Luis Alejandro Orozco makes Florentine Opera debut as Barber

Luis Alejandro Orozco

Barihunk Luis Alejandro Orozco will make his Florentine Opera debut in Milwaukee as the title character in Rossini's The Barber of Seville on May 5th and 7th. He'll be joined in the cast by Taylor Stayton as Almaviva, Katrina Thurman as Berta, Peter Volpe as Basilio, Andrew Wilkowske as Bartolo and Spanish mezzo-soprano Carol Garcia making her U.S. debut as Rosina. The production will be conducted by Joseph Rescigno, who is now the longest-serving principal conductor in opera.

Tickets are available online. 

Orozco has racked up a number of other company debuts over the last two year, including with the Arizona Opera, Anchorage Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Michigan Opera Theater, Lyric Opera Baltimore, and Urban Arias. He previously sang the The Barber of Seville with Syracuse Opera.

He returns to his signature role of El Payador in Astor Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires at the Mill City Summer Opera from July 14-20. Tickets go on sale on May 8th.

Barihunks have good night at Lotte Lenya competition

Bradley Smoak, Michael Hewitt, Tony Potts & Philip Kalmanovitch

Bass-barihunk Bradley Smoak walked away with the $20,000 Grand Prize at this year's Lotte Lenya Competition. Smoak's winning set included Kurt Weill's  “This is the Life” from Love Life, “Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni” from Bellini's La sonnambula, “Higher Than a Hawk” from Calamity Jane, and “Me” from Beauty and the Beast.

It was a good year all around for barihunks, as Tony Potts and former barihunks calendar models Philip Kalmanovitch and Michael Hewitt also were awarded $3000 Special Prizes.

Bradley Smoak's winning set:

Contestants were required to prepare four selections: an aria from the opera or operetta repertoire; two songs from the American musical theater repertoire (one from the pre-1968 "Golden Age" and one from 1968 or later); and a theatrical selection by Kurt Weill.

Philip Kalmanovitch at the Lotte Lenya competition:

Michael Hewitt at the Lotte Lenya competition:

Tony Potts  at the Lotte Lenya competition:

Held annually by the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, the Lotte Lenya Competition is an international theater singing contest that recognizes talented young singer-actors, ages 19-32, who are dramatically and musically convincing in a wide range of repertoire, and emphasizes the acting of songs and arias within a dramatic context.

Previous winners of the Lotte Lenya competition will be familiar to our readers, including barihunks Lucas Meachem, Liam Bonner and Jonathan Michie, Doug Carpenter, as well as tenor Noah Stewart.

Daniel Okulitch to reprise role in Dead Man Walking

Daniel Okulitch and J'Nai Bridges

Canadian bass-barihunk Daniel Okulitch is returning to both his native country and a familiar role this month. He'll be reprising his highly-acclaimed interpretation of accused killer Joseph De Rocher in Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking at the Vancouver Opera from April 29-May 7.

He has performed the role with the Fort Worth Opera and in the Canadian premiere at the Calgary Opera. In this production, he'll be joined by J'Nai Bridges as Sister Helen Prejean, Karen Slack as Sister Rose, Judith Forst as Mrs. Patrick De Rocher and Thomas Goerz as Owen Hart. Tickets are available online.

The opera is based on the bestselling memoir by Sister Helen Prejean and chronicles the story of a convicted Louisiana murderer who is befriended by a Catholic nun seeking to understand the nature of divine forgiveness. Prejean's memoir was the basis for the award-winning 1995 film starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn

You can listen to Daniel Okulitch on CBC radio talking about his career and favorite music.

Barihunk Edward Miskie pens humorous cancer survivor memoir

Edward Miskie

Barihunk calendar model Edward Miskie has authored "Cancer, Musical Theatre, & Other Chronic Illnesses,"  which he launched tonight in Chelsea.

Miskie is not only a singer, actor (and calendar model), but a survivor of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. A course of treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center provided the inspiration for the book, which was written four years after he was declared cancer free.

A chance encounter with a fellow survivor prompted him to begin writing his "as-funny-as-cancer-can-be memoir." The book touches on the farce that is cancer treatment, the circus that is the healthcare system we face, and the challenges that face you even after you are told you are cancer free all framed in the content of musicals.

It is currently published in hard copy and on Kindle and Amazon. Visit www.cancermusicaltheatrebook.com or follow @CMTBook.

Listen to Jarrett Ott sing from Pearl Fishers on WUNC

Jarrett Ott

WUNC host Frank Stasio previewed the North Carolina Opera's upcoming performance of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers with barihunk Jarrett Ott and tenor John Bellemer on his National Public Radio broadcast. The two singers joined company general director Eric Mitchko for a discussion of the production and they then joined accompanist Sahar Nouri for a live studio performance of the famous duet.

You can listen to the interview, Zurga's aria and the famous tenor/baritone duet on WUNC's website. 

The remainder of the cast includes soprano Talise Trevigne as Leïla and Jordan Bisch as Nourabad. There are performances on Friday, April 28 at 8 p.m. and Saturday April 30 at 3 p.m. at Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium. Tickets are available online.

Aaron Sørensen pitches Sparafucile on Midday Mississippi

Aaron Sørensen from the Barihunks calendar

Barihunk calendar model Aaron Sorensen appeared on Midday Mississippi on WLBT Channel 3 in Jackson along with soprano Rachel Arky. The duo were were pitching their "one night only" performance of Verdi's Rigoletto in which they perform the brother and sister duo of Sparafucile and Maddalena.

The rest of the cast includes barihunk Corey Crider, Hanna Brammer as Gilda, Cody Laun as the Duke of Mantua and Taylor Hightower as Monterone.

There is a single performance on April 22 at the Thalia Mara Hall in Jackson at 7:30 PM. You won't want to miss Sørensen's glorious Low F! Tickets are available online.

Gay-themed "Les Feluettes" gets two revivals

Étienne Dupuis and Jean-Michel Richer

Australian composer Kevin March and Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard's opera Les Feluettes (Lilies), which had its world premiere last year at Opéra de Montréal, will now be presented at Pacific Opera Victoria and the Edmonton Opera.

The production opens at Pacific Opera Victoria on April 20 and runs through April 30.  Barihunk Étienne Dupuis will reprise the lead role of Young Simon Doucet and hunkentenor Jean-Michel Richer will return as the Count Vallier de Tilly, who is in love with Simon. Tickets are available online.

The opera is based on the play, which tells the story of the confession of an aging prisoner to a bishop. Through the confession we learn that the bishop and the prisoner were part of a gay love triangle and that the bishop was responsible for the death of a young man many years ago. The play was was made into a film called Lilies, which was directed by John Greyson. All of the roles in the opera, including the female roles of La Comtesse Marie-Laure de Tilly and Mademoiselle Lydie-Anne de Rozier, are sung by men as the story is told by actors in an all-male prison. 

Zachary Read (left) and Jean-Michel Richer and Etienne Dupuis (right)

The term Feluette is a Quebec expression with its root in the word fluet, (thin, frail in appearance) which, in common parlance of the time, referred to men who were weak, frail, or effeminate.

Edmonton Opera will present the piece from October 21-27 with barihunk Zachary Read as Young Simon and Jean-Michel Richer returning as the Count Vallier de Tilly.

Jonathan McGovern making two major debuts

Jonathan McGovern

Barihunk Jonathan McGovern is making a major role and house debut this season, beginning with his first performance of the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Teatro Arriaga in Bilbao.

The opera tells the story of Orfeo's descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua and is considered the earliest opera that is still regularly performed. Performances are on May 5th and 6th and tickets are available online.

This summer, he will make his company debut with the Garsington Opera in the title role of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Andrea Carroll will sing the role of Mélisande and Paul Gay is Golaud. The British singer performed the role last season with English Touring Opera. Performances run from June 16th through July 7th and tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky cancels upcoming concert

The following notice appeared on the website of the National Concert Hall where barihunk Dmitri Hvorostovsky was scheduled to perform on April 29th.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky deeply regrets that he must cancel his recital due to a change in the schedule for his cancer treatments.

Information about the concert has been removed from the Hvorostovsky’s official website, but his manager says that the Russian singer still plans on performing in a gala concert in Toronto on April 25th along with soprano Anna Netrebko and her husband tenor Yusif Eyvazov.

Hvorostovsky was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the summer of 2015 and subsequently cancelled concerts in Kaliningrad, Minsk and Vienna, as well as performances in the Met's current production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. He was replaced by fellow barihunks Peter Mattei and Mariusz Kwiecien.

Richard Tucker Foundation awards barihunk John Chest career grant

John Chest

Barihunk John Chest is on a roll, having recently been named as the U.S. representative at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in June 2017 and closing the Opera Philadelphia season opposite his wife Layla Claire in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. To top that off, he was just awarded a $10,000 2017 Richard Tucker Career Grant along with bass-baritone Nicholas Brownlee and baritone Anthony Clark Evans.

The top prize of $50,000 went to soprano Nadine Sierra. Winners of the $5,000 Sara Tucker Award went to countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, tenor Alexander McKissick, bass-baritone Christian Pursell, bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum, mezzo-soprano Taylor Raven, tenor Jack Swanson, and soprano Vanessa Vasquez.

Rare barihunk trio in Puccini's Tosca

Alexander Tsymbalyuk, Marco Vratogna and Douglas Williams

Puccini operas aren't known for great baritone roles, like Verdi or Wagner, and certainly not a lot of great barihunk roles. Gianni Schicchi is a dying old man, Michele is an old barge operator, Jack Rance is the law and order town sheriff with his eye on the girl, Scarpia is usually played as a lecherous old police chief and The Bonze is usually a despicable old relative.

The only Puccini opera where we regularly get one and sometimes two barihunks is La bohème where the young Parisians often include a sexy Marcello and lower-voice Colline. So imagine our delight when we learned that the online broadcast of the composer's Tosca would include the barihunk trio of Marco Vratogna as Scarpia, Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Cesare Angelotti and Douglas Williams as Sciarrone. We've always liked the idea of a younger Scarpia, as it adds some sexual tension to the Act II "seduction" scene with Tosca.

The trio will join Kristine Opolais as Tosca and Marcelo Alvarez as Mario Cavaradossi for the Berlin Philharmonic's fifth visit to the Easter Festival of the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden.

The performance will be on Arte TV for free starting on April 17th.

Introducing bass-barihunk Jake Stamatis in Hydrogen Jukebox

Jake Stamatis in Trouble in Tahiti (left)

A reader alerted us to the fact that we've never posted bass-barihunk Jake Stamatis, who is opening next week in Philip Glass' Hydrogen Jukebox with Tri-Cities Opera in Binghamton, New York. He'll be joined in the cast by Stacey Geyer, Abigail Smith, Mary Beth Nelson, Jordan Schreiner and Scott Purcell.

Stamatis is a native of Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania and received his Bachelors Degree in Vocal Performance at Susquehanna University and his Masters Degree in Opera at Binghamton University. He is currently an artist-in-residence at Tri-Cities Opera where he's also sining the Marquese d’Obingy in Verdi's La traviata and Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’Heure Espagnol. He recently appeared with Opera Ithaca as Abdul in Kamala Sankaram's Thumbprint.

Other roles in his repertory include Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Frosch in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Taddeo in Rossini's L’Italiana in Algeri, Sam in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and and Anthony in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.

Performances of Hydrogen Jukebox are on April 21, 23, 28 and 30 with performances at Savoca Hibbitt Hall in Binghamton. Tickets and additional information is available online.

This is also our first post highlighting Tri-Cities Opera, with our only mention of the company being Brandon Coleman singing Mephistopheles in their production of Gounod's Faust.

Michael Travis Risner in Le nozze di Figaro in Greeley, Colorado

Michael Travis Risner working out and backstage for Marriage of Figaro

Michael Travis Risner, who has appeared on our site in Boulder Opera's productions of Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Mozart's Don Giovanni, will be performing Figaro in the University of Northern Colorado Opera Theatre production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro on April 15th in Greeley.

The company will be performing on both April 14 and April 15 with separate casts. He'll be joined by Alberto Beltran as the Count, Meggie Moyer as the Countess, Katie Warner as Susanna, Zecheriah Oswald as Bartolo, April Phillips as Marcellina, Margaret Siegrist as Cherubino and Sean Stephenson as Basilio.

Risner received his Masters in Music in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy from Colorado State University. He has been appearing on the stages of Colorado's Front Range for the past 20 years as a singer, actor, director, and stage combat instructor and choreographer (his resume even lists "fitness model").  He has performed the title role in Monostatos in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Dancaire in Bizet's Carmen, Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, Eddie/Dr. Scott in Rocky Horror Live!, Lancelot in Camelot, Anatoly in Chess and the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Footloose (Chuck).

A bit of trivia about Greeley, which was was named after Horace Greeley, editor of the New-York Tribune, who came to Colorado in the 1859 Pike's Peak Gold Rush. His trip popularized the phrase "Go West, young man"

¡Figaro! (90210) returns to NY after successful L.A. run

Luke Scott (left) and David Castillo (right) (Photo Maria Baranova)

After sold-out performances on both coasts, ¡Figaro! (90210) is back at The Duke on 42nd Street in New York's Times Square until April 23rd.

The opera is an updated and rewritten version of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro about class and power. The piece is set in present-day Los Angeles (with a Trump Tower gag thrown in for New York audiences) and filled with pop references,  contemporary slang and includes current topics like immigration reform and income inequality. 

David Castillo, who we recently featured in his successful run as Anthony Hope in Townsend Opera's Sweeney Todd, will reprise the role of the stoner Atzuko. (Don't miss our interview with him). He's joined by barihunk Luke Scott as Paul Conti, hunkentenor Michael Kuhn as Basel, Jose Adan Perez as Figaro, actor Christin Byrdsong as Lil B-Man, Ethan Herschenfeld as Babayan, Lori Mirabal as Donna, Sahoko Sato Timpone as Ms. Soon-Yi Nam, Emma Grimsley as Barbara Conti, Raquel Suarez-Groen  as Roxanne Conti and Samarie Alicia as Susana.
 

Actor Christin Byrdsong (Photo Maria Baranova)

The libretto is in English and "Spanglish" and is about the undocumented workers Figaro and Susana who can't wait to get married. On their way to the altar they have to navigate a world of lecherous bosses, Botoxed starlets, bumbling human traffickers, ambitious hip-hoppers, and pothead gardeners in a wild adventure that recasts the classic opera as a madcap comedy about citizenship in today's America. 

Tickets are available at Figaro90210.com where you can use the discount code "GOGOFIGARO."  

Castillo next appears as the Doctor and Shepherd in Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande with the Cleveland Orchestra from May 2-6 under the baton of Franz Welser-Most. Fellow barihunks Elliot Madore and Hanno Müller-Brachmann will sing the roles of Pelleas and Golaud respectively. Tickets are available online.

Barihunk Ildebrando d’Arcangelo to appear on San Francisco Giants' homefield

Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and AT&T Park

Ildebrando d’Arcangelo will appear on the Jumbotron as Don Giovanni at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. The live telecast is part of the San Francisco Opera's successful Opera at the Ballpark series.

Up to 30,000 are expected to attend the June 30th live broadcast from the War Memorial Opera House. Audience members can picnic on the field while watching the opera or watch from the stands. The event is free, but attendees will have to register online.

Ildebrando d’Arcangelo sings Deh vieni alla finestra from Don Giovanni:

The Opera in the Ballpark experience is one of the many ways the San Francisco Opera has used to broaden the reach of opera. Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, will be joined in the cast by Erin Wall, Ana María Martinez, Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Marco Vinco. The opera will be conducted by Marc Minkowski in his San Francisco Opera debut and will be directed Jacopo Spirei in his San Francisco debut.

The San Francisco Opera summer season will also include Puccini’s La Bohème and Verdi’s Rigoletto with Quinn Kelsey in the title role.

Barihunk Thomas Tatzl to make Vienna Opera debut

Thomas Tatzl

Austrian barihunk Thomas Tatzl will be making his Vienna State Opera debut this winter as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He'll be joined by fellow barihunk Rene Pape as Sarastro, Jörg Schneider as Tamino, Olga Bezsmertna as Pamina and Hila Fahima as the Queen of the Night.

Performances will run from December 22-29, including a performance on Christmas Day.

You don't have to wait to see him as Papageno, as he'll be performing in Die Zauberflöte at the Teatro Regio di Torino from May 16-18 with Ekaterina Sadovnikova as Pamina, Alessandro Scotto di Luzio as Tamino and Marigona Querkezi as the Queen of the Night.

Thomas Tatzl & Caterina di Tonno sing the duet from Die Zauberflöte:

This season, he's performed Ford in Verdi's Falstaff at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari and Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte in Ravenna, Novara and Piacenza. From September 22-October 1, he'll sing Count Almaviva in Jonathan Miller's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.

Lee Gregory in Southern California premiere of As One

Baritone Lee Gregory

Lee Gregory is the latest barihunk to take on the role of Hannah, the transgender protagonist of Laura Kaminsky's groundbreaking opera As One. Gregory will play "Hannah before" and Danielle Marcelle Bond will portray "Hannah after" in Long Beach Opera's production directed by David Schweizer. This will be the first performance in Southern California. 

Performances will be on May 13, 20 and 21 and tickets are available online. There will be a pre-opera talk with Artistic Director Andreas Mitisek one hour before each performance.

Kaminsky was inspired to write As One after reading an article in the New York Times in 2008 about a New Jersey marriage in which one of the parties transitioned from male to female, transforming the couple from straight to gay. The opera is based on the life experience of noted filmmaker Kimberly Reed.

As One provides insights into both the personal and philosophical questions at the core of how personhood is defined, as well as into the compromised civil and humans rights of transgender individuals in the broader societal framework.

Barihunk duo lead Opera Philadelphia's Marriage of Figaro

John Chest as Billy Budd in Berlin

Opera Philadelphia's season comes to a close with a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro starring barihunks John Chest and Brandon Cedel from April 28-May 7. This is a new co-production, which premiered last year at Lyric Opera of Kansas City and next travels to San Diego Opera and Palm Beach Opera.

John Chest will be performing with his wife soprano Layla Claire, both of whom are making their company debuts. They will be singing the bickering Count and Countess Almaviva. Joining them as Figaro is bass-barihunk Brandon Cedel, whose last appearance on the Academy of Music stage was in the East Coast premiere of Kevin Puts's award-winning Silent Night.

Brandon Cedel

Chest and Cedel will be joined by Cecelia Hall as Cherubino, Patrick Carfizzi as Dr. Bartolo, Lucy Schaufer as Marcellina, Jason Ferrante as Don Basilio, Ashly Milanese as Barbarina, Ying Fang as Susanna and Thomas Shivone as Antonio. Tickets are available online.

Chest will represent the United States at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in June 2017.

American barihunk Edward Nelson to make European debut

Edward Nelson and Ingeborg Gillebo

American barihunk Edward Nelson will make his European debut at the Norwegian National Opera on April 7th in the title role of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande.

Pelléas et Mélisande was the composer’s only opera and is based on the Nobel Prize winner Maurice Maeterlinck’s play of the same name. The story is about lost love and forbidden relationships.

Remarkably, this will be the first time that the opera has ever been performed at the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet. The new production will be directed by Australian Simon Stone, who takes the audience into a closed, tightly-controlled world of dark family secrets, deep chasms, and light, young love.

There are six performances, which run until April. 30th. Ingeborg Gillebo will sing Mélisande every night except opening night, when the role will be sung by Susanna Hurrell. Paul Gay will sing Golaud. Tickets are available online.

Nelson, who just finished his two-year stint at the prestigious Adler Fellow Program under the auspices of the San Francisco Opera, will perform the title role of Hamlet with West Edge Opera in Ambroise Thomas' opera from August 5-19. Fellow barihunk Kenneth Kellogg will appear as the ghost.

John Brancy live stream of WWI centennial commemoration

John Brancy and Peter Dugan

On April 6th, barihunk John Brancy and accompanist Peter Dugan will perform selections from their upcoming album at In Sacrifice For Liberty and Peace at the centennial commemoration of the U.S. entry into World War I.

The event is hosted by the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City and will be live streamed on C-SPAN on Thursday, April 6th at 10 AM EST/7 AM PST. The Defense Media Agency will also broadcast the ceremony live to the U.S armed forces and Defense Department Schools internationally.

Brancy will also perform the National Anthem with French and US Aircraft flying overhead. The event also features Kevin Costner, R&B recording artists Billy Cliff and Lisa Fischer and Kansas City Lyric Opera artist Samantha Gossard.

You can click HERE to watch the event live. 

Jacques Imbrailo to sing at gala for soprano's dying husband

Stefano Guidi, Anna Leese and Jacques Imbrailo

South African barihunk Jacques Imbrailo will perform at a gala for Stefano Guidi, the partner of New Zealand soprano Anna Leese. Guidi was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, an aggressive form of motor neurone disease, and given two years to live. He found out about his diagnoisis last April, just days after the birth of their son Matteo.

The 42-year-old Guidi is an Italian wine-maker recently moved to New Zealand to create a new life and build a family with Anna Leese.

Spanish tenor José Carreras and English baritone Sir Thomas Allen are leading the appeal to raise funds for the family, which aims to raise £25,000.

Bass Sion Goronwy, baritones Phillip Rhodes and Philip Smith will also perform, along with Sophie Bevan, Sarah Castle, Alisdair Hogarth, Madeleine Pierard, David Butt Philip and Wendy Dawn Thompson.

You can buy tickets or make a donation online.

Imbrailo will be singing Horatio in Brett Dean's new version of Hamlet this summer at Glyndebourne. from June 11-July 6 with Allan Clayton as Hamlet and barihunk Rod Gilfry as Claudius. Tickets are available online.

Malte Roesner to make North American debut in Vicente Martín y Soler's The Chastity Tree

Malte Roesner photographed in Montreuil-Bellay, France

Barihunk Malte Roesner will make his North American debut in Soler's The Chastity Tree with West Edge Opera from August 6-19.

Despite being born in New York City, Roesner was raised in Germany and has focused his career in Europe. During his decade as a fest singer at the Staatstheater Braunschweig he portrayed more than fifty roles in the baritone repertory. He took some time off to retrain as a basso cantante and auditioned in the United States last year, eventually landing one of the few principle roles for a bass, Doristo in The Chastity Tree. (We've been told that two other U.S. announcements are forthcoming).

The two-time winner of the Richard-Wagner-Foundation scholarship will be joined by an all-star cast led by sopranos Christine Brandes as Cupid and Nikki Einfeld as Diana. The gifted accompanist Robert Mollicone will conduct.

This is Spanish composer Vicente Martín y Soler's most famous work and is also known by its original title L'arbore di Diana. In the last decade, the opera has been performed in Valencia, Barcelona, Madrid, Montpelier (France) and Minneapolis. Barihunks Marco Vinco and Giorgio Caoduro have both sung the role of Doristo.

The piece is of the three operas that he composed during Soler's sojourn at the court in Vienna, with the libretto by Italian Lorenzo Da Ponte, who was also author of three librettos for the Austrian composer Mozart. Da Ponte created a story from a legend that tells the tale of how Diana, the Greek god of chastity, falls in love with the shepherd Endymion. The plot —halfway between pastoral literature and erotic comedy also praises the political openness of the Archduke Joseph II of Austria.

The work was enthusiastically received with 70 performances in the three years after its premiere.

West Edge Opera's summer festival will also include Thomas' Hamlet with barihunk Eddie Nelson and Libby Larsen's Frankenstein with barihunk Josh Quinn. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Watch barihunk Marko Mimica in Lucrezia Borgia

Marko Mimica in Valencia's Lucrezia Borgia

You can watch barihunk Marko Mimica with soprano Mariella Devia in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia from the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia, Spain online until September 30 2017. Live performances run through April 8th.

Premiered in 1833 at La Scala, Lucrezia Borgia appealed powerfully to Romantic sensibilities for its dark subject matter and somber tone. The masterpiece was fully recognized as one of Donizetti’s finest scores only after the Paris premiere in 1840, which itself sparked some controversy as writer Victor Hugo successfully sued for plagiarism against the French translation of Romani’s libretto that was based on his tragedy.
 

Marko Mimica in Valencia's Lucrezia Borgia

Lucrezia Borgia is a true example of an ensemble opera: it has ten significant roles. The cast also includes William Davenport as Gennaro, Silvia Tro Santafé as Maffio Orsini, Fabián Lara as Liverotto, Andrés Sulbarán as Vitellozzo, Alejandro López as Gazella, Moisés Marín as Rustighello, Andrea Pellegrini as Gubetta Michael Borth as Astolfo and Simone Alberti as Petrucci.

Mimica can next be seen as Oroveso in Bellini's Norma in Verona from April 23-30.