BRIDGEPORT — JeanMarie Garofolo appeared to cry in one verse of a Berlini aria; then, in an instant, she was smiling with eyes as bright as noon, as if tears had never clouded her luminous blue eyes.

The 22-year-old opera singer from Poughquag, N.Y. showed her gestures and expressions were as powerful as her voice and won the title of 60th annual American Jenny Lind Saturday at a Barnum Festival recital at the Salem Lutheran Church.

"I'm looking forward to this, very much so," Garofolo said after Ringmaster Mark Lauretti presented her with a bouquet of flowers and a championship ribbon.

She also won $2,000 cash, a string of Barnum Festival engagements including the Jenny Lind Concert June 26 at the Playhouse on the Green, and a two-week tour of Sweden in July. "Every experience makes me grow as a person, as a singer and as a performer," said Garofolo, at graduate student in White Plains, N.Y.

Garofolo's theatrical performance was just what the panel of judges was looking for. She will be joined on stage June 26 by the Swedish Jenny Lind. The name Jenny Lind recalls the Swedish Nightingale, who introduced many Americans to opera music in the 1850s, under the management of Phineas Taylor Barnum.

The nation was quite young at the time, but it was growing fast and Barnum knew Americans would take to Jenny Lind. She became a huge star, earning at least $250,000 - a princely sum in the 1850s, said Kathleen Maher, director of the Barnum Museum, who is co-chair of

Advertisement
the Jenny Lind event.

"Barnum also earned a quarter of million dollars, for being her manager," Maher said. "That was a lot of money at the time."

Part of the fascination with Jenny Lind, though, was that she was a single woman. The moment she got married and changed her name to reflect her married status, Americans appeared to lose interest in buying tickets.

Lind married her pianist, Maher said.