has grit and charisma to spare and interpretively renders an Azucena suspended between lucidity and hallucination, frightening at first and then human, once imprisoned.”
–Connessi all’Opera

“Barton is an exceptional Azucena, her gypsy woman portrayal a thing of wonder, and one that raises the emotional temperature with her every appearance. In addition to her rich mezzo, supported by a wonderful baritonal lower register, she throws herself into the part body and soul. There’s an ear-catching ‘Stride de vampa’, yet she is at her most compelling in the closing trio of Act 4, ‘Ai nostri monti’, the evening’s highlight where you cannot fail to feel her agony and yearning for home.”
–Opera Today

“A singer of immense gifts, Barton’s Azucena was as vivid as one could have hoped.”
–Financial Times

“Azucena is a character full of primal power, and Barton does make an impressive rendition of it. She is at her best as Azucena. Barton was convincing, dramatic and vocally strong. Her firm, chest voice produced deep emotional notes and her interpretation was reminiscent of Verdi's idea of ​​making Azucena the protagonist of the opera.”
–Place de l’Opera

“The most striking performance of all, however, came from the American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton who was sensational as Azucena, looking splendidly haggard in the role and displaying total mastery of everything Verdi threw at her, especially the exceptionally demanding low notes the part requires.”
–Daily Express

“The night belongs to mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. She is hugely impressive as the singular Azucena, unhinged by grief and guilt, yet making this role more musical than mad, which is not always the case. The audience is clearly ready for more.”
–Culture Whisper

“Barton goes for every opportunity. She does it all – the cutting chest voice, lunging for top emphasis and spitting out the gypsy’s vengeful fury. The essential soft singing when the imprisoned and to-be-burned mother is soothed by her putative son, in ‘Ai nostril monti,’ truly delivers, the finishing touch beautifully etched in by Pappano’s hallucinatory sleep-phantom violins.”
–The Arts Desk

“Barton was sensational. Her rich, darkly coloured mezzo is equally at ease in the German repertoire as it is the Italian – here she showed her mettle as she encompassed all the emotional gamuts of the role, while meeting Verdi’s considerable musical challenges head-on. Making effective use of her chest voice, she tore through ‘Stride la vampa’ – horror etched in every note and phrase, and went on to deliver a hair-raising ‘Condotta ell’era in ceppi’, thrillingly hurling out the climactic high notes with abandon. This was Verdi singing of epic proportions.”
–Music OMH

“Spellbinding Jamie Barton and company excel in Adele Thomas’s clear-sighted take on volatile Verdi… In the four key roles, the Royal Opera has found a cast-iron vocal team: above all, Jamie Barton as the elusive, volatile ‘old Gypsy woman’ Azucena. The interactions between these characters are handled with sympathetic insight, especially in the case of Azucena and…Barton’s generous, unshackled fluency.”
–The Observer

“Barton, with an ‘earthy’ voice and a dense chest register, is [the witch’s] ideal representative at the moment - the expression of her bloody desire for revenge was chilling - and at the same time she evoked sympathy as a mother who lost her own child under such terrifying circumstances.”
–Opera PLUS

“A sensational account of the witch-like Azucena from Jamie Barton, her low notes chilling in their intensity and her assumption of a potentially ridiculous role bristling with dramatic conviction.”
–Opera America

“Jamie Barton in the role of Azucena, is an unequivocal tour de force. Her voice is considerably skilled and beautifully toned. Her lower register is utterly sumptuous, almost baritonal. She unquestionably cements her position as one of the finest mezzo-sopranos in the world. Moreover, her dramatic skills are exemplary and her portrayal of a tortured, anguished, and haunted old woman was utterly spellbinding. Her pain was palpable. This is a role she first sang in 2015 and she clearly knows her way around the living hell of this character. Her ‘Stride la vampa!’ sets out her credentials as a woman on the edge of derangement, but her fourth act duet and interactions with Manrico, especially in the duet ‘Madre, non dormi?’ is most evocative. She presents a battled, weary, and vulnerable tormented soul.”
–OperaWire