Barton and Thomas Give 'Extraordinary Performances' in Roberto Devereux

September 14, 2018

Photo by Cory Weaver for San Francisco Opera

““Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and tenor Russell Thomas…both gave extraordinary performances. Fresh from winning performances as Fricka and Waltraute during last summer’s Ring, Barton proved herself one of opera’s great chameleons. Is there anything she can’t sing? With her velvety voice, she sailed through the arias and duets… Thomas made the difficult title role sound like a child’s play and he imbued his performance with swagger and confidence.””

— Parterre Box

Mezzo Jamie Barton and tenor Russell Thomas are receiving critical acclaim for their respective role debuts as Sara and Roberto in San Francisco Opera’s production of Roberto Devereux alongside acclaimed Elisabetta interpreter Sondra Radvanovsky.

Conducted by Riccardo Frizza, the Stephen Lawless production plays through September 27 at the War Memorial Opera House; tickets can be purchased via San Francisco Opera.

Read reviews:

Photo by Cory Weaver for San Francisco Opera

“As in every other appearance in San Francisco, Barton impressed greatly with beauty of tone and effortless projection in the huge, 3,200-seat War Memorial. The role of Sara is almost pure bel canto, and Barton’s floating of melodic lines was nonpareil. Vocal beauty was a hallmark of Thomas’ performance. Thomas’ vocal performance in duets and a splendid ‘Come uno spirto angelico’ were to be treasured.”
Classical Voice North America

“Splendid mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton, as Sara, the Duchess of Nottingham, meltingly and sweetly expresses her guilt-ridden love for dashing Roberto Devereux, Earl of Essex. As the object of both women’s desire, tenor Russell Thomas made an endearingly strong first appearance in the title role. He unfurled lyric charm and verve in his arias and duets, and was particularly moving seeking to defend Sara’s honor in the touching Act 3 aria ‘Como uno spirto angelico.’”
San Francisco Examiner

“Radvanovsky had valiant, expressive colleagues by her side — mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton and tenor Russell Thomas, the same ensemble that had contributed to the splendor of that ‘Norma’… Barton, as Sara, gave a performance rich in pathos and cloaked in the thickly upholstered vocal colors that make her singing so irresistible. Thomas brought tonal clarity and rhythmic vigor to the title role…”
San Francisco Chronicle

“As Sarah, Jamie Barton deployed her velvety, richly colored mezzo with beauty and urgency to limn the character’s desire and anguish. In the title role, tenor Russell Thomas made an indelible impression. His sturdy physique and clear, unforced tenor yielded an ardent Act I duet with Sarah, and he sang with elegant line in his Tower of London aria, ‘Come uno spirito angelico’.”
Opera News

Photo by Cory Weaver for San Francisco Opera

“As Elisabetta’s friend and innocent rival Sara, Jamie Barton deploys a richly layered, tightly controlled voice that she makes delicate or harsh to suit the drama. In a den of nasty personalities, Barton’s Sara is touchingly sincere. Russell Thomas’s Roberto Devereux [is] a smirking, conceiting poppycock, speaking noble-sounding words while flaunting the ring he knows will save him. He is at his most sympathetic in the third act, when he realizes he may not escape his fate. There, Thomas’s hefty, mobile voice gains a buttery softness and breaks off achingly at the end of phrases.”
San Francisco Classical Voice

“Barton set the tone with liquid phrasing and her signature burnished sound. With a pure, focused tenor sound, remarkably even from top to bottom, Thomas managed to convey both the nobility and anguish of the title character…He created a time-stopping moment as he awaited his execution with his Act III aria, ‘Bagnato il sen di lagrime.’”
Seen and Heard International

“The whole ensemble delivers near flawless singing and acting. Jamie Barton, as Sara…provides a warm, round, mellow mezzo voice with great resonance. Russell Thomas shows his versatility as the proud yet anguished Roberto. He extends his expertise with a clear voice that bridges styles and ranges, with highlights including his duet ‘Nascondi freni i palpiti’ with Radvanovsky and his prison lament ‘Come uno spirto angelico.’”
Berkshire Fine Arts 

Jamie Barton Returns to Metropolitan Opera in Anna Bolena

September 27, 2015

Photo by Ken Howard

““Ms. Barton’s sumptuous voice has utterly unforced carrying power. In head-to-head exchanges with Anna, Ms. Barton’s Giovanna held her own, trading fiery phrases and bursts of skittish passagework. Yet she was even more affecting during tender moments. In such passages Ms. Barton demonstrated how to send a long-lined Donizetti phrase wafting through the house. At 33, she seems poised for greatness.” THE NEW YORK TIMES”

Jamie Barton returns to the Metropolitan Opera, bringing her celebrated Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena to the Met stage, alongside American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Anne Boleyn and Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov as King Henry VIII. Barton is earning raves for her "glorious, plush, soaring voice" (Broadway World Opera) and "luminous tone." (The New Yorker)

Performances continue through January 9, 2016; tickets can be purchased through the Met website.

Read reviews:

"The superb mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton sings Giovanna (Jane), Anna’s disloyal lady-in-waiting, who has succumbed to the desires of the king. Ms. Barton’s sumptuous voice has utterly unforced carrying power. In head-to-head exchanges with Anna, Ms. Barton’s Giovanna held her own, trading fiery phrases and bursts of skittish passagework. Yet she was even more affecting during tender moments, when Giovanna despairs for having betrayed Anna and become the king’s mistress. In such passages Ms. Barton demonstrated how to send a long-lined Donizetti phrase wafting through the house. At 33, she seems poised for greatness."
The New York Times

"Radvanovsky had a splendid foil and partner in the voluptuous-voiced mezzo Jamie Barton as Giovanna Seymour, her rival for the king’s affections: Their revelation scene in Act II was a thrilling high point of the evening."
The Wall Street Journal

"Jamie Barton hit her stride in the crucial Act II duet with Boleyn, raising the emotional stakes for her and her counterpart to dizzying heights. There was urgent passion in her singing, and blooming sighs in her pleas for forgiveness, making this duet the electric highlight that it should be in every performance of this piece."
The Classical Review

"Singing the role of Anna’s rival is mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton. Barton not only applies a rhythmic mastery to her vocally arduous passages, she also intertwines them with a pathos this production does not often yield. Her dark, cavernous gravity across the low notes serves her well as Jane expresses the full horror of her actions. She replenishes her short contralto passages, such as ‘la mia sorta è fissa’, with both black guilt and resignation to destiny."
musicOMH

"Jamie Barton is another of the day’s career-defining performances. In another production delight, the vocally beautiful young American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton brings her own impressive set of acting chops to Jane Seymour. Barton won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 2007, and at 33 brings a youthful abandon to her dark, rich, sonorous sound.  Barton’s first act 'Ella di me solicit' is sung with superb bel canto technique, a pleasure that both sopranos offer in abundance. Fantastic singing throughout, absolutely.  At times sublime.  But it is the rich character work by each of the actors at the center of the love triangle, the strong dramatic choices and the clarity of scene that they bring to their performance that takes this production from very good to absolutely thrilling."
ZEALnyc

"Mezzo Jamie Barton has been accorded deserved praise as Adalgisa and now as Giovanna Seymour in Anna Bolena. Barton is the 2015 Richard Tucker Award winner and will be heard at the Nov.1 gala. Only in her mid-30s, Barton’s the real deal, potentially a singer for the ages."
WQXR Operavore

"Barton's sympathetic portrayal of Seymour shows her to be as much of a victim of Henry's quest for power as Anna and she had the audience from the moment she opened her mouth. She shows no signs of effort, with her glorious, soaring, plush voice, as she showed in 'Ah! pensate che rivolti'."
Broadway World Opera

"Abdrazakov sings the king with thuggish authority, and Jamie Barton is in sumptuous voice as his new paramour, Giovanna (Jane) Seymour."
The New Yorker

"Mezzo Jamie Barton, in the role of Henry’s scheming third wife-to-be Jane (Giovanna) Seymour, undertook her schemes with a purring mezzo that drew out all the part’s ruthless drive."
ConcertoNet

"Jamie Barton introduced a big, lush mezzo soprano and easy temperament as Giovanna Seymour."
Financial Times

"Jamie Barton was Giovanna Seymour, singing with a well-placed, resonant mezzo of notable beauty."
Opera Magazine

"In a house as big as the Met, 'Anna Bolena' is often cast with heavier, less idiomatic voices; plush lyric lines fare better than florid runs. Radvanovsky and Barton both sang with stamina, intelligence, and style. Barton, who played Jane Seymour, is a once in a generation talent who can sing Purcell and Wagner with equal authority. But agile music shortchanges her: you want to hear that luminous tone extend through the bar."
The New Yorker

"As her rival Jane Seymour, mezzo Jamie Barton revealed superb bel canto style, her singing ideally balanced between pinpoint control and runaway passion."
New York Observer

"The rest of the cast provided bel canto singing of the highest level. Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton’s voice—an instrument of singular beauty and amplitude—transcends an amiable stage persona that is at odds with suffering or tormented characters (as 2013’s Adalgisa, for example). In Donizetti’s opera, Giovanna (Queen Anne’s lady-in-waiting Jane Seymour) is the reluctant focus of the king’s attention. In the great Act II confrontation in which Anna figures this out, Barton conveyed Giovanna’s guilt and anguish with touching sincerity and glorious sound."
Opera News

"With the splendid mezzo Jamie Barton singing the role of Jane (or Giovanna) Seymour, this is an Anna Bolena that captures all the passion of one of history's most momentous love triangles. Ravanovsky's and Barton's thrilling second act duet, which begins with Anna's prayer and in which Anna learns that Giovanna is the king's new love interest, is of such raw emotional power and so magnificently sung, one is willing to forgive any historical liberties. Barton, singing only her third role at the Met has a soaring voice of crystal clarity and one hopes to hear more from her."
Huffington Post