Bevy of barihunk in AVA's Don Giovanni

André Courville, Anthony Whitson-Martini and Jared Bybee

Not to be outdone by the barihunk sextet rotating in casts in Don Giovanni at the Hampstead Garden Opera in the U.K, we were notified that the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia is also showcasing a bevy of barihunks in their production of the same opera.

André Courville will be singing Leporello (and rotating it with Nathan Milholin), Anthony Whitson-Martini will be singing Masetto (and rotating it with Jorge Espino) and Jared Bybee will be singing the title role (and sharing it with Daniel  Noyola and Ethan Simpson). To top things off Anthony Schneider will be singing the Commendatore. November 7, 10 and 12 in Philadelphia, November 14 in Bethlehem (PA), November 17 & 19 in Haverford and November 21 in Doylestown.

Nathan Milholin, Ethan Simpson and Anthony Schneider

AVA first presented Don Giovanni in 1986-87 with additional performances in 2000, 2005 and 2011, which featured many alumni who went on to international careers, including Nicholas Masters, Burak Bilgili, Latonia Moore, Michael Fabiano, Bryan Hymel, Ellie Dehn, Taylor Stayton and Othalie Graham.

Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

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Baritones (secret) winners at Gerda Lissner Competition

Sean Michael Plumb, Josh Quinn, Anthony Schneider and Erik Larson.

What if you held a song competition and no one knew about it? That seems to be the case with this year's Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition. They held a competition last week and haven't posted the results, nor sent out a press release. We have an inquiry pending with them to find out the results and will update this post, as over $200,000 in prizes were handed out for lied, opera and a special Wagner division.

Fortunately, thanks to social media we've learned that barihunk Sean Michael Plumb won one of the top prizes, Josh Quinn took Third Prize and Anthony Schneider and Erik Larson both won Encouragement Awards.

Last year baritones won a number of prizes, including Reginald Smith Jr. who won the Gerda Lissner Foundation Top Prize and first prize honorees Michael Adams, Jared Bybee, Patrick Guetti, Sol Jin and John Viscardi.

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AVA's Bohemian Barihunks shine at Met Auditions

Nathan Milholin, Anthony Schneider, Jared Bybee and Michael Adams (L-R)

The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia is kicking off a twelve day run of Puccini's La bohème featuring four barihunks who all recently shined in the Metropolitan Opera Auditions.

On February 2nd, we ran a feature on Michael Adams winning the New Orleans District regionals. He'll be singing Schaunard on opening night, Thursday, February 7th.

His Colline will be Nathan Milholin, who was regional finalist at the Philadelphia District auditions. He's sharing the role with Anthony Schneider, who also was a finalist at the Philadelphia District auditions.

We certainly can't forget about Marcello, who will be sung on opening night by Jared Bybee, another winner at the Philadelphia District auditions.

Adams and Bybee have both been featured on this site before, but Milholin and Schneider are new to our readers. Milholin, who hails from Greensboro, North Carolina, is a first-year resident artist at AVA. Bass Anthony Schneider, grew up in Auckland, New Zealand and Vienna, Austria, and is a second-year artist at AVA.

Tickets for all performances are available online.