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Jamie Barton: Opera singers are being forced to take Ozempic
When Jamie Barton waved a large rainbow Pride flag as she sang Rule, Britannia! at the Last Night of the Proms, the crowd fell in love with her. The American mezzo-soprano had chosen the flag because it 'represents love, acceptance and tolerance' and because she'd vowed to use her voice and her public profile for good. 'I've rarely heard a bigger cheer in the Albert Hall,' the Times critic Richard Morrison wrote. He continued: 'We may not be a land of hope or glory right now, we certainly don't rule the waves … at least, however, we now cheer sexual and gender liberation. Some progress, then.'
That was in 2019. Barton will once again publicly fly the flag for LGBTQ+ rights in July, when she sings at the finale of Classical Pride with the London Symphony Orchestra, an event also heading to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. But the general mood has changed drastically since that Proms moment, she tells me from her home in Atlanta, Georgia. 'It does feel like a different world, for sure. The screws have been tightened on the queer community in so many ways,' she says.
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This year Pride has taken on a different meaning for the 43-year-old opera star, who came out publicly as bisexual in 2014. 'I'm reminded of how Pride started as a riot, as a fight for rights, for liberty, for freedom. We are who we are. We are not going to silence ourselves.'
No surprises that Barton is not a fan of President Trump; if the White House invited her to sing, she would say no. She would, however, perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, even though Trump has made himself chairman and criticised its 'woke' programming. 'I would hands down gladly go there because that's my place. That's ours,' she says. 'I would show up as exactly who I am and do my job to the best of my ability. In and of itself, that would be an act of rebellion.'
Some believe the age of identity politics is over. For Barton, talking about being queer, bisexual, body positive and neurodivergent (she was diagnosed with ADHD during the pandemic) has become non-negotiable. 'I can't tell you the number of people who lean in and whisper, 'I'm queer but I can't come out, I don't feel safe, but thank you for validating my existence by telling people this is normal,'' she says. 'That's more important to me than just about any other aspect of what I do. It goes hand in hand with trying to be at the highest level of artistry I can.'
As her career has soared — taking her from Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera to Verdi at Covent Garden, Mahler at the Proms to Stravinsky in Paris — so has her resolve strengthened. While she hopes the BBC would still allow artists to wave a Pride flag at the Last Night ('It would be a real shame if they didn't'), she would now think twice about singing Rule, Britannia! and backs artists who believe its time has passed, such as the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason. 'I fully support the questioning of it. There might be other songs that would be able to celebrate the legacy of Britain… I would be interested in the BBC figuring out a new celebration song, something that would make people feel nationalistic in the best way, not at the expense of others.'
The words 'safe' and 'dangerous' crop up a few times during our interview, and it makes me wonder whether Barton fears for her safety. As she puts it to me, with her purple hair and side-shave she no longer 'passes' as a Republican in small-town Georgia, where she grew up.
'Most of the time I feel safe,' she says. 'I will admit that when I was flying back to the States I got a recommendation of a lawyer in case I was held at border control and they searched through social media for any sign of dissent against this administration, because that's been happening. I came back into the US with my face ID turned off on my phone and those numbers written on my arm.' She got home without a hitch — but it made Barton realise her life is far from normal right now. 'Earlier today I was chuckling in this black comedy way, because on my 'to buy' list are laundry detergent, avocados and a go-bag with proper contents just in case society collapses,' she says.
Firmly off her shopping list, however, is Ozempic. In 2019 Barton told The Times about her struggles with binge-eating and crash-dieting, and how she has become anti 'diet culture', even though she knows she's missed out on roles because directors have believed she's 'too fat'. But with weight-loss drugs going mainstream, the pressure on opera singers to take them is real, she says.
'I have heard from colleagues of the pressure,' she says. 'I know of one high-level singer who a new opera was being written for. He lost the job because the general director of the house decided this singer wasn't aesthetically pleasing enough to carry the subject. Later he went on Ozempic specifically because of that. He was worried because he didn't want to lose further jobs. It makes me sad. Mounjaro and Ozempic are not easy drugs to be on, which is why I feel they're best left for the people who absolutely need them.'
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Barton is speaking from experience. 'I have my own sad tale when it comes to these particular drugs,' she says. 'I have been diabetic for a long time and back in 2011, when those drugs were just starting to enter the market, my doctor at the time put me on an earlier version. Long story short, I ended up with a chronic, never-going-to-go-away condition called gastroparesis, which means every once in a while my stomach doesn't process food. Sometimes it freezes, which is quite literally the effect of that class of drug: to slow your stomach function. I was on it for less than a week before I had my first flare-up.' The condition made her very ill and made working difficult. After trying Trulicity during the pandemic, which resulted in another bad flare-up, Barton concluded that the drugs weren't for her. As a result she now feels 'no pressure whatsoever' to take Ozempic.
She's equally accepting of reaching middle age. It is the subject of the new song Or Am I in a Rut? by Jake Heggie, which she'll be premiering at Classical Pride in London before flying over to the US to sing it in Los Angeles as part of the whole song cycle Good Morning, Beauty. 'It's about the moment when you start to clock how time is affecting your body, your desire, your sense of self in so many ways,' she says. 'I love that because I'm very much in that place in my own life right now.'
She's long been a fan of Heggie's music and will be singing Sister Helen Prejean in the 25th anniversary production of his death-row opera, Dead Man Walking, in San Francisco next year, as well as appearing on the first recording of his opera Intelligence. 'There's always a point, with putting together a new Jake Heggie piece, when you're sitting at the piano and you dissolve in tears. It's just part of the process,' she says. 'How magical to have a creator of music who knows how to play the heart strings so deftly … there's an indelible truth and visceral honesty to what he does that hooks me.' Words that could have been written about Barton Barton sings at Classical Pride at the Barbican, London, Jul 4. The series runs from Jun 27,
