Claire Barnett-Jones

Claire Barnett-Jones is fast becoming one of the most sought-after voices on both the operatic stage and the concert platform, recently being named Operawire’s Top 10 Rising Stars after being a Finalist and Winner of the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World 2021. Recent highlights include her role and company debuts as Fricka Die Walküre at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl in Austria, and as Madame Flora The Medium for Oper Frankfurt, singing the role of Dryad in concert performances of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Edinburgh International Festival, and her European concert debut at The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethe’s Faust, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.

Claire opens the 2022-23 season with her French operatic debut as Jezibaba in the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse’s new production of Rusalka directed by Stefano Podo. Claire also makes a return to English National Opera, to join the cast of their concert performance of Britten’s Gloriana. Further season highlights include company debuts at Welsh National Opera and The Grange Festival . On the concert and recital platforms Claire sings Messiah with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and tours the UK alongside pianist Sholto Kynoch as part of the Oxford Lieder Festival autumn touring season.

More recent highlights include Sosostris in Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the Baton of Edward Gardner at the Royal Festival Hall, Rossweisse and Fricka in The Valkyrie at English National Opera; the beginning of a new Ring Cycle at ENO directed by Richard Jones, as well as Lapák Cunning Little Vixen, also for ENO, creating the role of ‘Alto 1’ in Stockhausen’s Mittwoch Aus Licht with Birmingham Opera Company and the BBC Proms, directed by Sir Graham Vick, and Fricka and Wellgunde in Das Rheingold for Grimeborn Festival. Cover roles for English National Opera have included Frederica Luisa Miller, Jezibaba Rusalka and Suzuki Madame Butterfly.

In 2017, Claire was presented with the Wessex Glyndebourne Association Award for a young singer of much promise, and in 2018 made her Glyndebourne Festival Debut as 2nd Noble Orphan in Der Rosenkavalier, and performed Annina La Traviata for Glyndebourne Touring Opera later that year. Following this, she made her company debut with English National Opera as Eurydice Myth/Persephone in Birtwistle’s The Mask of Orpheus, and was subsequently awarded the Lilian Baylis Award for Outstanding Potential in the Field of Opera in recognition of her exceptional stage debut. Claire performed the role of Maurya in Riders of the Sea for British Youth Opera, where she was awarded the Basil A. Turner Prize for outstanding performance. For Buxton Festival Opera she has performed Gertrude and cover Mother in Charpentier’s Louise conducted by Stephen Barlow.

In concert, Claire has performed Beethoven Symphony No. 9 at St John’s Smith Square, Handel’s Messiah at the Royal Albert Hall, as part of ‘Precipice’, a series of specially curated concerts for The Grange Festival, and has given recitals at the BBC Proms with Simon Lepper, Snape Maltings with James Ballieu, the Ludlow English Song Festival and the Wigmore Hall with Iain Burnside and the Blackheath Halls with Rebecca Cohen. Claire was selected to compete in the Final Rounds of Operalia, The World Opera Competition. She was also awarded the Wagner Prize of the Netherlands, the Junior Jury Prize at the 52nd International Vocal Competition s’Hertogenbosch, as well as the 2nd Prize, Villa Medici Recital Prize and Waynflete Singers Concert Prize all at The Grange Festival International Singing Competition. She has also been the recipient of the Elly Ameling Masterclass Prize (Lieder) at the 51st IVC Competition with pianist Somi Kim, the Dame Patricia Routledge English Song Prize, the Birmingham Town Hall/Symphony Hall Recital Prize, and the Mario Lanza Opera Prize.

Claire studied at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Royal Academy Opera and Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and is a recipient of the Sir John Tomlinson Fellowship whilst a member of the English National Opera Harewood Artist Programme (2019-2022), Independent Opera Fellow and Samling Artist.