performance

“And, in the title role, Judith Barnes uses her strong soprano voice to create a truly tragic anti-heroine. In her powerful monologue that takes up all of the second act, Barnes cuts right to the quick of what is the emotional center of the entire opera.”  —The Brooklyn Paper (Darius Milhaud’s Médée)

Operatic roles of mezzo soprano Judith Barnes have included Médée (Milhaud, Médée), Jenůfa (Janáček, Jenůfa), Dido (Purcell, Dido and Aeneas), Phaedra (Britten, Phaedra), Lucretia (Britten, The Rape of Lucretia), Lady Katharina Kaiser (Yoav Gal, The Dwarf), Yocheved (Yoav Gal, Mosheh), Giorgetta (Puccini, Il Tabarro), both Alcina & Ruggiero (Handel, Alcina), Orphée (Gluck, Orphée et Euridice), Die Marschallin (R. Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier), Elettra (Mozart, Idomeneo), Santuzza (Mascagni, Cavalleria Rusticana), Bertha (Rorem, Bertha), Beatrice (Bolcom, A View from the Bridge), Giunone (Cavalli, La Calisto), Giulietta (Offenbach, Les contes d’Hoffmann), Lucille (Dembska, The Singing Bridge), Naturaleza Humana (Eaton, El Divino Narciso), Mère Ubu (Elias, Mère Ubu’s Gold), and works in development by Martin Halpern, Jiří Kadeřábek, Nizan Leibovich, Eric Salzman, Ben Yarmolinsky, Gal Ziv, among other contemporary composers. In addition, Judith has performed extensive sacred and secular repertoire from the 17th-21st centuries.

More performance and production info at VPROpera.org

The War of Dreams (Combat del Somni)
Judith Barnes, mezzo soprano & Pablo Zinger, piano
Music of Juan de Anchieta, Pedro de Escobar, Jesús Guridi, Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Gabriel Fauré, Frederic Mompou, Béla Bartók, Johannes Brahms, Leonard Bernstein
Wednesday Music Club, Brooklyn NY, February 19, 2025
Listen to Mompou’s Combat del Somni HERE
(Photo: Joseph Henry Ritter)
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Come to the Katberet with Kat Rothe & Friends
Don’t Tell Mama, Sept 28, 2024
Listen to El Desdichado by Camille Saint-Saens HERE
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As Director: CHANSONS DE BAUDELAIRE
Les Fleurs du Mal
June 13 & 16, 2024
For dell’Arte Opera Ensemble, Judith directed an intimate salon program of songs set to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Readings from Baudelaire’s intimate letters and journal entries illuminate the tormented psyche of the man who has had such a profound effect on literature and the arts to this day.

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UNFIX NYC: ​DISTURBANCE 
Grace & St. Paul’s Church, NYC, May 18th, 2024
BRINK (working title)
Nonn’ erubescite, reges? from Oedipus Rex by Igor Stravinsky, libretto Jean Cocteau
L’Énigme Éternelle from Deux Mélodies Hébraïques by Maurice Ravel
Paysage from Poêmes pour Mí by Olivier Messiaen
Judith Barnes, director & mezzo soprano; Irena Romendik, video artist, performer; Dmitriy Glivinskiy, piano. A production of Vertical Player Repertory.

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As Director: THE CONSTITUTION, a secular oratorio
By Benjamin Yarmolinsky
Grace Chorale of Brooklyn and Vertical Player Repertory
Jason Asbury, conductor; Judith Barnes, stage director
St. Ann & The Holy Trinity Church, Bklyn NY, May 14 & 15, 2022
“During these complex political times, it is especially unique to see a work that puts the Constitution front and center. This is an opportunity for audiences to familiarize themselves with a document that represents the soul of the U.S.” —Operawire

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THE MUTE CHILD: Trois Chansons de García Lorca by Francis Poulenc
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WOMEN OF SALT AND LONGING, created for the LEIMAY SOAK Festival, photos Shige Moriya

As Lady Katerina Kaiser in Yoav Gal’s opera THE DWARF, Vertical Player Repertory

As Giorgetta in Puccini’s IL TABARRO on the docks in Red Hook, Brooklyn, photo Michael Nagle for The New York Times

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