Barihunks heat up Des Moines Opera's Summer Season

Brent Michael Smith in Orphée et Eurydice

One of our favorite summer opera festival's recently kicked off, as the Des Moines Metro Opera kicked off their 44th season with a number of barihunks in the cast. Last season, we even featured a barihunk group photo from their production of Puccini's La fanciulla del West, which made our 2015 Best of Barihunks feature in addition to Brad Baron, who was an apprentice artist with the company and our Best Twitter discovery of the year (@BaronAsInRed).

This summer, the company is featuring full-scale operas along with a black box production. The full-scale productions are Verdi’s Falstaff, Massenet’s Manon and Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice, which will be running until July 17th at the Blank Performing Arts Center in Indianola Iowa. The black box opera will be Philip Glass’ Galileo Galileo, which will be performed on July 7 and 10 at the Science Center of Iowa in Des Moines.

Edward Parks sings Ford's aria from Verdi's Falstaff:

We can always rely on the company featuring some of the most talented barihunks on the scene and this season is no exception, as Verdi’s Falstaff will feature Wayne Tigges in the title role and Edward Parks, a recent Operalia finalist, in his debut as Ford. The gifted soprano Kelly Kaduce will sing the role of Alice Ford. Massenet’s Manon will feature the rising young talent Michael Adams making his debut as Lescaut and Troy Cook taking on de Brétigny. While none of three main characters in Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice are baritones, the cast includes the hot young bass Brent Michael Smith as one of the Furies. The rest of the cast includes Jennifer Johnson Cano in the title role, soprano Susannah Biller as Eurydice and Honorary Barihunk Cree Carrico as Amor. Philip Glass’ Galileo Galilei will feature Troy Cook as the Younger Galileo.

DMMO young artists Nate Mattingly, Brent Michael Smith & Charles Eaton

There are a number of baritones and basses in the Des Moines Opera Appretice Artist Program this season, including Tyler Alessi, Joshua Conyers, Charles Eaton, Reuben Lillie, Brent Michael Smith, Spencer Reichman, Nate Mattingly, Connor McDonald, Ben Schaeffer and Reuben Walker.  The young artists will be performing scenes on July 8, 13 and 16.

We are thrilled that Brent Michael Smith will appear in our 10th Anniversary "Barihunks in Bed" calendar. He can next be seen back at the Michigan Opera Theater, where he is a young artist. From October 15-23 he'll be singing Zuniga alongside the Morales of fellow barihunk Harry Greenleaf in Bizet's Carmen. From November 12-20, he appears as the British Major in Kevin Puts' Silent Night alongside fellow barihunk Gabriel Preisser's Lt. Gordon and tenor Chad Johnson's Nikolaus Sprink. Tickets for all performances can be found online.

We plan on featuring some of the DMMO young artists and we'll start with Charles H. Eaton, who recently received his Master of Music degree from the University of Minnesota.  In his second year of studies, he was a participant of the ECCO Program, which facilitates hours of coaching and exchange between promising young artists in the School of Music and the music staff at Minnesota Opera.  Charles will cover Lescaut in Des Moines Metro Opera's production of Manon and participate in the chorus of Falstaff as an apprentice artist.  He is a Rocky Mountain District winner of the 2016 Metropolitan Council Auditions.