Seph Stanek appearing in Ruddigore this weekend

Seph Stanek in Ruddigore (right)

If you want to start off November on the right foot, head over to New York University where barihunk Seph Stanek is appearing in Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddigore. There will be three performances this weekend at the Skirball Center for the Peforming Arts featuring the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (matinee and evening on Saturday, and matinee on Sunday).

Stanek made his debut with the New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players in 2012 as the Headsman in The Yeomen of the Guard, and subsequently appeared in The Mikado with the company.

Trained as an operatic baritone, Stanek appeared in Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, but has since focused his career in musicals and television. He appeared off-Broadway in Naked Boys Singing!, Little House on the Ferry and 8Minute Musicals; as well as HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Mildred Pierce.

Tickets for Ruddigore are available online.

If you want to enjoy 19 other singers who are sexy as Seph Stanek, order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today by clicking on the LULU button below.

Ildar Abdrazakov to Make American Solo Recital Debut

Ildar Abdrazakov

Ildar Abdrazakov, who you can see in the Live in HD broadcast of Bizet's Carmen tomorrow, will be making his American solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall on Jan 29th. Joined by pianist Mzia Bakhtouridze, the Russian bass-barihunk will sing a program that includes Fauré, Liszt, Ravel, Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky. Tickets are available online.

On February 5th, he'll give his second U.S. recital at Florida’s Palm Beach Opera in a gala event titled “Seduction of the Senses: A Gala Evening with Ildar Abdrazakov.” The event is co-hosted by Donald Trump and tickets are limited. Email Lisa at lhuertas@pbopera.org for more information.

Fans in Europe can catch him in Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon at the Marseille Opera from November 8-16.

Make sure to order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today. Enjoy 19 of operas hottest men. Click on the LULU button below to order your own copy.

Chris Herbert & Wes Mason to star in AIDS Quilt Songbook

Barihunks Chris Herbert and Wes Mason, will be part of "AIDS Quilt Songbook @22, " a concert and fundraiser for Bailey House, a not for profit organization providing housing and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. The concert is on November 14th at the Church of St. Matthew and St. Timothy in New York City.

The performance marks the 22nd anniversary concert of the AIDS Quilt Songbook, which premiered in 1992 in Alice Tully Hall by baritones William Parker, Kurt Ollmann, William Sharp, and Sanford Sylvan. Parker died a year later of AIDS. Sharp teaches at Peabody and Ollman at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee. Tickets are $10 and free with a student ID.

The concert is co-curated by Thomas Bagwell, the artistic director of the 20th AIDS Quilt Songbook at Cooper Union and assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, and Gordon Beeferman, composer of "The Enchanted Organ: A Porn Opera". The duo also co-curated an AIDS Quilt Songbook in Philadelphia last year at the William Way Community Center. They'll be joined by Michael Djupstrom and John Musto at the piano.

Kurt Ollman sings Ricky Ian Gordon's "I Never Knew":

Other singers included sopranos Anne-Carolyn Bird, Amy Burton, Lorinda Lisitza, Gilda Lyons, and Elizabeth Weigle; mezzo-sopranos Abby Fischer and Heather Johnson; contralto Nicole Mitchell; and, hunkentenor Michael Slattery

The concert will include works by Gordon Beeferman, Michael Djupstrom, Rachel Peters, and Kamala Sankaram, Andrea Clearfield, Herschel Garfein, Fred Hersch, Gilda Lyons, John Musto, Jack Perla, and Donald Wheelock. The program will feature songs all directly related to HIV/AIDS and will cover such topics as the realities of being HIV+ in the dating world, prevention education for sex workers, the joys of the condom, and a biting satire on the tearing of St. Vincent's hospital, the epicenter of the epidemic in New York.

 Don't forget to buy your 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today. Wes Mason and Chris Herbert appeared in previous years and this year is filled with 19 of the hunkiest men in opera. 

Ildar Abdrazakov & Keith Miller in Met Broadcast

Keith Miller (left) and Ildar Abdrazakov

Two of opera's hottest barihunks, Ildar Abdrazakov and Keith Miller will be in Live in HD broadcast of Bizet's Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday, November 1st at 1 PM EST/10 AM PST. Abdrazakov will sing the bullfighter Escamillo and Miller will sing Lieutenant Zuniga.

Richard Eyre’s production will feature mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role of the ill-fated gypsy temptress and Aleksandrs Antonenko as the soldier Don José. 

There will be ab encore performances in the U.S. on Wednesday, November 5th and in Canada on November 29 and 30, and December 8th. Visit the Met website for tickets and a listing of theaters near you. 

 You can also enjoy Keith Miller in our 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar (bottom right), as he's featured for the second straight year. Click on the LULU button below to buy your copy today!

l'Oiseleur des Longchamps in horse-themed recital

French baritone l'Oiseleur des Longchamps

When we released this year's Barihunks calendar, we were instantly bombarded with questions about French baritone l'Oiseleur des Longchamps. His provocative image caught the eye of a number of readers, who asked about his name and amazing body (which he shows off liberally!).

Longchamps is a multifaceted artist, who has a love for photography and being photographed, as well as music and theater. He's also quite the hippophile (or lover of horses) and he's put together a fascinating concert dedicated to his favorite animal called 'Les chevauchées Lyriques" (Lyric rides). The songs are part of his album of the same name.

Included will be Alagna's "Cantu pi’ n’ cavaddu bravu," Chausson's "Le Chevalier Malheur," Chopin's "Le guerrier," Debussy's "La Belle au bois dormant" and many more.      

The concert is on November 22nd at Les salons de la Mèlodie in Brussels. For additional information or to reserve seats, visit the website or send an email to info@lessalonsdelamelodie.com.

You can enjoy more beautiful pictures of l'Oiseleur des Longchamps in our 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar. Buy your today by clicking on the LULU button below.

Günther Groissböck singing Heinrich in Amsterdam & Berlin

Günther Groissböck as Heinrich in Lohengrin

The role of Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin is beginning to fill Austrian bass-barihunk Günther Groissböck's schedule. Earlier this year, he had a successful run in the role at the Vienna State Opera in April and he previously performed it in Tokyo. On November 10th, he'll sing seven performances of the role at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, before reprising the role in Berlin in April 2015.

 Günther Groissböck as Heinrich in Berlin:

He'll be joined in Amsterdam by Nikolai Schukoff as Lohengrin and Yevgeny Nikitin as Telramund, both of whom are making their company debuts. Juliane Banse will sing Elsa and Michaela Schuster is taking on Ortrud. Performances run from November 10-29 and tickets are available online.

In Berlin, the all-star cast includes Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin, Waltraud Meier as Ortrud and Anja Harteros as Elsa. Tickets are available online. Ring Cycle fanatics will be thrilled to know that Groissböck will sing Hunding and Fasolt in the Munich Ring in February and March.

If want to enjoy an entire year of nineteen of opera's sexiest men, order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today by clicking on the LULU button below.

Michael Mayes to make role debut as Sharpless; Broadcast live!

Michael Mayes

Michael Mayes has become so associated for his brilliant portrayals in contemporary opera, that we sometimes forget that he's a compelling presence in the standard repertory, as well. Mayes, who has been dubbed the definitive Joseph de Rocher in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, a role he'll reprise in Opera Parallèle's upcoming season, will be making his role debut as Sharpless in Puccini's operatic classic Madame Butterfly next month.

Mayes will sing the role with the Michigan Opera Theatre from November 15-23 alongside hunkentenor Noah Stewart. Joining them in the cast will be Moldavian soprano Inna Los and Italian soprano Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi who will alternate in the role of Cio-Cio San.

If you can't make it to Detroit, opening night of the opera on November 15th will be broadcast live on WRCJ 90.9 FM. Tickets may be purchased online.

Dead Man Walking will be performed in San Francisco and Santa Monica and tickets are now on sale. This show will sell out fast, so visit the Opera Parallèle website today if you plan on attending.

Make sure to order our new 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar featuring 19 of the hottest men in opera. Michael Mayes was one of the stars of our 2014 calendar. Click on the LULU button below to order now.

Don't waffle, go see Sergey Khalikulov's Don Giovanni

Sergey Khalikulov in Waffle Opera's Don Giovanni

As regular readers know, our main goal at Barihunks is to promote the art form and to promote singers. Waffle Operas is exactly what we're about. It's a brand new opera company founded by young artists with the purpose of promoting young artists.

Sergey Khalikulov, who received his B.A. from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, has been continuing his studies at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where a group of young musicians played a key role in creating Waffle Opera. They actually serve waffles, as well as a dose of humor. Their joke is that even if the opera wasn't great, the waffles were incredible.

Audiences have one more chance to support Khalikulov and these young artists on November 1st. Tickets are available online.  

Another way to support young artists is to purchase our Barihunks Charity Calendar. This year, $850 is going directly to singers who participated in the calendar through an upcoming reader contest. Buy yours today by clicking the LULU button below. 

Interview with Evan Boyer

Evan Boyer

What do you do if you’re a kid whose deep voice always sticks out? For Evan Boyer, the answer was: become an opera singer. “No matter how quiet I tried to talk in class, I was always that kid who the teacher could hear,” Boyer says. As a teenager, he discovered his true talent accidentally at camp: some cute girls who liked his bass sound asked him to sing for them. He impressed his audience, and surprised himself with what turned out to be a defining moment. It led him to pursue choir in high school, and later, he studied voice in college. Now, Boyer is a recent graduate of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s professional training program. He makes his Seattle Opera debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni, and has been called “excellent” by The Seattle Times.

Welcome to Seattle Opera! You’re making your debut with us.
Don Giovanni was actually the first opera I ever saw as a senior in high school. It was the Kentucky Opera in Louisville. [He says the name with a Southern accent: "Lou-ville."] I guess here in Seattle you’d say “Louie-ville” [laughs].

Based on some of the names Masetto calls his wife, as well as his quick temper, it might be easy to assume that he’s a bad guy. However, he’s more complex than that, isn’t he?
Masetto has a temper, and tends to see things in black and white--there's very little gray area for him. But he’s a really honest, good guy; he's just trapped in an impossibly difficult situation. He thinks his wife is abandoning him for someone else on his wedding day; in an instant, the happiest day of his life has become a nightmare. Masetto is of a lower class. There’s nothing he can do when this nobleman starts coming on to Zerlina. She’s definitely not resisting as much as she should be. Naturally, he’s pissed off.

[CLICK HERE CONTINUE READING ON SEATTLE OPERA BLOG]

There are remaining performances of Don Giovanni on Oct. 29, 31 and Nov. 1. For tickets and more information, go to seattleopera.org. 

 Make sure to order our new 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar featuring 19 of the hottest men in opera. Click on the LULU button below. 

Zachary Gordin to sing West Coast premiere of Fairouz works

Barihunks calendar model Zachary Gordin will join pianist Lara Downes and the amazing Del Sol String Quartet for a concert of works inspired by ancient Arabic texts set to music by composer Mohammed Fairouz. The concert will feature the West Coast premieres of several of Fairouz’s solo and chamber works inspired by literary and historical influences reaching back to ancient cultures of the Arabian Peninsula.

The performance will take place at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum on November 1st and tickets are available online. 

Regular readers will recall another Barihunks calendar model, Dan Kempson, premiered Mohammed Fairouz’s opera Sumeida’s Song in 2013.

You can enjoy Zachary Gordin all year in our new calendar, which features him in two months. Click on the LULU button below to order your copy today.

Duncan Rock making two major debuts

Duncan Rock

Fans of Duncan Rock in the U.K. will get their last chance to see him perform this year, when he joins soprano Anna Devin, tenor Joshua Mills and mezzo Kathryn Rudge for Mozart's Requiem tonight at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

He then heads off to Madrid to take on two roles in Willy Decker's production of Britten's Death in Venice at the Teatro Real. This will be his debut with the company. An additional highlight of this show will be Anthony Roth Costanzo singing the voice of Apollo. Performances run from December 4-23 and tickets are available online. 

Duncan Rock as Don Giovanni

Fans in the U.S. are eagerly anticipating his American stage debut when he's featured at the Boston Lyric Opera in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni next season. Performances will run from May 1-10, 2015 and tickets are now on sale at the BLO website. The remainder of BLO's upcoming season includes Verdi’s La Traviata, Frank Martin’s The Love Potion and Janáček’s Kátya Kabanová.

A little bit of trivia about Duncan Rock, that readers may not know, is that he started his musical career playing the bagpipes.

If want to enjoy an entire year of nineteen of opera's sexiest men, order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today by clicking on the LULU button below.

Introducing Gavan Ring

Gavan Ring

We've never properly featured Gavan Ring on our site, except for a brief mention in August 2013 when he took second place at 2013 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition. He's currently doing duel duty at the Wexford Festival Opera, where he's singing Lieutenant Gordon in the European première of Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize winning opera Silent Night and Fr. Philippe in Holst's The Wandering Scholar.

Gavan Ring's 2nd Place performance at the 2013 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation 

International Song Competition:

We highly recommend this interview with him from the Irish Independent.

Next month he'll be busy singing the baritone solo in Britten's War Requiem at Three Spires Singers Festival from November 7-9 St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast on November 14 and at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin on November 22.

Don't forget to purchase your 2015 Barihunks calendar by clicking on the LULU button below. 

Wexford sells out for European premiere of Silent Night

Matt Worth

Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night got its long-awaited European debut today at the Wexford Opera Festival. Opening night was completely sold out and tickets are going fast for the remaining performances through November 2.

The cast is a mix of Europeans and Americans and is loaded with barihunks. Wexford has cast Matthew Worth as Lieutenant Audebart, Quirijn de Lang as the lovable Poncel, Ian Beadle as William Dale and Jamie Rock as Gueusselin.

Tickets are available online.

Commissioned by the Minnesota Opera and first performed in 2011, the opera was inspired by the 2005 film Joyeux Noël about the spontaneous Christmas truce between enemy combatants during the First World War. Its core message is that war is not sustainable when you come to know your enemy as a person.

Opening night of Silent Night at Wexford

On October 25th, composer Kevin Puts and librettist Mark Campbell will present a talk about the work at 11 AM. The film Joyeux Noël will be screened in the Jerome Hynes Theatre in Wexford Opera House at 10:30 am on the days of the Silent Night performances. There is no charge but tickets must be booked through the Box Office.

The current production is presented with the support of the American Friends of Wexford Opera with the support of the French Embassy in Ireland.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES!!! Don't forget to buy the sexy new Barihunks Charity Calendar: VIVA, ITALIA! It features 19 of the sexiest men from the world of opera. Click on the LULU button below to order your copy now.

Mirco Palazzi back in Dallas; Live simulcast tonight

Mirco Palazzi

Italian bass-barihunk Mirco Palazzi, who made his U.S. debut at Leporello in 2010 with the Dallas Opera, returns to the company in the title role of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. The opera opens tonight and runs through November 9th.

Mirco Palazzi talks about his upcoming performances as Figaro:

Opening night is also an opportunity to share the opera with family and friends, as the performance will be simulcast live from the Winspear Opera House to Klyde Warren Park.The action begins at 6:30pm and will include a screening of the 1945 Three Stooges classic “Micro-Phonies”, the “Worst Bridesmaid’s Dress Ever” contest and a bouquet toss.

European fans of Palazzi can see him in the role at the Teatro Regio in Turin from February 12-25. The cast also includes fellow Italian barihunk Ildebrando D'Arcangelo. 

If you love everything and anything Italian, make sure to purchase our Viva, Italia! Barihunks Charity calendar featuring some of the hottest Italian and Italian-American singers in the world, as well as some Italian themed photos. Click on the LULU button below to buy yours today!

Zachary Gordin to appear in Carmina Burana

Zachary Gordin

Über-barihunk, who once again is featured prominently in our Barihunks Calendar, will be performing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25. It should be a thrilling performance, as Maestra Marika Kuzma is leading both the University of California Chorus and Chamber Chorus along with soprano Candace Johnson and hunkentenor Thomas Glenn.

Also on the program are Bach's B Minor Mass Sketches, Sanctus, BWV 238, Cantata BWV 12 and Cantata BWV 2.

Performances are at Hertz Concert Hall in Berkeley, California. Click HERE for tickets and additional information.

Click on the button below to order you Barihunks Charity Calendar and enjoy Zachary Gordin all year!

Teddy Tahu Rhodes featured in Anzac Day concert

Teddy Tahu Rhodes (left) and and Australian soldier from Gallipoli in WWI (right)

The Melbourne Symphony announced their upcoming 2015 season this week and it includes a fascinating concert scheduled for April 23rd and 24th. The concerts lead up to Anzac Day on April 25, which honors the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who fought at Gallipoli in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

The concerts, which includes both Beethoven’s Egmont and the Ninth Symphony, commemorate the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli. The Ninth Symphony will include British soprano Susan Gritton, Australian mezzo Fiona James, New Zealand bass-barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Turkish hunkentenor Bülent Bezdüz who respectively represent the main combatant nations.

The Battle of Gallipoli was a campaign of World War I that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire between April 24, 1915 and January 9, 1916. The peninsula forms the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a strait that provides a sea route to what was then the Russian Empire, one of the Allied powers during the war. Intending to secure it, Russia's allies Britain and France launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula with the eventual aim of capturing the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul).

 

Turkish hunkentenor Bülent Bezdüz

The naval attack was repelled and, after eight months' fighting, with many casualties on both sides, the land campaign also failed and the invasion force was withdrawn to Egypt.  The campaign was one of the greatest Ottoman victories during the war and a major Allied failure. 

 

In Turkey, it is regarded as a defining moment in the nation's history: a final surge in the defense of the motherland as the Ottoman Empire crumbled. The struggle formed the basis for the Turkish War of Independence and the founding of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who first rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli. 

 

Anzac Day remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in Australia and New Zealand, surpassing Remembrance Day.

Click HERE for tickets.

 

Don't forget to order your 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar by clicking the Lulu.com button below. It features 19 of the hottest singers in opera, including Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek (featured above). 

 

Listen to Andrew Foster-Williams as Rossini's Pharaoh

Andrew Foster-Williams as the Pharaoh

For the next four weeks you can listen to Andrew Foster-Williams in Rossini's rarely performed opera Moses in Egypt. The British baritone sang the role of the Pharaoh in this production from the Welsh National Opera.

Although not as well known as the Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, or William Tell, Moses in Egypt is among Rossini's greatest musical achievements. First heard in Naples in 1818, Rossini's telling of the Old Testament story pulls focus between the epic and the intimate, as the story of an entire people persecuted by a cruel tyrant is juxtaposed with the forbidden love of two young people on either side of a religious divide.

The Pharaoh refuses to free the Hebrews from slavery and allow them to leave for the Promised Land. Moses, with God's help, brings down plagues on the Egyptians until eventually he and his people are freed. But Pharaoh's son, Osiris, is in love with a Hebrew girl, Elcia, and he is punished when he attempts to have Moses killed.

The Hebrews reach the Red Sea and are rescued from the pursuing Egyptians by divine intervention.

Click HERE to listen to the broadcast. 

During the holiday season, you can catch Foster-Williams singing Handel's Messiah under the baton of the great contralto Nathalie Stutzmann at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées.

Don't forget that our 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar is now on sale. You can purchase a copy by clicking the image of Donovan Singletary.