British-Singaporean mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron—hailed as a “charismatic star” by The Boston Globe and “a knockout performer” by The Times—is a 2018 HSBC Laureate of the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence and the recipient of the Tanglewood Music Festival’s 2016 Grace B. Jackson Prize, which is awarded to one outstanding young singer every year. She’s a passionate interpreter of chamber music, concert works, and operas that span the Baroque to the contemporary era, and she’s a mentee of soprano Barbara Hannigan.
In the 2021–22 season, Ms. Barron has house debuts at Arizona Opera as the title role in Bizet’s Carmen; English National Opera as Schwertleite in Wagner’s Die Walküre, conducted by Martyn Brabbins; and the Auditorio-Palacio de Congresos Príncipe Felipe in Oviedo, Spain, as Hänsel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. She returns to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, conducted by Leonardo Garcia Alarcón, and to Opéra de Toulon as Polina in Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades. On the concert platform, Ms. Barron has a recital debut at Wigmore Hall in London; joins Ms. Hannigan for Offenbach’s Barcarolle with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican; and reunites with pianist Julius Drake, a regular collaborator, for a United States recital tour, performances of Schubert’s Winterreise in Spain, and multiple concerts in the United Kingdom. Additionally, she serves as an artist-in-residence at Denmark’s Oremandsgaard Chamber Music Festival with acclaimed cellist Natalie Clein. This season also sees the release of CDs featuring songs by Brahms and Barber (both for Resonus Classics) as well as a world-premiere recording of the Handel/Hasse opera Caio Fabbricio with London Early Opera (for Signum Records), in which she sings the lead role of Pirro.
During the 2020–21 season, Ms. Barron made her house debut at Garsington Opera as Olga in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and returned to Opéra de Monte-Carlo as Mercédès in Carmen. She had also been scheduled to make her house debut at Opera Philadelphia as Museum Curator in the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s Woman with Eyes Closed and to sing Ottavia at The Royal Opera of Versailles. In concert, she gave solo recitals with Mr. Drake at Chamber Music Northwest in Oregon, at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and on multiple concert series in the UK; with pianist Joseph Middleton at the Leeds Lieder Festival and Blackheath Halls; with pianist Myra Huang at the Cincinnati Song Initiative; with pianist Jocelyn Freeman at The Red House in Aldeburgh; and with pianist Kunal Lahiry at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in a program curated around the theme of empire/identity. Additionally, she gave a duo recital with tenor Ian Bostridge and Mr. Drake at the Oxford Lieder Festival and another with tenor Nicky Spence featuring Czech songs at Opera Holland Park.
In the 2019–20 season, Ms. Barron made significant role and house debuts, including La Zelatrice in staged performances of Puccini’s Suor Angelica with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kirill Petrenko, the title role in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice at Cape Town Opera, and Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at Opéra National de Montpellier. Her concert season included debuts with the Munich Philharmonic in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella under Ms. Hannigan and a performance of Berlioz arias with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra under Kees Bakels. She also continued her recital partnerships with Mr. Drake and pianist Roger Vignoles at the Concertgebouw, the Aldeburgh Festival, and other festivals in the UK, and she gave a solo recital at the 92nd Street Y in New York City with Ms. Huang. Previously scheduled engagements included singing Ottavia at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the title role in Handel’s Giulio Cesare with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, Suzuki with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer with the Orchestre Symphonique de l’Opéra de Toulon, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
During the 2018–19 season, Ms. Barron was an artist-in-residence at the Ojai Music Festival under the leadership of Ms. Hannigan, performing works by Stravinsky, Walton, and Cage and a program of folk songs with a chamber orchestra that she also curated. She debuted at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie as Baba the Turk in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, a role she reprised in a concert version at the Aldeburgh Festival to critical acclaim. She also sang Olga at the Opéra de Toulon, Balkis in Offenbach’s Barkouf at Opéra National du Rhin, Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Northern Ireland Opera, First Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Marguerite in Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust at the St. Endellion Summer Music Festival. On the concert platform, she toured with the Orchestre Régional de Normandie as the alto soloist in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and presented recitals with Mr. Drake and Mr. Vignoles in Spain and the UK.
In other recent seasons, Ms. Barron received critical acclaim for simultaneously singing and dancing Anna I and Anna II in Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins at the Tanglewood Music Festival. She also appeared as Fenena in Verdi’s Nabucco at Opéra National de Montpellier, for which she was hailed as the “revelation of the evening” by Ôlyrix; the title role in Carmen at the Aspen Music Festival; and the title role (covering) in the Purcell pastiche Miranda at Opéra Comique. She was also the alto soloist in Bernstein’s Songfest with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Flint Symphony Orchestra, and Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Fleur Barron holds degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University.
