Klara Barlow
Encyclopedia
Klara Barlow was an American
opera
singer who had an active international career from the mid 1960s through the 1990s. A dramatic soprano
, Barlow particularly excelled in portraying Strauss and Wagnerian heroines. The 5-foot-11-inch-tall "platinum-blonde beauty" was ideal for playing the "Wagnerian blondes", roles like Elsa, Eva, Sieglinde, and Elisabeth. Although she worked most often in the German repertoire, Barlow also sang roles from the Italian, French, and Czech repertories. While her performance credits included leading roles at most of the world's major opera house
s, she never achieved a high level of international fame. She did not participate in any commercial audio recordings, although her voice is preserved on a few television and radio broadcasts made in Germany, Canada, and the United States.
at Carnegie Hall
in 1954. Although critics were enthusiastic, she was unable to attract the interest of major opera companies in the United States. She did however, sing with Giuseppina La Puma's highly respected amateur company, The Mascagni Opera.
By 1961, twice divorced and with a nine-year-old daughter to support, she decided to try her luck in Europe. She moved to Switzerland
to pursue further studies in opera and it was there that she was directed into the dramatic repertory. She finally made her professional opera debut as Venus in Richard Wagner
' Tannhäuser
at the Stadttheater Bern in 1962. She joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Stadttheater Oberhausen in 1963 where she sang for two seasons. In 1965 she joined the Kiel Opera House
where she sang regularly for one year.
as Donna Anna in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
's Don Giovanni. The production was directed by Walter Felsenstein
and was broadcast live on German television. That performance was recently released on DVD in January 2009 in a boxed collection with several other operas directed by Felsenstein at the Komische Oper between 1956-1976. She sang several more leading roles with the company during the 1966-1967 season to great success. Barlow next worked as a principal soprano at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
from 1967-1969 and then at the Opernhaus Zürich from 1969-1970. Her major successes at these houses were portraying heroines from operas by Richard Wagner
, Richard Strauss
, and Giuseppe Verdi
. She made her first opera appearances in the United States
in 1969 as the title role in Verdi's Aida
with the Portland Opera
and at the San Diego Opera
as Elizabeth in Tannhäuser.
In 1967 Barlow sang her first Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
in Kiel, a performance which didn't put her on the map but which did lead to an engagement to sing the part at the 1968 Festival dei Due Mondi
in Spoleto, Italy opposite Claude Heater
as Tristan. The Spoletto production was directed and conducted by composer Gian Carlo Menotti
and was highly received. After this point Isolde became one of Barlow's signature parts and she repeated the role in over thirty European performances over the next six years. Barlow's first major success at the Metropolitan Opera
was as Isolde to Jess Thomas
's Tristan in 1974; a performance broadcast live on the radio. The New York Times
wrote a feature article on her performance, proclaiming it "the performance of her life". Time
stated that, "To New York audiences who have seen almost nothing for 15 years except Birgit Nilsson's cool, ruminative portrayal, Barlow's sexy Isolde came as a pleasant shock." She had made her Met debut three years earlier as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio
on February 3, 1971 with Robert Nagy as Florestan and William Dooley
as Don Pizarro, later followed by performances of Donna Anna that year. Barlow returned to the Met several more times during the 1970s, singing Marina in Boris Godunov
(1975), Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera
(1975-1976), and the title role in Elektra
(1975). She last sang with the Met as one of the denizens in the company's first-season run of Kurt Weill
's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
in 1979.
and Sieglinde in Die Walküre
for Seattle Opera
's productions of Wagner's Ring Cycle from 1970-1972. She returned to Seattle in 1976 to portray Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung
, a role she also sang with the Dallas Opera
in 1981. In 1972 she sang the role of Mathilde in the Opera Orchestra of New York
's concert performance of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell
with Louis Quilico
in the title role. That same year she sang Donna Anna to Jerome Hines
's Don Giovanni for her debut with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company
. In 1973 she made an unexpected debut at the Bavarian State Opera
as Elektra, getting a call to fill in for a sick artist just 17 hours before the curtain went up. In 1974 she made her debut at La Scala
as Fata Morgana in Sergei Prokofiev
's The Love for Three Oranges, also singing Leonore in Fidelio with the company that year.
In 1975 Barlow gave a lauded recital at New York City's Town Hall
, performing a difficult program which included "O Hoffnung! O komm" from Beethoven's Leonore (what would later become "Komm, Hoffnung" from the revised Fidelio), the final scene from Anna Bolena
, and a fully staged interpretation of the opening monologue from Elektra. Andrew Porter
of The New Yorker
wrote that Barlow "has a secure, powerful, and well-schooled soprano. She is the kind of honest, solidly reliable singer, definite in intention and definite about the actual notes, that is becoming increasingly rare." After comparing her versatility to that of soprano Florence Easton
, Porter noted that "there is not much sensuous allure in Barlow's firm, strong tone, and no trace of dainty charm in her heroic manner. Yet I feel that I could go to hear her even in so apparently inappropriate a role as Verdi's Violetta or Puccini's Mimi with the assurance that nothing would be fudged or shirked. She drew long, clear lines. She plainly knew the meaning of everything she sang, and how to express it."
Barlow also portrayed leading roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
(1970), the Opéra national du Rhin
(1970), the Houston Grand Opera
(1970), the Vienna State Opera
(1972 and 1974), the Scottish Opera
(1973), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
(1973), the Teatro Carlo Felice
(1973), the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi (1974), the Lyric Opera of Chicago
(1976-1977), the Cincinnati Opera
(1978), and the Opera Company of Philadelphia
(1981). Other companies on Barlow's résumé included the Hungarian State Opera, Théâtre du Capitole
, Det Kongelige Teater, the Canadian Opera Company
, Opera Memphis
, the Palacio de Bellas Artes
, the Hamburg State Opera
, the Semperoper
, and the Staatstheater Stuttgart
. Some of her other opera roles included Abigaille in Nabucco
, Agathe in Der Freischütz
, Elisabetta in Don Carlos
, Elsa in Lohengrin
, Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann, Minnie Falconer in La fanciulla del West
, Senta in The Flying Dutchman
, and the title roles in Arabella
, Ariadne auf Naxos
, Jenůfa
, Norma
, Salome
, Tosca
, and Turandot
. She also recorded the role of Salome for CBC Television
.
Barlow's last opera season as a full time performer was the 1985-1986 season where she sang Elektra and Leonore at the Bremen Theater and The Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten
at Theater Bielefeld
. In 1987 she took a job as a member of the voice faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington
, where she taught through 2002. Although her performance career slowed down when she began teaching, Barlow continued to appear in operas into the mid 1990s. She notably portrayed Helen Pitts Douglass, the wife of Frederick Douglass
, in the world premiere of Ulysses Kay
and Donald Dorr
's Frederick Douglass at the New Jersey State Opera
in April 1991.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
singer who had an active international career from the mid 1960s through the 1990s. A dramatic soprano
Dramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...
, Barlow particularly excelled in portraying Strauss and Wagnerian heroines. The 5-foot-11-inch-tall "platinum-blonde beauty" was ideal for playing the "Wagnerian blondes", roles like Elsa, Eva, Sieglinde, and Elisabeth. Although she worked most often in the German repertoire, Barlow also sang roles from the Italian, French, and Czech repertories. While her performance credits included leading roles at most of the world's major opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
s, she never achieved a high level of international fame. She did not participate in any commercial audio recordings, although her voice is preserved on a few television and radio broadcasts made in Germany, Canada, and the United States.
Early life and career
Born Alma Claire Williams, Barlow worked as a secretary, salesperson, receptionist and model before pursuing an opera career. She took the stage name "Klara Barlow" from a suggestion by a numerologist who told her that it would suit her better professionally. She studied voice under Cecile Jacobson in New York City and made her professional recital debut as a coloratura sopranoColoratura soprano
A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano who specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs and leaps. The term coloratura refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody, which is a typical component of the music written for this voice...
at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
in 1954. Although critics were enthusiastic, she was unable to attract the interest of major opera companies in the United States. She did however, sing with Giuseppina La Puma's highly respected amateur company, The Mascagni Opera.
By 1961, twice divorced and with a nine-year-old daughter to support, she decided to try her luck in Europe. She moved to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
to pursue further studies in opera and it was there that she was directed into the dramatic repertory. She finally made her professional opera debut as Venus in Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
' Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
at the Stadttheater Bern in 1962. She joined the roster of principal sopranos at the Stadttheater Oberhausen in 1963 where she sang for two seasons. In 1965 she joined the Kiel Opera House
Kiel Opera House
The Peabody Opera House is a civic performing arts building in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded as the Kiel Opera House, it opened it 1934 and operated until 1991, when it and the adjacent Kiel Auditorium were closed so the auditorium could be demolished and replaced by the Scottrade Center...
where she sang regularly for one year.
First major successes
Barlow's first major success came in 1966 when she made her debut at the Komische Oper BerlinKomische Oper Berlin
The Komische Oper Berlin is an opera company in Berlin, Germany, which specializes in German language productions of opera, operetta and musicals....
as Donna Anna in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
's Don Giovanni. The production was directed by Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein
Walter Felsenstein was an Austrian theater and opera director.He was one of the most important exponents of textual accuracy, productions in which dramatic and musical values were exquisitely researched and balanced...
and was broadcast live on German television. That performance was recently released on DVD in January 2009 in a boxed collection with several other operas directed by Felsenstein at the Komische Oper between 1956-1976. She sang several more leading roles with the company during the 1966-1967 season to great success. Barlow next worked as a principal soprano at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
from 1967-1969 and then at the Opernhaus Zürich from 1969-1970. Her major successes at these houses were portraying heroines from operas by Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, and Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
. She made her first opera appearances in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1969 as the title role in Verdi's Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
with the Portland Opera
Portland Opera
Portland Opera is an American opera company based at The Hampton Opera Center in Portland, Oregon. Its mainstage performances take place in the Keller Auditorium, while the Portland Opera Studio Theater at the Hampton center is used for performances of chamber operas...
and at the San Diego Opera
San Diego Opera
The San Diego Opera Association is a professional opera company located in the city of San Diego, California and is a member of OPERA America. It was founded in 1950 to present productions by San Francisco Opera in the San Diego area...
as Elizabeth in Tannhäuser.
In 1967 Barlow sang her first Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
in Kiel, a performance which didn't put her on the map but which did lead to an engagement to sing the part at the 1968 Festival dei Due Mondi
Festival dei Due Mondi
The Festival dei Due Mondi ' is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958...
in Spoleto, Italy opposite Claude Heater
Claude Heater
Claude Heater , is an American opera singer and writer on religion. He began his career as a concert baritone in the United States in 1954. He then sang as a baritone with opera houses in Europe from 1956 to 1961. He retrained his voice as a tenor, and from 1964 on had great success in the dramatic...
as Tristan. The Spoletto production was directed and conducted by composer Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti
Gian Carlo Menotti was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, among about two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular...
and was highly received. After this point Isolde became one of Barlow's signature parts and she repeated the role in over thirty European performances over the next six years. Barlow's first major success at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
was as Isolde to Jess Thomas
Jess Thomas
Jess Thomas was an American operatic tenor, best known for his Wagner singing.-Biography:Jess Floyd Thomas was born in Hot Springs, South Dakota. As a child he took part in various musical activities and later studied psychology at the University of Nebraska and Stanford University. He was...
's Tristan in 1974; a performance broadcast live on the radio. The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote a feature article on her performance, proclaiming it "the performance of her life". Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
stated that, "To New York audiences who have seen almost nothing for 15 years except Birgit Nilsson's cool, ruminative portrayal, Barlow's sexy Isolde came as a pleasant shock." She had made her Met debut three years earlier as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
on February 3, 1971 with Robert Nagy as Florestan and William Dooley
William Dooley
William Dooley is an American operatic bass-baritone who has sung with many of the world's greatest opera companies. He began his career in Germany in the late 1950s, ultimately becoming a leading performer at the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1962-1964...
as Don Pizarro, later followed by performances of Donna Anna that year. Barlow returned to the Met several more times during the 1970s, singing Marina in Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
(1975), Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
(1975-1976), and the title role in Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
(1975). She last sang with the Met as one of the denizens in the company's first-season run of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed in Leipzig on 9 March 1930.-Composition history:...
in 1979.
Later life and career
During the 1970s and 1980s Barlow maintained an active career working as a freelance artist with companies throughout the world. She sang Freia in Das RheingoldDas Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
and Sieglinde in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
for Seattle Opera
Seattle Opera
The Seattle Opera is an opera company located in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1963 by Glynn Ross, who served as the company's first general director through 1983, Seattle Opera's season runs from August to late May, with five or six operas offered and with eight to ten performances each, often...
's productions of Wagner's Ring Cycle from 1970-1972. She returned to Seattle in 1976 to portray Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung
Götterdämmerung
is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
, a role she also sang with the Dallas Opera
Dallas Opera
The Dallas Opera is an opera company located in Dallas, Texas . The company was founded in 1957 as the Dallas Civic Opera by Laurence Kelly and Nicolà Rescigno, both of whom had been active with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the first as administrator, the second as artistic director.-The company's...
in 1981. In 1972 she sang the role of Mathilde in the Opera Orchestra of New York
Opera Orchestra of New York
The Opera Orchestra of New York specializes in the performance of opera in concert form. It is particularly known for its work in presenting rarely performed repertory...
's concert performance of Gioachino Rossini's William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
with Louis Quilico
Louis Quilico
Louis Quilico, CC was a Canadian opera singer. One of the leading dramatic baritones of his day, he was an ideal interpreter of the great Italian and French composers, especially Giuseppe Verdi. He was often referred to as "Mr Rigoletto" in reference to the Verdi opera...
in the title role. That same year she sang Donna Anna to Jerome Hines
Jerome Hines
The American Jerome A. Hines was a basso opera singer who performed at the Metropolitan Opera from 1946 to 1987...
's Don Giovanni for her debut with the Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company
Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company
The Philadelphia Lyric Opera Company was an American opera company located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that was active between 1958 and 1974. The company was led by a number of Artistic Directors during its history, beginning with Aurelio Fabiani. Other notable Artistic Directors include Julius...
. In 1973 she made an unexpected debut at the Bavarian State Opera
Bavarian State Opera
The Bavarian State Opera is an opera company based in Munich, Germany.Its orchestra is the Bavarian State Orchestra.- History:The opera company which was founded under Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy has been in existence since 1653...
as Elektra, getting a call to fill in for a sick artist just 17 hours before the curtain went up. In 1974 she made her debut at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
as Fata Morgana in Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
's The Love for Three Oranges, also singing Leonore in Fidelio with the company that year.
In 1975 Barlow gave a lauded recital at New York City's Town Hall
The Town Hall
The Town Hall is a performance space, located at 123 West 43rd Street, between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, in New York City. It seats approximately 1,500 people.-History:...
, performing a difficult program which included "O Hoffnung! O komm" from Beethoven's Leonore (what would later become "Komm, Hoffnung" from the revised Fidelio), the final scene from Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena
Anna Bolena is a tragedia lirica, or opera, in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Felice Romani wrote the Italian libretto after Ippolito Pindemonte's Enrico VIII ossia Anna Bolena and Alessandro Pepoli's Anna Bolena, both telling of the life of Anne Boleyn...
, and a fully staged interpretation of the opening monologue from Elektra. Andrew Porter
Andrew Porter
Andrew Porter may refer to:* Andrew C. Porter , American educational psychologist and psychometrician* Andrew I. Porter , American science fiction editor and publisher* Andrew J...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote that Barlow "has a secure, powerful, and well-schooled soprano. She is the kind of honest, solidly reliable singer, definite in intention and definite about the actual notes, that is becoming increasingly rare." After comparing her versatility to that of soprano Florence Easton
Florence Easton
Florence Easton was a popular English dramatic soprano in the early 20th century. She was one of the most versatile singers of all time. She sang more than 100 parts, covering a wide range of styles and periods, from Mozart, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, Schreker and Krenek...
, Porter noted that "there is not much sensuous allure in Barlow's firm, strong tone, and no trace of dainty charm in her heroic manner. Yet I feel that I could go to hear her even in so apparently inappropriate a role as Verdi's Violetta or Puccini's Mimi with the assurance that nothing would be fudged or shirked. She drew long, clear lines. She plainly knew the meaning of everything she sang, and how to express it."
Barlow also portrayed leading roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin
Deutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
(1970), the Opéra national du Rhin
Opéra national du Rhin
LOpéra national du Rhin is an opera company which performs in Alsace, eastern France, and which includes the Opéra in Strasbourg, the company's ballet in Mulhouse , and the "Opéra Studio" , a training centre for young singers, in Colmar...
(1970), the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
(1970), the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
(1972 and 1974), the Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
(1973), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Teatro Comunale di Bologna
The Teatro Comunale di Bologna is an opera house in Bologna, Italy, and is one of the most important opera venues in Italy. Typically, it presents eight operas with six performances during its November to April season....
(1973), the Teatro Carlo Felice
Teatro Carlo Felice
The Teatro Carlo Felice is the principal opera house of Genoa, Italy, used for performances of opera, ballet, orchestral music, and recitals. It is located on the Piazza De Ferrari....
(1973), the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi (1974), the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
(1976-1977), the Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera
Cincinnati Opera is an American opera company based in Cincinnati, Ohio and the second oldest opera company in the United States .-History:...
(1978), and the Opera Company of Philadelphia
Opera Company of Philadelphia
The Opera Company of Philadelphia is an American opera company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the city's only company producing grand opera. The organization produces four fully staged opera productions annually, encompassing works from the seventeenth through the 21st century...
(1981). Other companies on Barlow's résumé included the Hungarian State Opera, Théâtre du Capitole
Théâtre du Capitole
The Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse is an opera house and ballet company located within the main administration buildings, the Capitole, of the city of Toulouse in south-west France....
, Det Kongelige Teater, the Canadian Opera Company
Canadian Opera Company
The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...
, Opera Memphis
Opera Memphis
Opera Memphis is a non-profit arts organization in Memphis, Tennessee. It was established in 1956 in conjunction with the founding of WKNO-FM, the local public radio affiliate....
, the Palacio de Bellas Artes
Palacio de Bellas Artes
The Palacio de Bellas Artes is the most important cultural center in Mexico City as well as the rest of the country of Mexico...
, the Hamburg State Opera
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, the Semperoper
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
, and the Staatstheater Stuttgart
Staatstheater Stuttgart
The Staatstheater Stuttgart ' is an opera house in Stuttgart, Germany. It is also known locally as the Grosses Haus, having been the larger of two theatres of the former Königliche Hoftheater....
. Some of her other opera roles included Abigaille in Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
, Agathe in Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz
Der Freischütz is an opera in three acts by Carl Maria von Weber with a libretto by Friedrich Kind. It premiered on 18 June 1821 at the Schauspielhaus Berlin...
, Elisabetta in Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
, Elsa in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann, Minnie Falconer in La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
, Senta in The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman
The legend of the Flying Dutchman concerns a ghost ship that can never make port, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It probably originates from 17th-century nautical folklore. The oldest extant version dates to the late 18th century....
, and the title roles in Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
, Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
, Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
, Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
, Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, and Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
. She also recorded the role of Salome for CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
.
Barlow's last opera season as a full time performer was the 1985-1986 season where she sang Elektra and Leonore at the Bremen Theater and The Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
at Theater Bielefeld
Theater Bielefeld
Theater Bielefeld is a theatre in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....
. In 1987 she took a job as a member of the voice faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
, where she taught through 2002. Although her performance career slowed down when she began teaching, Barlow continued to appear in operas into the mid 1990s. She notably portrayed Helen Pitts Douglass, the wife of Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing...
, in the world premiere of Ulysses Kay
Ulysses Kay
Ulysses Simpson Kay was an African American composer. His music is mostly neoclassical in style....
and Donald Dorr
Donald Dorr
Donald W. Dorr is a former Republican member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.-References:...
's Frederick Douglass at the New Jersey State Opera
New Jersey State Opera
The New Jersey State Opera is an opera company based in Newark, New Jersey. It was established in 1964 as the Opera Theater of Westfield, and shortly after opening Alfredo Silipigni was hired as Artistic Director. The name was changed to the Opera Theatre of New Jersey in 1965, and in 1968 the...
in April 1991.