Jamie Barton News

The Met came late to the trio of Donizetti operas about British queens, when it finally mounted ANNA BOLENA mounted for Anna Netrebko in 2011. This was long after Beverly Sills made her deal with the devil, trading her voice for the cover of Time Magazine, by singing Anne Boleyn, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I at New York City Opera. The Met is finally getting around to mounting its own take on the operas this season (the so-called Tudor Trilogy) not for Netrebko but for American Sondra Radvanovsky. As Anna, she delivers a thrilling, go-for-broke performance.

Taylor Stayton will sing the role of Percy in this evening's performance of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, replacing Stephen Costello, who is ill.

With the season's first performance of Donizetti's ANNA BOLENA--that's Henry VIII's Anne Boleyn to all you Masterpiece Theatre fans--at the Met, the big news is that it's soprano Sondra Radvanovsky's first part of the Tudor Trilogy, with MARIA STUARDA and ROBERTO DEVEREUX to come later in the season. Alongside her, as Jane (here, Giovanna) Seymour, Boleyn's successor as consort to Henry, is mezzo Jamie Barton, this year's winner of the Richard Tucker Award, a past winner of the Met Council Auditions (and many other major awards) and a sensation when she sang her first big role at the Met two years ago, Adalgisa in Bellini's NORMA.

This Saturday, September 26, American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky will begin her season-long quest to sing all three of the principal heroines in Donizetti's 'Tudor trilogy,' being presented in its entirety for the first time at the Met this season. In the first opera, Anna Bolena, Radvanovsky stars as the young queen Anne Boleyn, grasping to hold onto the throne of England. Later this season, Radvanovsky will also star as the devout and doomed Mary, Queen of Scots in Maria Stuarda and as the conflicted Elizabeth I in the first-ever Met performances of Roberto Devereux. Radvanovsky will be the first soprano since Beverly Sills in the 1970s to sing the lead roles in all three operas in the course of a single New York season.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Washington National Opera are seeking nominations for The Marian Anderson Vocal Award, which celebrates excellence in performance by recognizing a young American singer who has achieved initial professional success in the area of opera, oratorio, or recital repertory, and who exhibits promise for a significant career.

When I heard mezzo Jamie Barton at the Metropolitan Opera's recital in Central Park in the summer of 2014, she would have knocked my socks off--if I hadn't been wearing sandals. This time around­--newly anointed winner of the 2015 Richard Tucker Award--at a concert presented by WQXR at New York's Greene Space in SoHo, I was wearing my argyles and, sure enough, I went home barefoot. Barton proved, once again, that she's “the real thing.”

Artistic Director Matthew Dirst will lead mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton (2013 Cardiff Singer of the World) and violinist Adam LaMotte, with the Ars Lyrica Houston orchestra in the eagerly anticipated 2015-2016 season opener performance Autumn Hunt. The pre-classical season orchestra will highlight the first selection from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Autumn, along with a selection of Handel arias with excerpts from  Serse and Semele.

Jamie Barton will add a new role to her Met repertory this season when she sings Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti's Anna Bolena, replacing Elena Garana, who has withdrawn due to a death in her family.

The Richard Tucker Music Foundation holds its annual gala, one of the most highly anticipated events of the opera season, on Sunday, November 1 at the newly renamed David Geffen Hall in New York's Lincoln Center.

Come experience the power of music on a whole new level at the Seattle Opera premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco this month. Viewers will be visually transported to ancient Babylon through magnificent costumes, awe-inspiring projections, and a new staging configuration that brings the music and performers closer to the audience than ever before.

New York City's famed Collegiate Chorale - founded in 1941 by legendary conductor Robert Shaw - announced four strategic initiatives that position the organization for its next phase of performing excellence.

Come experience the power of music on a whole new level at the Seattle Opera premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco this August. Viewers will be visually transported to ancient Babylon through magnificent costumes, awe-inspiring projections, and a new staging configuration that brings the music and performers closer to the audience than ever before.

The Glimmerglass Festival, Central New York's opera and musical theater company, has announced its 2016 season.

The Glimmerglass Festival, Central New York's opera and musical theater company, has announced its 2016 season.

CHICAGO - American mezzo-soprano J'nai Bridges is one of 20 international finalists for the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2015 competition. Bridges, a third-year member of The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, is currently portraying Vlasta in Lyric's mainstage premiere of Mieczys?aw Weinberg's The Passenger.

Houston, June 3, 2015— Houston Grand Opera announced at its annual meeting on Tuesday evening that its 2014–15 season sustained the increased attendance and fundraising levels achieved over the previous four years of consistent expansion. During its 60th anniversary season HGO presented eight main-stage productions, as it did in 2013–14, for a total of forty-eight performances.  Attendance matched that of last season while the organization's historic comprehensive campaign raised $172.9 million, beating its $165 million goal.

BNY Mellon Grand Classics: The Sound of a Modern Symphony highlights the power and range of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra this weekend, May 15-17 under the baton of British conductor Michael Francis.

BNY Mellon Grand Classics: The Sound of a Modern Symphony highlights the power and range of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on May 15-17 under the baton of British conductor Michael Francis. This program features the Pittsburgh Symphony premiere of Mason Bates' Alternative Energy and the orchestral world premiere of Jake Heggie's The Work at Hand, a Pittsburgh Symphony co-commission for principal cellist Anne Martindale Williams.

Incest, power trips and a rebel with a cause are a few of the things we see in Houston Grand Opera's production DIE WALKÜRE. I like to think of the opera world as an elaborate wine list. Delectable notes from a fine Merlot, Riesling or Chablis, and Houston Grand Opera's current season is packed full of operas and musicals that are sure to please any musical pallet. We are introduced to DIE WALKÜRE which is the second installment in DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN (The Ring of the Nibelung) better known as The Ring Cycle. The other operas in the cycle include DAS RHEINGOLD, SIEGFRIED and GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG.

After a months-long series of competitions at the district, regional, and national levels, five young singers have been named the winners of the nation's most prestigious vocal competition, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.