Barihunks here, barihunks there, barihunks everywhere at Rossini Festival

Davide Luciano

For yet another season, it would be virtually impossible to avoid seeing a barihunk on stage at this year's Rossini Festival in Pesaro, which runs from August 10-22.

On opening day you can catch the world's greatest Leporello, Alex Esposito, in Rossini's La gazza ladra, which is best remembered for it's lively overture these days.  The next night, you can catch the charming young barihunk Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore in the rarely performed La gazzetta. The following night, Davide Luciano, who lit up our pages with some shirtless pictures, performs in another of Rossini's rarities, L’inganno felice.

Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore

 On August 14 and 17, the students from Alberto Zedda's Accademia Rossiniana will perform in Il viaggio a Reims, providing attendees to see the next great generation of Rossini singers. 

On August 15 and 18, Mirco Palazzi joins hunkentenor Juan Diego Florez in the composer's Messa di Gloria.

Alex Esposito show off why he's not just popular for his singing

The singers have become popular fan favorites over the last few seasons and all of the barihunks are returning from previous seasons, including Esposito, Luciano, Palazzi and Bonsignore. You can check out our feature from last season.  Bonsignore first appeared as a student from the Accademia Rossiniana program in 2011.

The festival also includes a number of concerts by various performers. Additional information and tickets are available online.

Davide Luciano is a regular at the Berlin Opera this season where he is performing Sid in La fanciulla del West, Marcello in La boheme, Ping in Turandot, Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia and Sgt. Lescaut in Manon Lescaut. Alex Esposito is serving up another full plate of Mozart this year, singing Papageno in Venice and Munich and Leporello in Munich. Mirco Palazzi switches to Bellini, singing Giorgio in I puritani in Catania and Rodolfo in La sonnambula in Bilbao.