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Times
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Classical Pride review — queer composers, a drag queen and the LSO
I never imagined that I would see that fastidious composer George Benjamin sharing a platform with Jonny Woo, a voluminously bewigged drag queen who served as the concert's presenter and easily looked around seven feet tall. But that was the wonder of London's grand finale to this year's edition of the LGBTQ+ showcase Classical Pride, which highlights queer composers both past and present. It was an event so joyful and welcoming that a packed Barbican Hall couldn't stop clapping, whether the London Symphony Orchestra was playing emotionally tumescent Tchaikovsky (the suite from Swan Lake) or the rarefied sensuality of Benjamin's Dream of the Song, a 2015 song cycle for lyrical countertenor, gently wafting women's voices and a small ensemble. The audience indeed leapt into applause before this had finished, possibly keen to move the concert on toward something more user-friendly. But even if Benjamin's crystalline undulations wouldn't have been everyone's cup of tea, it was easy to appreciate that the countertenor Cameron Shahbazi was a superb singer; that the LSO, conducted by Classical Pride's founder Oliver Zeffman, was being very refined; and that the voices of Tenebrae added their own magic, weaving and wafting in the background. • Nothing stayed in the background, of course, with the powerful American mezzo Jamie Barton, famous waver of the Pride rainbow flag at the Last Night of the Proms in 2019. Each of her three numbers, nonetheless, struck a different musical note. First came the premiere of a commissioned song from fellow American Jake Heggie, forming the third in his cycle Good Morning, Beauty, exploring a love relationship's evolution over time. Written in dramatic cabaret style, Or Am I in a Rut (words by Taylor Mac) made an immediate impact. So, in the operatic vein, did an aria from Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, even though Barton's urgent delivery finally became more shrill than winning. No miscalculation, happily, disturbed her sensitive account of Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz. What else? There was Jennifer Higdon's blue cathedral, a reflective and ultimately uplifting tone poem, triggered by the death of Higdon's younger brother, although the best LSO showcase remained the Swan Lake suite, dashingly conducted by Zeffman, with some gorgeous harp finery from Bryn Lewis. I should note as well the early evening half-hour song recital that usefully paraded talented young artistes (soprano Harriet Burns, baritone Jonathan Eyers, pianist/composer Edward Picton-Turbervill), but also reminded us that the shape and acoustic of a sparsely filled Barbican Hall make clearly hearing the words being sung close to mission impossible. ★★★★☆ Barbican, London @timesculture
Times
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Jamie Barton: Opera singers are being forced to take Ozempic
When Jamie Barton waved a large rainbow Pride flag as she sang Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms, the crowd fell in love with her. The American mezzo-soprano had chosen the flag because it 'represents love, acceptance and tolerance' and because she'd vowed to use her voice and her public profile for good. 'I've rarely heard a bigger cheer in the Albert Hall,' the Times critic Richard Morrison wrote. He continued: 'We may not be a land of hope or glory right now, we certainly don't rule the waves … at least, however, we now cheer sexual and gender liberation. Some progress, then.' That was in 2019. Barton will once again publicly fly the flag for LGBTQ+ rights in July, when she sings at the finale of Classical Pride with the London Symphony Orchestra, an event also heading to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. But the general mood has changed drastically since that Proms moment, she tells me from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. 'It does feel like a different world, for sure. The screws have been tightened on the queer community in so many ways,' she says. • Read more opera reviews, guides and interviews This year Pride has taken on a different meaning for the 43-year-old opera star, who came out publicly as bisexual in 2014. 'I'm reminded of how Pride started as a riot, as a fight for rights, for liberty, for freedom. We are who we are. We are not going to silence ourselves.' No surprises that Barton is not a fan of President Trump; if the White House invited her to sing, she would say no. She would, however, perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, even though Trump has made himself chairman and criticised its 'woke' programming. 'I would hands down gladly go there because that's my place. That's ours,' she says. 'I would show up as exactly who I am and do my job to the best of my ability. In and of itself, that would be an act of rebellion.' Some believe the age of identity politics is over. For Barton, talking about being queer, bisexual, body positive and neurodivergent (she was diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic) has become non-negotiable. 'I can't tell you the number of people who lean in and whisper, 'I'm queer but I can't come out, I don't feel safe, but thank you for validating my existence by telling people this is normal,'' she says. 'That's more important to me than just about any other aspect of what I do. It goes hand in hand with trying to be at the highest level of artistry I can.' As her career has soared — taking her from Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera to Verdi at Covent Garden, Mahler at the Proms to Stravinsky in Paris — so has her resolve strengthened. While she hopes the BBC would still allow artists to wave a Pride flag at the Last Night ('It would be a real shame if they didn't'), she would now think twice about singing Rule, Britannia! and backs artists who believe its time has passed, such as the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. 'I fully support the questioning of it. There might be other songs that would be able to celebrate the legacy of Britain… I would be interested in the BBC figuring out a new celebration song, something that would make people feel nationalistic in the best way, not at the expense of others.' The words 'safe' and 'dangerous' crop up a few times during our interview, and it makes me wonder whether Barton fears for her safety. As she puts it to me, with her purple hair and side-shave she no longer 'passes' as a Republican in small-town Georgia, where she grew up. 'Most of the time I feel safe,' she says. 'I will admit that when I was flying back to the States I got a recommendation of a lawyer in case I was held at border control and they searched through social media for any sign of dissent against this administration, because that's been happening. I came back into the US with my face ID turned off on my phone and those numbers written on my arm.' She got home without a hitch — but it made Barton realise her life is far from normal right now. 'Earlier today I was chuckling in this black comedy way, because on my 'to buy' list are laundry detergent, avocados and a go-bag with proper contents just in case society collapses,' she says. Firmly off her shopping list, however, is Ozempic. In 2019 Barton told The Times about her struggles with binge-eating and crash-dieting, and how she has become anti 'diet culture', even though she knows she's missed out on roles because directors have believed she's 'too fat'. But with weight-loss drugs going mainstream, the pressure on opera singers to take them is real, she says. 'I have heard from colleagues of the pressure,' she says. 'I know of one high-level singer who a new opera was being written for. He lost the job because the general director of the house decided this singer wasn't aesthetically pleasing enough to carry the subject. Later he went on Ozempic specifically because of that. He was worried because he didn't want to lose further jobs. It makes me sad. Mounjaro and Ozempic are not easy drugs to be on, which is why I feel they're best left for the people who absolutely need them.' • Nicky Spence: 'Fat shaming still goes on in opera' Barton is speaking from experience. 'I have my own sad tale when it comes to these particular drugs,' she says. 'I have been diabetic for a long time and back in 2011, when those drugs were just starting to enter the market, my doctor at the time put me on an earlier version. Long story short, I ended up with a chronic, never-going-to-go-away condition called gastroparesis, which means every once in a while my stomach doesn't process food. Sometimes it freezes, which is quite literally the effect of that class of drug: to slow your stomach function. I was on it for less than a week before I had my first flare-up.' The condition made her very ill and made working difficult. After trying Trulicity during the pandemic, which resulted in another bad flare-up, Barton concluded that the drugs weren't for her. As a result she now feels 'no pressure whatsoever' to take Ozempic. She's equally accepting of reaching middle age. It is the subject of the new song Or Am I in a Rut? by Jake Heggie, which she'll be premiering at Classical Pride in London before flying over to the US to sing it in Los Angeles as part of the whole song cycle Good Morning, Beauty. 'It's about the moment when you start to clock how time is affecting your body, your desire, your sense of self in so many ways,' she says. 'I love that because I'm very much in that place in my own life right now.' She's long been a fan of Heggie's music and will be singing Sister Helen Prejean in the 25th anniversary production of his death-row opera, Dead Man Walking, in San Francisco next year, as well as appearing on the first recording of his opera Intelligence. 'There's always a point, with putting together a new Jake Heggie piece, when you're sitting at the piano and you dissolve in tears. It's just part of the process,' she says. 'How magical to have a creator of music who knows how to play the heart strings so deftly … there's an indelible truth and visceral honesty to what he does that hooks me.' Words that could have been written about Barton Barton sings at Classical Pride at the Barbican, London, Jul 4. The series runs from Jun 27,
Boston Globe
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Anne Bogart's Boston Lyric Opera ‘Carousel' spins in circles
Like her 'South Pacific,' Bogart's 'Carousel' is metatheatrical, at least in theory. Press releases indicated the company is a 'traveling group of outsider artists' that puts on a production of the musical at an abandoned amusement park. Sara Brown's weathered wooden sets, including a towering roller coaster and a rotating circular dais, hinted at that intention; as did the colorful costumes, wigs and makeup by Haydee Zelideth and Earon Chew Nealey, which included plenty of ruffled skirts and neon-colored hair, a leather vest on the carousel barker Billy Bigelow (the outstanding baritone Edward Nelson), and one eye-catching tiger onesie. Theatrically post-apocalyptic and rough around the edges, it felt like a cousin of the 'Traveling Symphony' Shakespeare troupe as depicted in Emily St. John Mandel's National Book Award-nominated ' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up That framing device also did its part to explain the over-the-top acting of some of the side characters, for example Theophile Victoria's David Bascombe. The script makes Bascombe out to be a condescending enforcer of masculine Christian morality; Victoria, clad in a sweeping coat and top hat, gave the role a preening high camp twist. Advertisement However, in the program, Bogart's director's note indicated that the players are 'a group of refugees' that arrive from 'a great distance, seeking to gain access and acceptance.' This was represented by the tall rolling fences that took the place of curtains, behind which the company assembled during the overture and entr'acte, as well as actors dressed as unsmiling security guards positioned at either side of the stage throughout the show and intermission. Initially it seemed the guard characters were intended to be on the audience's side of the fourth wall, as they pointedly refused to interact with the actors' antics during the joyous clamor (choreographed by Shura Baryshnikov) of 'June Is Bustin' Out All Over,' but when a character called the police within the musical, those guards were the ones who answered the call. Otherwise, the refugee angle went unexplored, and it felt like a cheap afterthought. Jamie Barton as Nettie and the cast of Boston Lyric Opera's "Carousel." Nile Scott Studios Under all the colorful ruffles and found-object props, it was still 'Carousel,' played mostly straight. The company deployed a robust orchestra under the baton of David Angus, and a strong cast to carry the score and story of Rodgers and Hammerstein's 80-year-old musical. Advertisement Making her BLO debut, mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton brought a terrifically full voice and overflowing heart to Nettie Fowler. Soprano Brandie Sutton, also a BLO first-timer, wore her fast wits like a crab wears its shell during her first scenes as Julie Jordan, making her later resignation to Billy's abuses even more tragic. Nelson was a compelling and emotionally infuriating Billy; already giving the impression of a confused and terrified young boy in a man's body, 'Soliloquy' only sealed that deal. Might we see him as Sweeney Todd in a few years? Soprano Anya Matanovič's effervescent Carrie Pipperidge was a delight, as was tenor Omar Najmi's stuffed-shirt Enoch Snow; their 'Say something soft and sweet' / 'Boston cream pie!' squabble earned several giggles. Baritone Markel Reed, as the scheming, strutting Jigger, snatched attention during 'Stonecutters Cut It on Stone' with an immaculate comic verse sung up an octave. Abigail Marie Curran's Louise landed onstage like a hurricane in the Act II dream ballet, wild-eyed and barefoot; her thrashing, whirling limbs beat at the bars of an invisible cage. (Costume team: nice job dressing the kids in Act II in a mixture of their parents' signature colors.) But 'Carousel' sung well still has the problem of being 'Carousel,' in which a teenage girl earnestly asks her mother if it's possible for a man to hit you but it feels like a kiss, and that mother saying 'it's possible, dear,' as the music swells. Nicholas Hytner's acclaimed 1990s production changed the tenor of that scene by having Billy Advertisement This production almost seemed to rush through that scene, crossing fingers no one would remember it in the wake of the uplifting graduation address given by the Starkeeper/Dr. Seldon (played by Boston Foundation president and CEO Lee Pelton) and subsequent finale-reprise of 'You'll Never Walk Alone.' The ultimate scene on Friday encapsulated many of the problems with this 'Carousel,' as the house lights illuminated and Pelton addressed the audience, with the company standing behind him. Were we meant to be the townsfolk, in-universe? Were we meant to be the audience of the traveling troupe? A community with the power to welcome refugees, which might choose not to? No one seemed to know. When Pelton asked a question that begged for a loud and affirmative audience response, I heard one lonely 'yes' from somewhere nearby. Before people join up with any cause, they need to know they're not just spectators. Some need to know that simply watching is no longer an option. This 'Carousel' had the opportunity to jolt us out of our comfortable seats; instead, it turned us in circles. A.Z. Madonna can be reached at
