Michael Weyandt to sing world premiere of "Barihunk Song"

Composer Clint Borzoni (left) and Barihunk Michael Weyandt (right)

The inevitable has occurred with the barihunk craze in opera, as a song dedicated to the phenomenon will receive its world premiere at the National Opera Center in New York City on March 28th.

The song will be part of concert called "Love Affairs," which explores love of self, love of money, lust, and dealing with lost loves. Also featured on the program is soprano Caroline Worra and pianists Jennifer Peterson and Lloyd Arriola.

In addition to the Barihunk Song, the program features the world premiere of Philip Wharton's song cycle "Blooms Remembered," composed to words by Carl Sandburg.

Love Affairs will be performed one night only at 7:30 PM on Saturday, March 28the in the Recital Hall at The National Opera Center, 330 Seventh Avenue, NYC. Tickets are available online at PurplePass. The $20 tickets also includes a reception following the concert.

You can hear Michael Weyandt sing Bolcom's Song of Black Max by clicking HERE.

Clint Borzoni is an award winning composer, and alumnus of programs from American Opera Projects, the American Lyric Theater, and was recently chosen as one of the composers for Fort Worth Opera's Frontiers 2015 Showcase.

Philip Wharton has worked with Santa Fe Opera's apprentice program. Grammy-nominated Borealis Wind Quintet frequently performs his quintet. Recently Albany Records released a recording of his flute sonata.

There is another version of the Barihunk Song set to music by Glen Roven that is expected to be premiered later this year on the West Coast.

Sexy pictures of barihunk Christopher Burchett in "Buried Alive"

Christopher Burchett (prone) with Jennifer Feinstein, Jonathan Blalock and Caroline Worra

One of our few regrets in putting together the Barihunks calendar is that we occasionally run out of room to include each and every singer. Such was the case with barihunk Christopher Burchett, but fortunately we have a bunch of pictures from his appearance in composer Jeff Myers and librettist Quincy Long's Buried Alive, which opens today and will be performed again on March 30th at the Fargo Moorhead Opera.

Christopher Burchett in Buried Alive

Buried Alive was written specifically for Burchett, and he has been with the project since the first workshops with the American Lyric Theater in 2010. The opera is part of a partnership between the Fargo Moorhead Opera and American Lyric Theater for the Poe Project Double Bill, which will be the first operatic world premieres in Fargo.

American Lyric Theater asked composer/librettist teams to create contemporary opera thrillers inspired by the fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. The operas are not simply adaptations of Poe stories. The composer/librettist teams were asked, “What might Poe write if he were alive today?”

Christopher Burchett in Buried Alive

Buried Alive draws on themes of anxiety and mortality from Poe’s story “The Premature Burial,” as a painter’s nightmares of death start to become real. The opera is directed by Lawrence Edelson, the producing artistic director of the American Lyric Theater.

The second opera is composer Patrick Soluri and librettist Deborah Brevoort's Embedded. The opera is wittily inspired by Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” as a TV news anchor finds herself on the other side of the headlines. The opera is directed by Sam Helfrich, whose recent work includes productions for Glimmerglass Festival, Virginia Opera, and the Spoleto Festival/USA

Christopher Burchett in Buried Alive

In addition to Burchett, the operas feature a cast of five more of the country’s leading singers, who take on different roles in each opera: soprano Caroline Worra, soprano Sara Gartland, mezzo soprano Jennifer Feinstein, tenor Jonathan Blalock and bass Nathan Stark.

For tickets or additional information, visit the Fargo Moorhead Opera website.