L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
18
|
October 6 - 20, 2018
Jamie Barton
sang three supporting roles during her Lyric debut
season (2011/12), in
Les contes d’Hoffmann, Boris Godunov
, and
Ariadne auf Naxos
. She has since returned to delight Lyric audiences
as Magdalene/
Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg
, followed by the
dramatic and musical thrills she brought to
Anna Bolena
as Giovanna
Seymour. Barton has won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World
and other top competitions, and has wowed audiences and critics
worldwide in a variety of powerful mezzo-soprano roles. In November
she will portray the deeply troubled Azucena in Verdi’s
Il trovatore
, a
role she sang previously at Cincinnati Opera to great acclaim.
Traumatized by seeing her own mother killed, Azucena is
consumed by the desire for revenge, and has her way over the
course of Verdi’s blood-and-thunder melodrama. “What I love
about Azucena is her grit, her endurance, and her flaws,” says
Barton. “She’s had an incredibly difficult life. She saw her mother
die a horrific death, burned at the stake, which is certainly enough
to cause some major PTSD. Her mother also commanded her to
avenge her, and in this frenzy, she threw a baby – who she thought
was Count di Luna Senior’s child – into the fire. It turns out to
be her own baby, so she kidnaps Count di Luna Senior’s child and
raises him as her own.
“Obviously, this woman has gone through hell, and is
living in a world of trauma and guilt as a result of it,” Barton
continues. “I have massive respect for a character with flaws, and
I consider it a privilege to get to share her struggles – for me,
imperfect characters hit a little closer to home. I may never have
had to endure events at this level, but I have dealt with PTSD
and guilt, and I think showing a human being going through
human struggles is something that ends up being cathartic for the
audience – and for us onstage!”
Barton finds a strong musical correlation between Azucena
and
Don Carlo'
s Eboli – “apt, since they're both Verdi characters!
They’re two very powerful women. Eboli wields political power,
and Azucena is incredibly magnetic. Both are so blinded by their
own missions that they can’t see how devastating the repercussions
will be. Truly, I can understand what drives Azucena more than
what motivates Eboli. Despite the horror of what is revealed in
the end, I believe this woman was pushed and prodded into doing
what she felt she had to do. Given that her Act-Four music has
such beauty and fragility woven into it, I’ve always wondered if
Verdi looked upon Azucena with a sympathetic eye as well.”
Four incredible roles. Four outstanding artists. What a revelatory
feast for the senses and emotions each of these portrayals promises
to be!
Magda Krance is Lyric’s director of media relations.
“As we find her in
Siegfried
, though years have passed since
her punishment was handed down, for her it feels as if it’s been
just moments,” Goerke says of Brünnhilde’s awakening. “She
doesn’t appear to be very strong at first, and indeed she isn’t. She
is now mortal, vulnerable in a way that she has never been before,
but as she talks about what she has done and who she was – and
in fact who she still is, she realizes that her strength comes from a
very different place than perhaps she first thought. She finds joy in
taking a chance on love again, after being disappointed in the love
and protection of her father.
“As we find Brünnhilde in
Götterdämmerung
, we see further
variations of her strength, but we also see that she is not only
her mother’s daughter, having found wisdom, but also her father’s
daughter – possessing his anger, strength, and pride,” Goerke
continues. “In the end, she finds herself, and peace.
“The gift of portraying this character is found in the fact that
though the story of the
Ring
seems lofty, the characters – these
gods – are more human than most humans,” the soprano notes.
“It’s quite easy to imagine yourself in any one of these situations
when you bring them down to their simplest forms. Everyone has
experienced betrayal. At some point, it’s likely that everyone has
been accused and blamed for something that they didn’t do. We’ve
all had issues with a parent disagreeing with a choice that we have
made and that we have felt strongly about. We’ve all fallen in love,
and been afraid of losing ourselves in that feeling. For me, that is
the gift of losing ourselves in any story – being able to recognize
parts of ourselves in the characters.”
FAY FOX
Jamie Barton as Giovanna in
Anna Bolena
at Lyric (with John
Relyea as Enrico).
TODD ROSENBERG