RPS Music Awards Presenter

Dame Josephine Barstow

Dame Josephine Barstow is recognised as one of the world’s leading singing actresses. During a long career she has performed in most of the world’s major opera houses and with many of the great conductors.

She began her career touring with Opera for All and then won a scholarship to study for one year at the London Opera Centre where she met her husband Ande Anderson. (After a long and happy marriage, sadly he died in 1996.) Very soon she was singing Euridice and Violetta for the Sadlers Wells Opera Company and the following year began a three-year contract with the Welsh National Company. There her roles included The Countess in Figaro, Fiordiligi, Violetta, Mimi, Amelia Boccanegra and Elisabeth Don Carlos. After having been invited to sing Violetta in a new and very successful production of La Traviata with the English National Opera, she began what was to become a long and very rewarding relationship with that company. Notable among the roles she sang there are Natasha War and Peace, Salome, Elisabeth Don Carlos, Leonora The Force of Destiny, Leonore Fidelio, Jeanne The Devils of Loudon, Katarina Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Tosca, Sieglinde, Senta, Emilia Marty The Makropoulos Case, The Marschallin and Arabella.

Her association with the Royal Opera Covent Garden began early with the Second Niece in Peter Grimes and then as Denise in the world premiere of The Knot Garden by Sir Michael Tippett. She has returned there regularly over the years for roles as varied as the young woman in Henze’s We come to the River, Salome, Ellen Orford, Helena A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Santuzza, Leonore, Alice, Lady Macbeth and most recently the Countess The Queen of Spades.

She has travelled the world singing a varied repertoire of Verdi, Richard Strauss, Puccini and Janacek among others and visiting such places as Paris, Munich, Vienna, Bayreuth, Berlin, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, South Africa, Japan and Australia. In 1986 she made an historic trip to the Soviet Union singing Tosca and Lady Macbeth and was the first westerner to sing at the Bolshoi for 25 years. In the same year she went to Salzburg for the world premiere of Die Schwarze Maske by Penderecki.

While there she came to the notice of Herbert von Karajan and he invited her to sing the title role in Tosca with Pavarotti, and Amelia Ballo in Maschera with Placido Domingo. Karajan’s death meant the performances of Ballo fell to the baton of George Solti, although the recording had already been completed, as planned.

Recently Josephine Barstow has had a fruitful relationship with Opera North singing such roles as Tosca, Marie Wozzeck, Aida, Medea, Lady Billows and perhaps notably Gloriana, which was also filmed. Other recent appearances include Mother Marie Dialogue of the Carmelites with ENO and Kostelnichka Jenufa in Oviedo.

In 1985 she was awarded a C.B.E. and the International Directors’ Fidelio Award. In 1995 she was made a D.B.E. Recordings include: Ballo in Maschera, Gloriana, Albert Herring, Kiss me Kate, Oliver, Street Scene, Wozzeck, Jenufa and The Carmelites. Films include: Gloriana – a film and Owen Wingrave.