“Being able to do a brilliant piece by a female composer written in my own language — it feels very much like home,” said mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton.

Barton, a young American opera singer whose sumptuous voice is being compared to that of legends such as Kirsten Flagstad, was discussing the recital program that she will sing for Matinée Musicale next week. Cincinnati is a stop in her five-concert tour that began in December at Carnegie Hall.

Notably, half of her selections are by women: Elinor Remick Warren, Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Amy Beach and Libby Larsen. Even though women are gaining more recognition in classical music than perhaps ever before in history, it’s still remarkable to find concert programs that include very much, if any, music by women.

The time was right, Barton felt, to put women in the spotlight.

“Obviously, anyone could speak to the support that women had in order to write music. It was quite a bit more stifled than that of the male culture,” she noted. “But that doesn’t diminish the importance or the beauty of what was created by women, and I do believe it stands up to the male counterpart. That’s why I wanted to bookend this recital with very famous composers (Haydn and Richard Strauss).”

Barton is squeezing in this recital tour during a big season in which she “stole the show” at Teatro Real Madrid in the role of Léonor in Donizetti’s “La favorite.” She’s also performing Adalgisa in “Norma” at both the Metropolitan Opera and Houston Grand Opera, Eboli in “Don Carlo” at Washington National Opera and this summer, her first entire Ring Cycle for San Francisco Opera.

“I am definitely busy!” laughed the Georgia native. “In the fall, I was literally everywhere between Finland, Taiwan and New York City, doing a significant amount of new music. My very first ‘La favorite’ and this recital were the big pieces in that.”

She compares the difference between learning a new operatic role and preparing a recital as the difference between eating a big steak dinner — “one story that you’re going to chew on all night long” — and eating tapas with many different flavors.

But inspiration for this particular program didn’t come easily. The idea, she said, began a month before the 2016 presidential election, when the Washington Post released “Access Hollywood” tapes of now-President Donald Trump making lewd comments in 2005. And recently, a number of high-profile men in Hollywood, government and the arts have been accused of sexual misconduct or harassment.

In response, Barton’s collaborator at the piano, Kathleen Kelly, wrote a blog post detailing the ways she had experienced sexual harassment in the classical music industry. The one that struck Barton was a remark that a professional had made to the pianist after she had performed in concert with another woman.

“Who would ever want to see two women onstage together?” that person had chided.

“When I read that — who would want to see two women onstage together — it clicked for me,” Barton said. “I knew at that moment that I needed to focus on giving a recital that gave women storytellers a voice, whether it be as poets or composers.”

As she and Kelly began putting the program together, the singer discovered amazing, little-known music. Nadia Boulanger is mainly known in music textbooks as the preeminent teacher of 20^th-century composers – “who also had a sister,” she noted.  (Lili Boulanger died tragically young after winning the coveted Prix de Rome.)

Barton’s favorite discovery was the song, “Ah, Love but a Day” by the American composer Amy Beach, to a text by Robert Browning. She fell in the love with the words, which spoke to her both on a personal and a universal level. And she loves to be able to sing in English, her “musical mother tongue,” having started her career in musical theater.

“Also, the music is just really beautiful,” she added. “(Beach) does an amazing job being able to give the drama and set the text in a way that makes sense.”

The program also includes the world premiere performances of “Of You,” a cycle of songs set to poems by e.e. cummings by Iaian Bell, commissioned by Carnegie Hall. Barton was particularly struck by “the flawed aspect” of one poem, “I love your body.”

Besides that, as someone who is openly bisexual, Barton felt strongly about giving voice to a new composition that could be sung by anyone, no matter the gender. And she extended that idea to her other program choices, songs that might ordinarily be sung by men.

“Is it necessary for only a man to sing ‘Chanson à boire’ (Drinking Song) by Ravel? When it comes right down to it, the human experience is similar, no matter what gender,” she believes.

If you go: Jamie Barton in recital, presented by Matinee Musicale, now in its 105^th season

With Kathleen Kelly, piano

Details: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 26, in Memorial Hall, OTR

Tickets: $20; $5 students. 513-977-8838, matineemusicalecincinnati.org