Tom Corbeil featured in OPERA NEWS

Tom Corbeil in Opera News (Photo © Jörg Meyer 2012)

We can gauge the popularity of singers a number of ways on Barihunks, the most reliable is Google Analytics, which lets us know exactly which posts are receiving the most traffic. The other is email, which is less reliable, but a better gauge of the intensity of interest in a singer. Many famous barihunks generate a lot of traffic and email, particularly Nathan Gunn, Mariusz Kwiecien, Dmitry Hvorostovsky and, incresingly, Luca Pisaroni. It's fascinating when a younger, lesser known singer starts generating intense interest with fans, as is the case with Tom Corbeil.

Our recent post generated a lot of traffic, as well as links to older posts about the current star of the Addams Family musical. When Corbeil appeared in the recent issue of Opera News, we were inundated with emails making sure that we saw the article. The emails came from four continents, which was pretty impressive for a singer who is just beginning to make a name for himself.

Here is a highlight of the SOUND BITES feature from Opera News:

By F. Paul Driscoll

Tom Corbeil has been hitting low E-flats all over North America this season — but he hasn't been singing any opera. Explanation? Since September 2011, the thirty-four-year-old bass-baritone — who has won great notices over the past several years in Mozart, Haydn, Rossini and Puccini roles — has been on tour as Lurch, the taciturn butler in Broadway's The Addams Family. This month alone, Corbeil is scheduled to strut Lurch's stuff in Madison, Wisconsin; St. Paul, Minnesota; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and his hometown of San Diego, California. 

Although Corbeil says he has no intention of moving away from opera permanently — there are confirmed dates on his 2012–13 calendar for Rossini's Basilio at Michigan Opera Theatre and Rodolfo in Florida Grand Opera's La Sonnambula — he is enjoying his current stint as a touring actor. "I'm not singing for the entire show, so it's not as stressful as if I were doing eight Collines or eight Leporellos a week — it's more akin, from a purely vocal standpoint, to doing eight performances a week of the Marquis d'Obigny in La Traviata. That comes with its own stress, because you have a very short amount of time to make a very strong impression — or to make a very strong failure!"

[Read the entire article and Opera News HERE and, if you haven't already,  subscribe while you're there]

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