Barstow, Josephine (1940– )

English soprano. She made her London debut in 1967, at the Sadler's Wells Theatre, and from 1969 sang at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where she took part in the first performances of Tippett's The Knot Garden and The Ice Break, and Henze's We Come to the River. She sang Autonoe in the first British stage performance of The Bassarids, at the Coliseum, and her other roles there have included Salome, Emilia Marty, and Prokofiev's Natasha. Her New York Metropolitan Opera House debut was in 1977, as Musetta, and she appeared at Bayreuth in 1983, as Gutrune. In 1986 she created Benigna in Penderecki's Die schwarze Maske/The Black Mask, at Salzburg, and returned there as Verdi's Amelia in 1989. She was made a CBE in 1985.