AMY BURTON
Amy Burton enjoys a busy and varied career of opera, concert, and recital throughout the United States and Europe. In the current season, Amy Burton returns to the Metropolitan Opera to sing Marzelline in Fidelio. She celebrated the New Year with a performance of the West Side Story Suite with Gerard Schwartz and the Seattle Symphony, and then returned to the Eugene Symphony to perform Brahms’ German Requiem. In the summer of 2005, Burton enjoyed a particular success as Elle in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, in a Glimmerglass Opera production created especially for her.
To open her 2004-2005 season Burton participated in a Bernstein concert at Columbia University's Miller Theatre. She performed a program of Kurt Weill songs with New York Festival of Song, then Beethoven's Mass in C at the Performing Arts Center of SUNY Purchase. Burton accompanied New York City Ballet's choreography of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, a collaboration which audiences first enjoyed the previous spring. She made her debut in the role of Angelica in a new production of Handel's Orlando at New York City Opera, followed shortly by a performance of Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2 with the renowned Tokyo String Quartet at New York's 92nd Street YMHA.
Her 2003-2004 season began with performances of Romilda in Xerxes at New York City Opera, where she recently enjoyed great success in her role debut as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro. With James Conlon and the Kennedy Center Chamber Players she performed works by Zemlinsky and Ullmann. Chicago audiences heard Burton sing Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Music of the Baroque Chorus and Orchestra. Concert highlights of her 2002-2003 season include the New York premiere of John Harbison's Four Psalms with the American Composer's Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and performances of Mimi in La bohème with the Atlanta Symphony. She also portrayed Mimi for Austin Lyric Opera, and concluded the season with two engagements as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni: her debut with Michigan Opera Theatre and a new production with Glimmerglass Opera.
Burton's work in concert has taken her across the country and across the ocean. She has recently sung Mozart's Mass in c-minor at the Performing Arts Center of SUNY Purchase conducted by Jane Glover, Santa Fe Pro Musica, and the Choral Arts Society of Washington. In 2001-2002 she performed Handel's Messiah with the Florida Philharmonic under the baton of Raymond Leppard, Bernstein concerts with the Utah Symphony, and Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Berkshire Choral Festival. Other distinguished concert engagements include her debut with the Seattle Symphony as soprano soloist in Gorecki's Third Symphony, her debut with the San Francisco Symphony as Marzelline in Fidelio under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach, her debut with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in John Musto's Dove sta amore?, Trouble in Tahiti with Concordia at Alice Tully Hall (taped for Bravo and Japanese television), and appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Saint Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and Indianapolis Symphony. She has performed Handel's Messiah with the National Symphony, Houston Symphony, Colorado Symphony, and Richmond Symphony. Burton also sang the modern premiere of the Te Deum of Domenico Puccini in Rome in the summer of 2000. Her foreign travel has taken her to Bern, Switzerland for Mahler's Fourth Symphony, and to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem with the Israel Philharmonic for concert performances of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.
Amy Burton has been in steady demand as a recitalist since her New York recital debut at the 92nd Street YMHA in May 2000. Critical acclaim greeted her original one-woman show Yvonne Printemps: A French Diva Unveiled, presented by L'Opéra Français de New York and the French Institute/Alliance Française in fall 2002. Burton has performed in recital at the Lincoln Center Festival, at Merkin Hall for the Milhaud and Ernst Bacon centennials, and regularly with the New York Festival of Song. Lincoln Center's Great Performers Series featured her in a program of American song at Walter Reade Theatre. With composer/pianist John Musto she has given recitals at Columbia University's Miller Theater and in Vail, Colorado.
Amy Burton is equally well-known on the opera stage. She has a long history with New York City Opera where she has undertaken such roles as Donna Elvira, Ginevra in Ariodante, Romilda in Xerxes, Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, the Governess in The Turn of the Screw, Concepción in L'heure Espagnol, Euridice in Orfeo ed Euridice, Alice Ford in Falstaff, L'Amour and La Folie in Rameau’s Platée, and Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. Other recent operatic appearances include L'Amour and La Folie with the Mark Morris Dance Group, Liù in Turandot with Pittsburgh Opera, both Juliette in Roméo et Juliette and Susanna with Utah Opera, Alice Ford in her debut with Glimmerglass Opera, and Ginevra with Boston's Handel & Haydn Society under the baton of Christopher Hogwood. Two New York highlights were Mozart's Mitridate, re di Ponto at the Mostly Mozart Festival, and the title role of Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias with L'Opéra Français de New York. In the United States she has performed with The Metropolitan Opera, The Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, New Orleans Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Portland Opera, Tulsa Opera, and Atlanta Opera. Internationally, Burton has performed with L'Opéra de Nice, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Wexford Festival Opera, Opernhaus Zürich, Scottish Opera, The New Japan Philharmonic Opera, and the Saito Kinen Festival.
On August 4, 2007 Amy Burton will perform in the Cabrillo Festival's West Coast Premiere of John Coriglianos’ Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan.
Amy Burton is a graduate of Northwestern University and was one of three winners in the 1995 Marian Anderson International Vocal Arts Competition. Other awards include the George London Award, and the 1998 Kolosvar Award and 2000 Christopher Keene Award, both from New York City Opera. Her recordings include Richard Wilson's Persuasions, a cantata for soprano and chamber ensemble, released by Albany Records; Blue Monday, an early Gershwin opera, on the world premiere recording for Angel/EMI; and a collection of songs of Ernest Bacon entitled Fond Affection on CRI. A recording of songs from the Yvonne Printemps recital will soon be released on the Harbinger label.
Amy Burton lives in New York with her husband, composer John Musto, and their son, Joshua.