As Peter Quint in Britten's The Turn of the Screw::
"The ghosts, meanwhile, are terrifying phantasms. Quint - the tremendous American tenor, Shawn Bartels - is stripped to the waist, his body monstrously tattoed."
Tim Ashley
The Guardian (London)
14 October, 2000
"Bartels's charismatic Quint is brutal, uncomfortable and fascinating..."
Tom Sutcliffe
Evening Standard (London)
13 October, 2000
"None of the cast are well known and all are excellent singers...Shawn Bartels is the magnificent Quint,..."
Michael Kennedy
Sunday Telegraph (London)
15 October, 2000
"Tina McHugh's spare lighting outlines the fearsome tattoos and the glinting body hair of Shawn Bartels's
menacingly yet thrillingly physical Quint: it etches out, too, the ravaged features of Tara Harrison's
Miss Jessel - and both singers have voices to match."
Hilary Finch
The Times (London)
17 October, 2000
"But Moshinsky makes a flamboyant statement, and the excellent cast enact it vividly. The American tenor
Shawn Bartels was a fine Quint,..."
Rupert Christiansen
The Daily Telegraph (London)
19 October, 2000
"Shawn Bartels, suave with beautifully modulated tenor delivery as the narrator, becomes crude and hard as a tattooed, topless psychopath Quint..."
Peter Grahame Woolf
Seen & Heard Opera Reviews
12 October, 2000
"Bartels' ringing, clear tenor made a startling contrast with his oily, serpentine movement."
Tom Strini
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
March 18, 2000
"...during his long, melismatic serenade to Miles, he remained invisible, his elusive voice as bold and beautiful as the aurora borealis of light playing on the backdrop...In Wyoming born Shawn Bartels, Broomhill has a movingly young Peter Quint, a strange, incorporeal sexuality writhing in his lithe tenor."
Hilary Finch
The Times (London)
August 22, 1996
"The tenor, Shawn Bartels, after singing the Prologue in a conventional post-Peter Pears way, found a fresh approach to Quint that matched charm and risk without needing a sadistic edge."
Robert Maycock
The Independent (London)
August 21, 1996
"...Shawn Bartels was a truly demonic Quint..."
Roger Temple
Royal Tunbridge Wells Courier
August 23, 1996
"...rich melting tenor tones...a charismatic and commanding presence as Quint."
Gillian Carcas
Bel Canto Web Magazine
Issue Number 4
As Nanki-Poo in The Mikado:
"The role of Nanki-Poo was well served by Shawn Bartels, whose pure and lyrical tenor voice shown in 'A Wandering Minstrel, I.'"
Marcus Kallpolites
The Times Herald-Record(NY State)
August 27, 1999
"Tenor Shawn M. Bartels...delighted with the freshness of his timbre and the skill of his singing."
John Bridges
Citizen Times(Asheville, NC)
July, 1994
As Frantz in The Tales of Hoffmann:
"...Shawn Bartels as Frantz was unique...The excellence of (his) high tenor voice came through his comic acting."
John Bridges
Citizen Times(Asheville, NC)
July, 1994
as Valere in "Tartuffe" with the Florida State University Opera Theater(1994)