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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