Here, the Woman, sung with intensity and razor-sharp tone by Aušrinė Stundytė and fiercely acted, receives him in a bodybag right at the start from a couple of armed guards, but is unable to bring herself to look inside…She wanders into the night and is replaced in the forest by another woman, sung by mezzo Fleur Barron, who is also searching. It transpires that she is ‘the woman with white arms’, the man’s secret lover. She has come to bid him a tender goodbye. Barron’s sumptuous, dark mezzo was lavished tenderly on Mahler’s long farewell, from emotional outbursts to the soft repeated final word, ewig (forever), trailing off into the distance.
Gramophone, Mark Pullinger
Da steht Mezzosopranistin Fleur Barron auf der Bühne. Und man staunt: über ihre natürliche Intensität, ihre energiereiche Tonproduktion, den großen, bis ins Sopranige reichenden Stimmumfang und den weiten Klangraum, den sie sich unforciert erobert. Manches klingt nach Brigitte Fassbaender. Die Ausweglosigkeit des lyrischen Ichs, Mahlers emphatisch auskomponierte Leere, all das kann Fleur Barron hörbar machen.
Merkur.de, Markus Thiel
Die Einspringerin für Wiebke Lehmkuhl ist ein Ereignis. Barron hat ein einzigartiges Gespür für Mahler. Jede Silbe betont sie mit einer fein ausgewogenen Dosis an Ausdruck, atemberaubend färbt sie ihre Stimme in den für Mahler typischen Klangfarben. Sie agiert wie eine Tänzerin, anmutig und verletzlich. Das „Ewig“ am Ende taucht sie virtuos in den Klang der fulminant musizierenden Wiener Philharmoniker.
Kulture.Kurier, Susanne Zohl
What Harding achieved in Das Lied von der Erde was to masterfully take us on a journey through a kaleidoscope of emotions, culminating in a truly overwhelming rendering of that colossal song ‘Der Abschied’. Harding always found the right atmosphere for each moment of the work, assisted by Barron, who presents a voice of beautiful timbre, confident and rounded, and capable of exquisite nuances and wide dynamics. She shone with great success in ‘Von der Schönheit’, but also in a very special way in ‘Der Abschied’, from the beautiful pianissmi on the words “der Welt schläft ein” to the overwhelming ending, including a moving interpretation of the passage “er stieg vom Pferd und reichte ihm den Trunk des Abschied dar. A magnificently performed Mahler.
Scherzo, Rafael Ortega Basagoiti
In the title role, Fleur Barron exhibits a mezzo of rich mahogany during Ariana’s opening folksong, sung with sensual self-assurance. More importantly, she captures the character’s smoldering, controlled passion. Never once does she submit to the temptation to “go big” that must come with playing a part like this. There’s a moment in her performance that perfectly sums up the character’s essence. Yonas has gone to meet his father, and Adriana simply repeats the same mantra-like phrase: “If he’s meant to kill him, then he’ll kill him.” Barron’s grounded low notes convey, not hopeless resignation, but a sense of deliberate resolve—a mother’s miraculous ability to tap into the calm at the center of her being in the midst of a storm.
Opera Wire, Joe Cadagin
Bates and the musicians [play with] striking scope and dramatic gesture…But the tone is set by Fleur Barron in the title role. The Singaporean-British mezzo leans into the role’s tragic scope; when she speaks of ‘torment’ it doesn’t just throb but shakes Purcell’s ground bass until it seems like the melodic circle can never close again. There’s no fear of colouring outside the lines, and her Dido—generously shaded and gestural—refuses to be confined, packing five acts of tragedy into the opera’s short scope.
Gramophone, Alexandra Coughlan
Wo bist du Licht! was written in 1981 and is scored for mezzo-soprano – the superb Fleur Barron, who is mentored by Hannigan – percussion, strings and tape. Nothing could prepare us though for this stunning performance of Vivier’s settings of Friedrich Hölderlin and the composer himself. The long instrumental opening took on a markedly ritualistic slant under Hannigan’s direction; initially, the voice joins in before morphing into a more Schoenbergian Sprechgesang. Barron’s voice verged towards the contralto at times, which suited the music perfectly – there is no lessening of strength in her lowest reaches….It is frankly impossible to imagine a more convincing performance of this piece. Everything came together: Barron magnificent, faultless; the LSO under Hannigan offering their fullest concentration and virtuosity. In the vocal line, extended vocal techniques were effortlessly integrated into the musical argument – certainly, they were no mere effects, a marker of deep understanding of the music’s vocabulary.
Seen and Heard International, Colin Clarke
Adriana was sung by mezzo soprano Fleur Barron. Of rich voice, she is a formidable technician of deep musicality and has a powerful stage presence, transforming herself from the sexually ripe young woman into the mature woman who must explain herself to her grown son.
Opera Today, Michael Milenski
Barron has a rich-toned, highly expressive mezzo timbre with an extraordinary range….the songs were put over with such zest, style and enthusiasm that I felt I was carried immediately into the emotional heart of at least a dozen different societies or civilizations.
The Times, Richard Morrison
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Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron won a 2025 GRAMMY Award for Best Opera Recording, in which she sang the title role in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater with the San Francisco Symphony under Esa-Pekka Salonen. A passionate interpreter of opera, symphonic works and chamber music ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, she is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.
Fleur Barron opens her 2025-26 season with a debut at the Salzburg Festival, reuniting with Esa-Pekka Salonen and Peter Sellars for One Morning Turns into an Eternity, a staged creation featuring Mahler’s Abschied from Das Lied von der Erde. She continues her collaboration with Peter Sellars in a return to the title role of Kaija Saariho’s Adriana Mater for her debut at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma. She also makes a house and role debut as Cornelia in Handel’s Giulio Cesare at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; performs a staged version of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde directed by Lemi Ponifasio at The Barbican; Sir George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, conducted by the composer, at the Tongyeong Festival in Korea; Piacere in Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno with La Nuova Musica under David Bates at Wigmore Hall; and appears in workshop performances of Bryce Dessner’s Night Sky with Exit Wounds, a monodrama being conceived for Fleur Barron, directed by Kaneza Schaal, upon the poetry of Ocean Vuong.
The mezzo-soprano’s 2025-26 symphonic calendar reflects her artistic versatility across a broad range of repertoire. She debuts with the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel in the world premiere of David Lang’s oratorio The Wealth of Nations; debuts with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, which also tours to the Salzburg Easter Festival; and she returns both to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at the invitation of Nathalie Stutzmann for Mozart’s Requiem and Bach’s Mass in b minor, respectively. She solidifies her reputation as a leading Mahler interpreter on international stages, singing Kindertotenlieder with the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov and with the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Torino; Das Lied von der Erde with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra with frequent artistic collaborator Ludovic Morlot and with the Britten Sinfonia; and the composer’s Third Symphony both at the Palau de la Musica Valencia and at the Colorado Music Festival. Other performances include Alma Mahler’s Fünf Lieder with RAI National Symphony Orchestra, Respighi’s Il tramonto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Carlo Rizzi, and Mason Bates’ Passage with Nashville Symphony led by Giancarlo Guerrero.
Highlights of the 2025-26 recital stage include a French Mélodie program with Kirill Gerstein at Festival Ravel and a North American tour with Trio Afiori, a voice-clarinet-piano trio newly formed with Anthony McGill and Gloria Chien. The trio has a residency and concert at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center before giving concerts in Reno, Nevada and in Portland and Eugene, Oregon. With her long-time duo partner Julius Drake, Fleur Barron gives concerts in Genoa, South Korea, Paris, London, Leeds, and Germany; she joins the Australian String Quartet at the Helsinki Festival and the Parker Quartet at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, New York. Fleur Barron also undertakes a residency with LIFE Victoria Barcelona, for which she performs two recitals with pianist Kunal Lahiry and coaches young artists.
Highlights of recent seasons include tours of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding; Schoenberg’s Four Songs, Op. 22 with Vladimir Jurowski and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin; Claude Vivier’s Wo bist du Licht and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with Barbara Hannigan and the London Symphony Orchestra; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Nathalie Stutzmann and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra; tour performances and a commercial recording of Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra; Ottavia in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Aix-en- Provence Festival, Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria on tour with Baroque ensemble I Gemelli, Concepcion in Ravel’s L’heure Espagnole with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, and Comrade Chin in Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre.
Fleur Barron’s discography extends from Hasse and Purcell to Brahms, Barber, Ravel, and Saariaho with labels such as Deutsche Grammophon and Pentatone. She is committed to the way music facilitates cross-cultural dialogue and healing and she is passionate about curating inclusive chamber music programming that amplifies the voices of diverse communities. Born in Northern Ireland to a Singaporean mother and British father, Fleur Barron grew up in Hong Kong and later New York. The artist holds degrees from Columbia University (B.A. Comparative Literature) and Manhattan School of Music (M.M. Vocal Performance).
A.Mahler, Die Stille Stadt & Laue Sommernacht
One Morning turns into an Eternity
Mahler, Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen
Ravel, Asie
Saariaho, Lullaby Aria
Purcell, When I am laid in earth
Massenet, Va! Laisse couler mes larmes
Strauss, Wie du warst
Handel, Iris Hence Away
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