This interview was originally recorded on December 8th, 2016.
The Oral History Project is supported by the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation.

Jamie Barton, mezzo soprano 

Grammy-nominated mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has appeared on many of the world’s leading stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Teatro Real Madrid, Bayerische Staatsoper, and San Francisco Opera. Renowned for her vocal power, expressive range, and advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights and body positivity, she is equally at home in operatic, concert, and recital repertoire. This season, she stars in Dead Man Walking at San Francisco Opera and returns to Houston Grand Opera for Il trittico, Hansel and Gretel, and the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Intelligence. She also brings her acclaimed Ježibaba to Rusalka in Munich and Paris and appears in concert across the U.S.

Barton is a winner of the Beverly Sills Artist Award, Richard Tucker Award, and BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, and was named 2020 Personality of the Year by BBC Music Magazine.

Transcript

Marc A. Scorca: We are delighted to have another iteration of our Conversations Program this evening with the incomparable Jamie Barton. So good to see you. I always start my interviews by asking the question, who brought you to your first opera?

Jamie Barton: Actually, I think it was my best friend in high school. We had a really great music school in our hometown called Shorter College, and they were doing Così fan tutte. And my best friend was like, "Do you wanna come along? I'm gonna go check this out". We were musical theater buffs. And so I was like, "Sure". And we went along...

Marc A. Scorca: Where's this hometown?

Jamie Barton: Rome, Georgia.

Marc A. Scorca: Rome, Georgia. So what was the hometown opera company?

Jamie Barton: There wasn't one; not at all. Atlanta Opera would've been the closest, and I consider Atlanta Opera my hometown company.

Marc A. Scorca: But where was this Così fan tutte?

Jamie Barton: It was at Shorter College; it was a college production of the great classic.

Marc A. Scorca: Were you already studying music in high school?

Jamie Barton: I was, insofar as choir and piano lessons and that sort of thing. I wasn't really doing voice lessons until I got to college, and I went to Shorter College for my undergraduate degree.

Marc A. Scorca: Did that first opera experience awaken a sense that "I wanna do this?" Or was it just a nice evening in the theater?

Jamie Barton: I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of a boring evening in the theater.

Marc A. Scorca: Okay.

Jamie Barton: No, no, no. I was already really interested in choral music, really interested in the concert rep. There was this wonderful mezzo-soprano named Kellie Jenkins (who is now the wife of Christian Van Horn, so she's Kellie Van Horn), she was also at Shorter College, and I heard her sing, and I went, "I wanna do that". Like, "I hope I have a voice like hers". Hilariously enough, she's a mezzo, and I had no clue what I was at the time, but apparently I'm a mezzo too, so it worked out.

Marc A. Scorca: And then you went to college?

Jamie Barton: Yes.

Marc A. Scorca: To study what?

Jamie Barton: Started out in music education for about a month, and discovered rather quickly that I liked the idea of teaching somebody one-on-one, but the idea of teaching a high school or a middle school, or an elementary school class just wasn't really making me totally happy, and so I switched over to vocal performance with the blessings and encouragement of my family and friends.

Marc A. Scorca: So, to vocal performance. Because your voice is not one that hides. When did you realize that, or when did someone share with you that you really have a gift?

Jamie Barton: Well, that would be my first voice teacher, Dr. Brian Horne.

Marc A. Scorca: At college?

Jamie Barton: At college. He was my first voice teacher from the time we started at Shorter College, all the way through Shorter college, and then unbeknownst to me, I was auditioning for Indiana University for my master's degree, and he put in for a spot on the faculty. And we both got in.

Marc A. Scorca: Really?

Jamie Barton: So I ended up going to Indiana and following him, and I was with him for another year until he encouraged me to go find new ears to teach me.

Marc A. Scorca: And that marks a good teacher who is willing to let go a promising student, because he probably felt he had done for you what he could.

Jamie Barton: Well, in his words, it was just time to hear the lessons from a different person. And it was a really wonderful thing to be able to be with him for the first year at a huge school, 'cause Shorter was about that big (makes 'small' gesture with thumb and finger). It was very, very tiny, a strong music school, but a very small place. And Indiana was a huge place. I think when I was there, in total, like graduate, undergraduate, doctoral, ABD people teaching outside, who haven't quite gotten their degree, but are still pursuing... I think it was around 500 students in the voice department. So that is going from a puddle to the Pacific. But it was wonderful to have that year to look at the faculty and go, "Okay, who am I gonna get along with? Who teaches in the way I'd like to...?" I was really interested in studying with a mezzo-soprano, and I met Mary Ann Hart, and we just hit it off. It had to happen.

Marc A. Scorca: And I rarely get into a pedagogical conversation, but what were you looking for in a teacher? How did you like to be taught voice?

Jamie Barton: Dr. Brian Horne is very much a pedagogue, the scientist of the voice, and I'm a bit of a nerd, and was always very, very interested in that as well. But what I wanted in going to a new teacher was somebody who is also a pedagogue, somebody who's an eternal student, continues to learn, continues to figure out different ways to describe how to make this (indicates throat) do what it naturally does. And also somebody who hopefully was my voice type, and luckily I found that in Mary Ann. She's fantastic.

Marc A. Scorca: I know from our Singer Training Forum that there's a big difference between sort of vocal performance and opera performance. So when you went to Indiana, you wanted to be an opera singer?

Jamie Barton: Well, I was a little shy about it actually. I loved performing on stage, but I was still at that point in my voice and the learning of my voice that I didn't quite feel comfortable yet, when it came to opera stuff. You know, if I was looking through the mezzo bible, trying to find an aria, anything that had notes above the staff - automatically out, which is hilarious when I look back on it now. All of a sudden I was singing "Voi che sapete", and nowadays it sounds like Waltraute singing "Voi che sapete". That was never meant for me, but I was so scared of the higher part of my voice, and I didn't know what to do with the lower part. I did come from choral singing, so there was a little bit of the mixing down of the head voice all the way down that I was just used to doing, and hadn't really learned to explore. I think in a mezzo voice, there are different vocal flavors that happen. There really is a chest register. There is the middle, and then there is the high. And so, it was learning what those were. But that came with time. I honestly didn't really get comfortable with that until, I'd say, my last year of Houston Grand Opera Studio.

Marc A. Scorca: And I wanted to ask you about going from Indiana to the HGO Studio. The Houston Grand Opera Studio is one of the finest young artist programs at any opera company in the United States. Did you go right from IU to HGO?

Jamie Barton: I did. I did. I have to say that last semester of school was intense. It was magical, actually. That was the semester that I sang for Marilyn Horne on her week at Carnegie. So, that was a week. I did the Houston Grand Opera Studio Competition, and got third in that. I did the Met auditions, and I also left two weeks early to go to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. So, out of 14 weeks of school, I missed five of those 14 weeks, so it was an intense semester.

Marc A. Scorca: You may have entered IU uncertain about a career in opera, but you left IU with a career in opera, really quite open in front of you.

Jamie Barton: Well, at least the opportunity to jump in and, you know, swim or sink.

Marc A. Scorca: Now, young artist programs are in a certain way known to shy away from unique voices, from big voices. Did you feel that the Young Artist Program at HGO gave you what you needed as an individual artist?

Jamie Barton: Absolutely. Absolutely. They had at the time, and I think still - Houston is, to me, very much a home company, and I love what they do. But when I was there, they took a chance on a singer who was barely, barely, barely starting to understand what was going on, but had potential. And they took me in the same year as they took another mezzo in, and they also had another mezzo in the Studio. So, here is an Opera Studio, which is generally, what, eight to 10 students, and three of them were mezzos. There weren't enough roles to go around. They literally said, "We can only give you Third Lady in The Magic Flute; that's all we've got for you. But we can give you training and concert opportunities, and we can come up with other things throughout the year, if you'll come". And I thought, "Well, yeah, absolutely. I love concert". Concert was always really, really interesting and it was a really good way to avoid having to sing arias for a long time.

Marc A. Scorca: And what did you sing at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis in that little interim?

Jamie Barton: Oh, man. I was actually there for four years; two years as a young artist. That was my very first professional job. They were the first ones to do that. And half the reason I took the audition, or that I signed up for an audition with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, was because they would let you bring an art song for the audition. So I didn't have to have five arias. My voice teacher made me learn five arias by putting me in the Met Competition. So that's kind of how she kicked me out of the nest. Let's see. Well, quite honestly, the first year at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis - we deemed it Opera Theatre of St. Leisure, because I literally was on stage for one role, which wasn't a role, it was just a chorus part that was glorified in Street Scene, the Dowdy Woman. And I covered Elizabeth (Batton) Sorenson doing the crazy lady in the attic, Mrs. Rochester in Jane Eyre, the operatic version. And that was my first year. But they were the first company to give me a role, and that was Annina in Traviata, with the wonderful Dimitri Pittas and Ailyn Pérez. So, I mean, "Hello".

Marc A. Scorca: Good casting. Now, you of course won the Met Auditions in 2007.

Jamie Barton: Almost 10 years ago. Well, this season, 10 years.

Marc A. Scorca: Where in this Opera Theatre of Saint Louis four years, or the HGO Studio, where did that occur?

Jamie Barton: That occurred in that final semester at Indiana University. I had been to Opera Theatre of Saint Louis the summer prior, and so my second time there was directly after all of that.

Marc A. Scorca: Were the two arias you sang in the final concert, two arias that you still own?

Jamie Barton: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, the Witch's aria is something I'll never let go of. I love it. My claws are in it. Don't even try to fight me. Like, I just love it. That role is just one that I love, so, so, so much. And I finally got to do Cornelia this last year in Frankfurt, in a wonderful production of Giulio Cesare. So yeah, very much so.

Marc A. Scorca: What is amazing, but it's not amazing given your talent, is that you went through school into young artist programs, into your career, rather seamlessly,

Jamie Barton: Seemingly so. But I have to tell you, the last year in Houston, when I left the Studio, I had two gigs for the next year. That was it. Now, granted, those two gigs were The Met and Carnegie Hall. So...

Marc A. Scorca: Not bad...

Jamie Barton: Not bad, but it wasn't gonna pay the bills. And the next year came around, and it built onto that. Things started dropping in, as is wont to do, if you're lucky enough to be on a roster that has older people of your voice type; a lot of times, things will fall in your lap. You pick up the gigs that other people can't, or don't want to do. And so, it did pick up. But definitely heading out of HGO, I was going, "Oh man, this is gonna be hard".

Marc A. Scorca: And did you live in New York? Did you stay with family?

Jamie Barton: I was living in Houston at the time, actually. I lived there for two years more, and then moved to Atlanta, to be closer to family, and a really good airport.

Marc A. Scorca: And they encouraged you through the whole career path?

Jamie Barton: Yeah, in the beginning it was a mix of very proud and very confused. But the confused melted away after they figured out that I really love what I do, and they were like, "We don't understand it, but we love that you love it, and it's really cool to get to see you do this".

Marc A. Scorca: Fabulous. So I wanted to chat for a while about competitions. And you didn't spend probably a lot of time on the competition circuit, because your career began to take off. But nonetheless, The Met Opera Council 2007, the BBC Cardiff Singer of the Year 2014, the Richard Tucker Award in 2015. Your career 2014/2015 was already booming, but these awards must really mean something to a young singer on the rise.

Jamie Barton: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, The Met competition was completely and totally unexpected. I didn't know what I was doing, by the way. I had never seen an opera at The Metropolitan Opera before I got there for the week, for the competition. The first thing I ever saw there was Traviata with Krassimira Stoyanova and Jonas Kaufmann, who, at the time, was fairly unknown. Luckily, I had other competitors who are now very dear friends of mine that were in similar positions. And we just ran around the opera house going, "Oh my God. Oh my God".

Marc A. Scorca: Had you ever sung in a space that large?

Jamie Barton: Actually, funny fact - Indiana University's opera theater is the size of The Met plus one square foot. This is what I've been told. So, kind of. I had sung on a stage at least that was that big; the house not nearly as big. But I mean, especially that year, it was the (Franco) Zeffirelli Traviata set that we sang on.

Marc A. Scorca: Had you sung at that point with a full big orchestra?

Jamie Barton: I had at Indiana University. My first opera role ever with an orchestra and in (a foreign) language was Tisbe in Cenerentola. I did Ned Rorem's Our Town, H.M.S. Pinafore and Hansel and Gretel as well there. But those were the four opportunities I got before I was up there with the Met Orchestra, pretending like I knew what the hell I was doing.

Marc A. Scorca: That must have just been a frightening experience.

Jamie Barton: It was exciting. It was a little bit frightening, but it was more exciting.

Marc A. Scorca: Well, that makes you a born performer, that that kind of spotlight and that sort of challenge isn't daunting, but is in fact exciting to you.

Jamie Barton: Yeah. I always say that the most nervous day that I get in my job isn't the performance days at all. That's fun. The nerve-racking days are the first day of rehearsal, (first day of school), and the sitzprobe, 'cause that's the first day with the orchestra. And once I'm through those firsts, then I'm like, "Okay, we know each other. We know what we sound like; we're good".

Marc A. Scorca: In this arc of your development from being a concert singer to being a bit of a stage animal, how did that transition occur?

Jamie Barton: Well Marc, I think I was always a stage animal. Like I said, I started in musical theater. That was my original love. And it took a little while to find my place in opera, vocally. But yeah, concert was kind of an education into that space, but it was definitely a fun transition, finally getting to the place where I could have a lot of fun with the vocal roles and not really have to be so worried if I could do them, quite honestly.

Marc A. Scorca: What does one have to go through to win the Cardiff Singer of the Year?

Jamie Barton: Blood, sweat, tears, all of it. No, it's a competition that I had really wanted to try my hand at for a long, long time. I had put my name...well, you have to be nominated at least, or you had to be nominated when I did it. And my name had been in the hat for the two previous competition years, and I auditioned for them and didn't get through. But you do that audition. My year, it became a DVD round, the first one. Second round was right here at the National Opera Center singing the Witch's aria, of all things. And then if you make it past the live audition, then they say, "Congratulations, you are in, you're gonna come". And then you get to do the competition. The competition consists of an initial heat, and then the finals if you make it through, and that's double if you choose to do the song competition. Lot to go through to get there.

Marc A. Scorca: How exciting. Repertoire. And in scanning the short bio on your website, Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible of Robert Ward, Eboli (Verdi's greatest role), Fricka, Cornelia in Julius Caesar. I think of Christa Ludwig doing Verdi, Wagner and Handel. She didn't do Robert Ward. When I think of singers from the last generation, a lot of them really specialized in a narrow niche, and you are doing anything but that. How do you think about your repertoire?

Jamie Barton: Well, quite honestly, I think of it when it comes through in an offer, a little bit. But I'm really not specifically drawn to the kinds of music, the kinds of composers, as much as I am the stories, and how the music feeds those stories to make it powerful. And so, you just named a list of ladies that the composers just elevated these stories to godlike heights, and I am lucky that I have been given the opportunity to do them. I try my hand out and I see if it works. If it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

Marc A. Scorca: Does one niche in this repertoire fit you better, either temperament or just the vocal instrument? Do you wish you had more Verdi offers or more Wagner offers? Is there a preference that you have?

Jamie Barton: You know, I'm gonna name two, actually. Wagner, who I've discovered is a great love of my life. And then I would say Baroque would be the other thing. I love singing Baroque music. It's something that I've done since concert days, and something that I find endless fascination with, in terms of trying to do the style, figuring out different ways. Handel is different from Monteverdi, which is different from Purcell. I'm just a nerd when it comes to this stuff, but I feel like it's something that is a bit of a vocal home. And I do wish, as you said, I had more opportunities to do it.

Marc A. Scorca: I wish more companies'd perform that repertoire. And that kind of repertoire will keep your voice healthy after doing Wagner, to be able to then come and do something where you have to move the voice.

Jamie Barton: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, for me, the two kinds of music that do that are Baroque and Bel canto. Those are the two, for me, that really kind of streamline everything. And then I get to go scream in glorious wonder in Wagner and Verdi for a little bit, hopefully in the right technique.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you have vocal role models?

Jamie Barton: Oh gosh, yes.

Marc A. Scorca: Okay. So when you take out the Ouija board and say, "How should I approach this B flat?" Who do you channel?

Jamie Barton: Well, it depends on what composer wrote that B flat, and how the approach is going. I have a trifecta that I go towards for opera things, particularly. Marilyn Horne for sure. I feel like there are similarities in how our voices are built, and so I can usually glean a little bit of a voice lesson from listening to her, quite honestly. Dolora Zajick in some of the bigger, like, "Oh my gosh, I'm singing this kind of thing". And then to be quite honest, my all around - this is kind of a vocal idol for me in so, so many ways, and in career ways and personal ways as well is Stephanie Blythe. She is the person who I really feel the most similar to. Now, there are other people as well. If I'm going to the concert rep, you better believe I'm looking into some Janet Baker and some Christa Ludwig. There are many others that I go to, but for opera, that's kind of my trifecta.

Marc A. Scorca: And it's nice that you can also talk to those people, rather than use a Ouija board.

Jamie Barton: Well, I think when I first was getting to know Stephanie Blythe, I kind of wished I had a Ouija board there, 'cause I felt like I was dying. She's still the kind of person, and we're friends, and we see each other every once in a while; we go out for dinners every once in a while. But she's still just means so much to me personally, and I know to this career as a whole, the respect for her is on a monumental level, and so I get around her and my voice just disappears.

Marc A. Scorca: That's a wonderful tribute. When you're thinking about taking on a new role, you of course look at the music, you look at the story. Do you talk to people? Do you get advice from people? Who do you talk to?

Jamie Barton: Oh, man. Well, I talk to a lot of performers. If I know that somebody has done this role before, especially if it's an older generation, one or two removed from me, then I like to talk to them to see what their experiences have been. But then I also kind of have what I have coined 'my board of directors', which is a very small group of people who I take all of the decisions to, that might have any question mark over them whatsoever.

Marc A. Scorca: And then when you're preparing a role, do you start with the text? Do you start with the music? How do you prepare? Do you play the piano for yourself in preparing a role?

Jamie Barton: A little bit. A little bit here and there. My first kind of go-to is actually listening to recordings. Listening to recordings from way back when, all the way up to now, trying to get a feel for the language, if it's a new language especially. Ježibaba (in Rusalka) is right now on my mind, because I'm learning that right now. And so, learning Czech, along with a brand-new role, it's nice to listen to Czech singers sing this text. But really to me, the first step is getting in there and just doing my grunt work, the highlighting, the translating, the transliterating. I go through and I'm like a conductor, I color-code every dynamic. Quite honestly, to me, it helps me be able to look at the score and not have to pay attention to all the little black lines. If I see that there's a piano coming up, or a forte, I know the piano is circled in blue, and forte is circled in red. It's just a quick way of doing that. For some reason, that really helps me get, like, super-acquainted with the score. The next thing for me is the text. I am the kind of musician...the music is an extra added on to the story, but the story is from the text. And if you have a really good composer, then they also storytell through their music. But then, the last step for me is the music. It's figuring out how I'm going to be a storyteller with my voice in this particular score, and one of the really important steps, which I just left out, is that I stop listening to recordings at about midway through really getting into the text, 'cause I'm a good oral listener, or a learner. I don't wanna start emulating other people. But those are kind of my steps.

Marc A. Scorca: And when does a pianist/coach come into it?

Jamie Barton: Usually fairly late. There have been times where I've been like, "Right, I have five minutes and I've gotta learn this role". So, (makes phone sign to ear) "Hi, could you play through this and help me learn it?" That has happened every once in a while, just due to time constrictions. But, most of the time I don't feel good taking it to a coach until it is learned, until I can go in there and I know what the language means, what the structure means. I know that I'm doing everything dynamically correct. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist in that. And I take it to that place, the perfectionist's place, and then I relax back into it and add the character on. So, that's the place in the learning process that I like to bring in a coach, whether it be a director-coach, which I work with sometimes just to get ideas about what the character could be, or a vocal coach to get better ideas about the style, about the language, that kind of thing.

Marc A. Scorca: Do you still take voice lessons?

Jamie Barton: Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Marc A. Scorca: And I think a lot of people would be surprised, especially young singers, that someone of your accomplishment and attainment still takes voice lessons.

Jamie Barton: Listen, I think, it is my impression and certainly my own thing, it doesn't matter if you own a Maserati, you're still going to need a tune-up every once in a while. And especially for a vocalist, and especially I think for somebody at my age, moving through the voice solidifying, bringing on new types of roles, bringing on, quite honestly, new calibers of roles. When I bring on Eboli, I will luckily be with my voice teacher. You know, it's important to have somebody who is outside of the actual body of the instrument to be able to listen and say, "This is what you can do to make this easier; this is what you can do to tweak this". And I'm still in contact with all three of the voice teachers that I've had in my lifetime, but I study mostly with Stephen King down in Houston, and it's so important. I actually haven't been to see him in over a year now, and I miss him. It's just time to get the checkup, but I think it's important.

Marc A. Scorca: Recital work. You also are also a recitalist, and we'll talk about your CD in a couple of minutes. What does recital work do for you as an artist?

Jamie Barton: It gives me every option of choosing every aspect; and I love that. I'm a bit of a control freak in that way. I should say, being that I went to a very small undergrad, we didn't really have the budget for an opera program. They did musical theater, and so I did a little bit of that, but the real way in which we got experience was by getting up in front of our fellow students and doing recitals. So, from the very genesis of my vocal study, I have been doing recitals. This is something very familiar to me. I love them. I love being able to look out in the audience and see people's faces and connect on a personal level. And I love being able to take these songs that are 3, 4, 5 minutes long, and it's a little story that you get to tell, and then you move on to the next story. And it's like Story Hour. I love being in the audience for this kind of thing, too.

Marc A. Scorca: I think it was in a conversation we had with Stephanie Blythe, who said, "When you're an opera artist, a director tells you where to move, a costumer tells you what to wear, the makeup artists make you look however they want to, the conductor cues you to come in and sets the tempo, and that to develop - and she used the word 'autonomy' - to develop her autonomy as an artist, where she's choosing the repertoire, she's choosing the dress, she's choosing her hand movements or other aspects of her performance. Do you find that that autonomy is challenging? Does it inform what you bring to staged opera?

Jamie Barton: Well, absolutely. I think in having that kind of autonomy in recital music, it absolutely feeds who you are as an opera singer. I find more often than not, there are some opera situations where you go in, you have anywhere from a couple of weeks or maybe even just three days to put an opera together before it goes up. And at that point, you're doing what was done. You're kind of rinse, repeat, we're doing this again. But with new productions or with productions that have a little bit of time in rehearsal, you're really getting to connect with a director and with different colleagues and the conductor. And I think when you are able to bring that autonomy to the table in that situation, it makes for an interesting story, a unique telling of something we've all probably heard a lot, which is kind of the point, I think.

Marc A. Scorca: Now the Vatican of recital-giving is Wigmore Hall in London, and you recently made your Wigmore Hall recital debut.

Jamie Barton: Yes, I did.

Marc A. Scorca: And the rave review that I read at the beginning, except for one word, which I couldn't pronounce, was a rave review of that Wigmore Hall recital. So, how did it come about? And was it a nervous moment in your career?

Jamie Barton: Well, it came about actually from the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. The pianist who I worked with on this last recital tour, his name is James Baillieu. He's a South African pianist, a brilliant, brilliant guy, younger than I am, I believe. And Wigmore Hall loves him so much that they gave him his own recital series. And so, couple of years after Cardiff, he called me up and he said, "Hey, I've got this recital series. We both love Charles Ives. Do you wanna put together a recital and do it at Wigmore?" And I was like, "Yep; yes, I would actually". So, this recital tour was kind of born from meeting each other there. I just was in love with how he told stories through the piano keys, and we trusted that we would be able to do this together. And it was a wonderful time. We've been on this recital tour. We've had four dates beforehand. Actually, the date directly before Wigmore Hall was at Cardiff; it was the first time I had been back since the competition. And James went on to London, that's where he lives, the night of the recital, so on Friday. I took off on Saturday. Our recital was on Sunday at Wigmore. And I got a text from his partner the next morning, when I woke up at about 10 o'clock, saying, "Hi, so we've been in the hospital all night", and James had been eating some carrot cake and swallowed a bit of walnut that got stuck in his esophagus. And so, they took him to the hospital and they were doing all these tests to see if they could get it out. They thought that they were gonna have to put him under general anesthesia. And in the end, he was in the hospital from 9:00 PM on Saturday until 1:00 PM on Sunday, and that trooper of a man went home, took a nap, showered, and came into this recital with me. I had an amazing time with every single recital that we did on that tour, but I'm telling you, there was something special in that night. I don't know what it was, but there was this connection. It was probably part Wigmore, part being in the hospital all night and fearing for your life. But it was an incredible experience.

Marc A. Scorca: That's what artists do for their art. The dedication, the sacrifice of artists for their art. It's a pretty amazing force.

Jamie Barton: Choke on walnuts for our art.

Marc A. Scorca: And it was using that story as a transition, because a successful career for someone like you means that you are booked a lot, and much of it away from home; that you are in hotels, away from home. "It was a great year. I didn't see any friends or family. I was in different cities". How do you keep your buoyant, good spirit in your body?

Jamie Barton: I will say that that is the hardest part of this career. I live in Atlanta still. I happen to have found the condo of my dreams. I'm an hour and a half away from my family. I have a cat. My best friends are in Atlanta, and I see all of those practically none of the time. And I'm lucky to get the opportunity to go out and do this career, at that kind of pace, but that being said, it is hard. Now, one of the things that I do that makes me happier, brings more sanity into my life, is that I try to bring a little piece of home along with me, whether it be a picture of family or quite honestly, my cat. And she travels with me; she's here in New York right now. We drove up from Georgia, 'cause she doesn't fly yet, but to be able to have her with me is a bit of home. My home, to me, consists of the actual place, the friends that are around there, and River, my cat. And so if I can't have my actual home along with me, or my friends along with me, if I can have River, it helps. This last year I was on the road - I did the math on this actually. For the year of 2016, I will have been home for 55 days, and those are partial days, some of them. Some of them are travel days, but 55 out of 365. And part of that was a seven month travel stint in which I did not go home at all. So, I had wonderful family and friends who drove her to me in Washington, D.C.. My mother and my nephew actually took my car and River and drove all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to Cooperstown, New York for the summer. They came up and visited for a few days and then flew out of Buffalo, and it was the first time my nephew had ridden on a plane, so it was kind of a fun experience for him as well. But, it takes a village is the phrase that comes to mind. My best friend was in town this last weekend. My mother is surely going to come up for something, at some point, she's always traveling here and there for me. It really takes a village to make it feel like home is still accessible, even if you are on the road, in a hotel room, in God-knows-where.

Marc A. Scorca: And thank heavens for cell phones and Skype and the things that we use now to stay in touch.

Jamie Barton: I don't actually know how people did it. Like a long, long time ago, it was common, I think, for singers to bring their families with them, right? And then came the age of travel when flights were happening, and this was pre-all of the technology that we have now. So all of a sudden, it was easier to go to a gig and not bring your family along, and it's much cheaper. And so, that generation particularly: I don't understand how they did it. To call your home for even a minute was such an enormous expense. We are so, so lucky that I can pick up my phone and talk with my boyfriend over FaceTime, or my family or my cat, if I even need to. These are possible, you know. It's amazing to me. And I'm so grateful to be a part of this generation of singers, if for no other reason (and there are plenty of other reasons) than that.

Marc A. Scorca: I don't think people fully understand the sacrifices that successful singers make for their careers. And yes, there's the glamor of the curtain call, and the flowers, and the standing ovations, and all of that, that is of course a high.

Jamie Barton: Oh, it's wonderful.

Marc A. Scorca: But the day-to-day being away from home is really difficult.

Jamie Barton: It is. Another part of the reason I drive, is so I can bring more of my home with me. I love to cook. If I weren't a singer, I'd probably want to be a chef. And so, I bring my Dutch oven, braise everything.

Marc A. Scorca: You have a new CD? Is that your first CD?

Jamie Barton: It is my first solo album.

Marc A. Scorca: And what's on it?

Jamie Barton: This is a collection of (sings) 'These are a few of my favorite songs' - Mahler, Dvořák and Sibelius are the composers that are on this. We have the Mahler Rückert Lieder, the Dvořák Gypsy Songs - those are the two groups, and then around them, the Sibelius songs are six songs that I picked that are just some of the most stunning songs in the rep.

Marc A. Scorca: Those are intense songs...

Jamie Barton: They're not the happiest texts in the world, but they really are some of the most intensely vivid storytelling-through-music that I know of, and I love every single one of them.

Marc A. Scorca: What was it like making a CD? Is it very different from doing a live performance?

Jamie Barton: Oh, yeah. It's a very, very different process. We were actually just up the road at SUNY Purchase, which has an amazing acoustic, and the engineer room was down a level where we had my manager and the recording engineer and whoever else was around, sitting in there listening to everything intently. And then Brian (Zeger) and I were upstairs on the stage, and we were stopping and starting and stopping and starting. And that process went on for several days, and out came this album.

Marc A. Scorca: And it must be wonderful to have that document that really gives us your artistry for posterity.

Jamie Barton: Well, this was a gift from Brian, to be honest. He had a recording deal with Delos, three CDs, I think. And he had already done two of them, and he invited me along for this, and he really gave me the option. He said, "What do you want to do? What do you want on this CD? What are you passionate about?" And to be able to put this together with Brian, who is one of the great collaborators of our time.

Marc A. Scorca: Brian Zeger, who is in charge of the opera program at Juilliard.

Jamie Barton: It was incredible. It was our first time collaborating actually. But we got together several months before the actual recording process to sit down and play through the music and get to know each other as two artists, and I walked out of the first day going, "Wow, this is gonna be fun".

Marc A. Scorca: So, if you are called back as a distinguished alumna to IU or the HGO Studio, what advice do you give the young singers who look up at you and think, "Wow, I want to be like Jamie Barton".

Jamie Barton: Quite honestly, there's kind of two pieces of advice. The first piece of advice came from a Verdi soprano who went to my undergrad, actually, Indra Thomas. And she came in and did a masterclass and talked with us, and I remembered this, and still recall it now, "Take your time. Take your time. Figure out who you are as an artist. We are in an age where anybody can look up anything on YouTube. You can hear any recording you want to on Spotify. You have access to a vast library of artistry. And the goal isn't to be that. The goal is to tell these stories in a way that connects with the audience, in a way that makes sense to you, not regurgitating, but being your own storyteller. So take your time and figure that out". That's what makes somebody unique in my eyes. When I go and I hear Stephanie Blythe sing, it's not 'cause she's vocally perfect, which is the truth, but it is because every single time I hear her, whether it's in a recording or on stage, I believe every single second of it. I forget everything that I have on my mind, the thousands of things I should be doing, the list of groceries I have to get. Whatever, no matter what, gets slid to the side, and I get to spend a couple of hours losing myself in that beauty. And that, to me, as an audience member, is what I want to see when I go to a performance. So, it is only right that I, as an artist, strive to provide that for the people who are there. And so for young artists, I say, "Look for that in yourself. Look for the truth of the story you're going to be telling. Look for that kernel of truth, because they're smart. Audiences are really, really smart. They can sniff out, when you're putting something on, when you're not telling the truth, when you're acting like an opera singer on stage, they can see it. It's automatically recognizable. And the only thing that hooks people in this, whether it be the operagoer who has been going since they were a kid, and they love it now and they're 110 years old, or whether it be the person who's never seen opera before, is if it gets this little hook into the truth that makes them connect with the words". And so that's the long-winded advice that I would give to a younger singer: honor that truth and take your time doing it, because this is a marathon of a career. We're not in a sprint. You have time. Take your time.

Marc A. Scorca: Great, great advice. We have a few minutes for a couple of questions. Yes, please.

Audience Member #1: So, I'm so impressed with how articulate you are, and I can't help thinking that you would be an amazing teacher. So, I'm wondering if you're interested in that? Do you teach?

Jamie Barton: I would love to is actually the answer. I don't really have the time to do it now, but at some point in my career, I would love to get the opportunity to. Some of my favorite things that I do now are masterclasses. I'm starting to do them more often. They're starting to give me the leash and say, "Okay, go...".

Marc A. Scorca: In what circumstance? So, if you're at an opera company and they have young artists, those young artists might have a masterclass with you?

Jamie Barton: Sometimes. A lot of it is actually based on the recital tours, though. A lot of universities bring in recital tours. And so, for instance, on this last one I taught at Princeton and Cardiff as well. I'm sure there were more, and I'm forgetting all sorts of things, but I get the opportunity to work with all levels of students there, and I love it. It's so much fun. So I would love to at some point; that could certainly be a career goal at some point.

Marc A. Scorca: 25 years from now.

Audience Member #2: Hi. I saw your Anna Bolena last year, which was absolutely fantastic, and I'm wondering...it seems that there's an obvious happy relationship between you and Sondra Radvanovsky.

Jamie Barton: No, we hate each other.

Audience Member #2: It felt like that came through in the performance, which could very easily have gone into a very adversarial, violent place, given the nature of the story, right? How much does your personal relationship with another performer impact your interpretation of a role? And maybe would that change if you were doing a different part?

Jamie Barton: In my experience, I work with many different colleagues. Some of them I am familiar with, like Sondra, like Angela Meade, and others that I'm meeting for the first time, or even working with for the bajillionth time, and we just haven't really gotten to know each other. The difference is that I find it easier to take that extra step when I know somebody, or at least when we have a working relationship or can get to a working relationship. Sondra and I actually got there fairly quickly. We had never actually sung together until I jumped into Norma in San Francisco. I had been on second cast of Norma at The Met; she was first cast, so we never actually worked together. But here I was jumping in at the last minute in San Francisco, and it was like, "Well here, you gotta do it". And luckily, we had already kind of socially known each other, and so it was just a really organic process. But Sondra is also one of those amazing colleagues. She will go there with you. She'll chew the scenery with you, if you really feel like you're getting a mouthful of wood. She's an amazing colleague to work with. And actually, I should just say I find that more often than not. A lot of people who are out there doing it are really, really interested in making it good. And so, I think if you have two people (even if you don't know each other) if you have two people who are really dedicated to that, you can find a middle ground.

Marc A. Scorca: That's wonderful. One more question.

Audience Member #3: You use the term storytelling, probably 10 or 12 times during this whole (discussion). At what point in your singing-artistry career did that concept of awareness, when did that call for you?

Jamie Barton: To me, the thing that comes to mind is the earliest kind of 'aha' moment was when I had been doing recitals for a few years, mainly in academia. And then I went to see Dawn Upshaw in concert. And here was this performer, who had a connection with her pianist that I had never seen before. And they were throwing these stories out there, and you were hook, line and sinker just in it. And I kind of thought, "That's a different experience than just getting up there and singing this correctly. That's a completely different experience. I kinda want to do that". So, that was at Indiana actually. I had already gone all the way through undergrad, but she was really the one who got me thinking about storytelling being so important. I do kind of say to younger singers, "Our job is not to be an opera singer, or a classical singer, or a recitalist or whatever. Our job is that of a storyteller. We just happen to have the palette that includes music". And so that is something that I am personally...you might have seen the soapbox somewhere over here... But once again, it comes down to "What do I wanna see when I go to the theater?"

Audience Member #3: It seems so obvious, but not everybody really puts it across.

Jamie Barton: I kind of think if you know "What's gonna get me off of my couch? Am I gonna put down Westworld and get out of the house and put on pants? It better be good". And that's reality now for every single person, isn't it? I mean, it kind of is. So you better make it good. Make it work.

Marc A. Scorca: The last question...

Audience Member #4: You are a wonderful storyteller. You call it 'the hook', I call it 'touching heart' when I'm in the audience. How do you handle when you have a story, and the librettist and composer have a story to tell, and the director has an idea that's mostly his ego (but not many hers) that undermines your story, the librettist's and the composer's?

Jamie Barton: So, I will say that in the time that I've been doing this, I kind of feel that I've been lucky that I've had mostly conductors and directors who have been on board with the story that they were given. There is one, which is a story that I love very, very much, and it was a production that was absolutely not that story. And it was a struggle. I'm not gonna lie, as an artist who was particularly in love with this story, it was a real struggle to get to a place where I could tell the story of that particular telling. But you do it, you go in there, and you kind of just band together with the people that you're telling the story with, and everybody is doing it together. And, as is the case with this particular one, hilariously enough, as much as my manager and I both love this story so much, and I love the classic telling of it, and so does he, I wasn't sure how it was gonna come across. But I did my job, and I got in there, and I tried to tell the story along the lines that they were putting this in, and I didn't quite believe it in my heart, but my manager was moved by it. And to me that kind of spoke of unity, that spoke of the importance of being on board, even if it's not necessarily the way you would tell it. This brings back to why I love recitals. I get to tell it how I want to tell it. But sometimes there is an element of something that you may not like the greater picture, you may not be on board with it, you may not even understand it sometimes, but I think that there is always a kernel of something that you can pick up that makes sense to you. And if I can take that kernel and turn it into a story and make it make sense and be a part of it, then I feel like I'm doing my job in that particular situation.

Marc A. Scorca: I hope 2017 is an extraordinary year for Jamie Barton. Thank you so much for being here.