Lauri Vasar strips down for Il Prigoniero

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigoniero

One of our alert readers pointed out the barihunk Lauri Vasar is reprising the role of the Prisoner in Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero at Opéra de Lyon. The 7-part, 50-minute opera is being presented with Schoenberg's one-act opera Erwartung. This is the fourth time that we've featured the Estonian barihunk and his outfit of choice always seems to be his underwear, which is fine with us.

Il Prigioniero was first broadcast by the Italian radio station RAI on December 1, 1949. The work is based on the short story La torture par l'espérance ("Torture by Hope") from the collection Nouveaux contes cruels by the French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and from La Légende d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak by Charles de Coster. Some of the musical material is based on Dallapiccola's 1938 choral work Canti di prigionia.

Perfomances will run through April 13th. Visit the Opéra de Lyon website for additional information.

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigoniero

Vasar will now switch to the German repertory as Olivier in Richard Strauss' Capriccio. He then switches to Wagner, taking on Wolfram in Tannhäuser at the Staatsoper Hamburg in May and Amfortas in Parsifal at the Palace of Arts in Budapest. Somehow we think that he'll be more fully clothed for this series of performances.

You can listen to his Wolfram on his website, as well as view additional pictures from other productions of Il Prigoniero.