Isabel Leonard and Christopher Maltman in Marnie (Image courtesy of The Met)
British barihunk Christopher Maltman will star alongside mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard in Nico Muhly and Nicholas Wright’s “Marnie” on PBS’s Great Performances son Friday, February 1, 2019. Check HERE to see what stations are broadcasting near you.
Nico Muhly’s opera, based on the 1961 Winston Graham thriller that inspired the iconic Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. The opera also features Mark Rutland. Janis Kelly, Denyce Graves, and Iestyn Davies, with Robert Spano conducting.
Michael Mayer’s production, which had its U.S. debut at the Met in fall 2018, takes place in England, where the alluring Marnie pursues a life of crime and dishonesty by assuming new identities after stealing from her employers. After pulling off another heist and adapting a new look successfully, she moves on to a new job at Halcyon Printing where her new boss is widower Mark Rutland. Marnie makes an attempt to steal from the company’s safe but is caught red-handed by Mark, who blackmails her into marrying him by threatening to turn her in to the police. Now forced into a loveless marriage, Marnie must face the traumas of her childhood and past indiscretions to free herself from a vicious cycle of deception.
British barihunk Christopher Maltman will sing excerpts from Nico Muhly's opera Marnie at the Guggenheim Museum as part of the Works & Process series, presented jointly with The Metropolitan Opera. He'll be joined by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard and director Michael Mayer on Monday, October 1, 2018 at 7:30pm.
With
a libretto by Nicholas Wright, Marnie is based on the novel by Winston
Graham and it examines the cost of freedom, the limitations of
forgiveness and the impossibility of escaping the past. Set in 1950s
London, the psychological thriller tells the story of a woman who has
gone through life embezzling her employers, changing her identity, being
forced into a loveless marriage by Okulitch's character, and eventually
being forced to confront her past.
Leonard and Maltman will sing excerpts from the opera and join in a discussion about the opera. Tickets are available online.
Marnie opens at The Met on October 19 and runs through November 10. Also in the cast is Denyce Graves, Iestyn Davies and Janis Kelly. Tickets are available online.
Christopher Maltman as Don Alfonso(Marty Sohl/The Metropolitan Opera)
Christopher Maltman will be featured in the upcoming broadcast of Mozart's Così fan tutte from the Metropolitan Opera as part of its Great Performances Series on Sunday, July 29, 2018. The broadcast begins at 12 PM EDT/9 AM PST.
The Met version of Mozart’s comedy about the sexes is set in a carnival-esque, funhouse environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island—complete with bearded ladies, fire eaters, and a Ferris wheel. Maltman stars as Don Alfonso, while Broadway star Kelli O’Hara takes on the role of the scheming maid Despina in a rare appearance on an operatic stage.
Upcoming broadcast's include Verdi's Luisa Miller and Massenet's Cendrillon with Joyce DiDonato.
Christopher Maltman and a scene from Arabella in Vienna
Christopher Maltman is currently performing the role of Mandryka in Richard Strauss' Arabella, which will be live-streamed worldwide. The performance from the Wiener Staatsoper begins at 7 PM (2 PM EST/11 AM PST). He'll be joined in the cast by Kurt Rydl as Graf Waldner, Anna Gabler as Arabella, Chen Reiss as Zdenka and Benjamin Bruns as Matteo.
Arabella was the sixth and final collaboration between Strauss and his famous librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written during the collapse of the Weimar Republic and given its premiere in Dresden in the first months of the Third Reich. The story revolves around Arabella, a poor little rich girl, looking for the ideal man in Vienna during the declining years of the Austro-Hungarian empire. That man turns out to be Mandryka, but along the way one meets some pretty horrendous family members.
Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson in the finale to Arabella:
Tickets to view the performance can be purchased on the Wiener Staatsoper website. After this production, the company will live stream Mozart's Die
Zauberflöte, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and a full cycle of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Maltman has been on a whirlwind of late, making three role debuts in 46 days, which included thirteen performances in 3 cities, and sung in three different languages. It started on October 30th with Donizeti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Royal Opera House in London, and then Frankfurt in November for Verdi's Les Vêpres Sicilienne and finally Arabella in Vienna.
Jason Duika in 2018 Barihunks Photo Book
ONLY 16 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think.
The Los Angeles Opera's critically-acclaimed recording of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles walked away with both GRAMMY® Awards that it was nominated for: "Best Opera Recording" and "Best Engineered Recording, Classical."
The cast includes two barihunks, led by Christopher Maltman’s Beaumarchais and Lucas Meachem as Figaro. The cast also includes Patricia Racette as Marie Antoinette, Renée Rapier, Guanqun Yu, Joshua Guerrero, Lucy Schaufer and conductor James Conlon and the LA Opera Chorus & Orchestra.
Also winning was classical music producer David Frost, whose many recording included Ildar Abdrazakov's recording of Shostakovich's Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
The odds are pretty good that a barihunk will be placing a Grammy award on his shelf, since every recording that was nominated features at least one. The Grammy® Awards will be held on February 12, 2017 at 8:00 PM PST.
The nominees are:
John Corigliano: The Ghosts Of Versaillesfrom the Los Angeles Opera conducted by James Conlon, featuring barihunks Christopher Maltman and Lucas Meachem along with Patricia Racette, Lucy Schaufer and Guanqun Yu.
George Freidrich Handel: Giulio Cesare with Il Giardino Armonico under the baton of Giovanni Antonini, featuring bass Ruben Drole, Cecilia Bartoli, Philippe Jaroussky, Andreas Scholl and Anne-Sofie von Otter.
Jennifer Higdon: Cold Mountain from the Santa Fe Opera under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya with barihunks Nathan Gunn and Kevin Burdette, joined by Isabel Leonard, Jay Hunter Morris and the Santa Fe Opera apprentice artists.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro performed by the Chamber Orchestra Of Europe and conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, featuring barihunks Thomas Hampson and Luca Pisaroni, joined by Christiane Karg and Sonya Yoncheva.
Karol Szymanowski: Król Roger at the Royal Opera House conducted by Antonio Pappano, featuring barihunk Mariusz Kwiecień, Saimir Pirgu and Georgia Jarman.
ENJOY BARIHUNK YEAR AROUND WITH OUR 2017 BARIHUNKS IN BED CALENDAR. ORDER TODAY AT LULU.
The Dutch National Opera will be presenting the somewhat controversial and provocative production of Mozart's Don Giovanni that was created for the 2008 Salzburger Festspiele. That production featured the barihunk trio of Christopher Maltman as Don Giovanni, Erwin Schrott as Leporello and Alex Esposito as Masetto. Maltman and Schrott returned to Salzburg for two revivals with Adam Plachetka and Stefan Kocan as Masetto.
Stefan Kocanas Masetto in 2010.
The Dutch National Opera has brought Christopher Maltman back in the title role, with Adrian Sâmpetrean as Leporello, Iurii Samoilov as Masetto and Mika Kares as the Commendatore. This production will no doubt be a veritable feast for barihunk lovers. The modern-dress production features a dying and sympathetic Don Giovanni and a lovable, drug addicted Leporello, whose physical attributes are freely shown off by the director.
In the opera's first scene, the Commendatore manages to shoot Don Giovanni in the abdomen before expiring. Don Giovanni spends much of the remainder for the evening trying not to die of his wound, first in desperation and eventually with wry resignation.
Christopher Maltman sings "Deh, vieni alla finestra" in Salzburg's Don Giovanni:
Erwin Schrott sings Leporello's catalog aria in Salzburg's Don Giovanni:
We've not featured the Finnish bass Mika Kares before, who was an ensemble member at the Baden State Opera from 2005-2010. Active off the stage, as well, he founded a children’s songwriting competition, serves as the Artistic Director of a Rauma Chamber Music Festival and the Eurajoki Bel Canto Festival. He also runs his own blog.
Christopher Maltman is returning to the Dutch National Opera where he had a successful and highly-acclaimed run as Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlo in 2012. He'll be singing Don Giovanni again in the Fall at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. In between Dons, he'll be at Covent Garden as the Count di Luna in Verdi's Il Trovatore. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera later this year in both Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Puccini's Manon Lescaut.
Iurii Samoilov, who appears in this year's Barihunk calendar, returns to his home base at the Oper Frankfurt, where he'll appear in Berg's Wozzeck and Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Adrian Sâmpetrean can next be seen at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden as Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore. He makes his U.S. stage debut in October as Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Performances of Don Giovanni run from May 7-28 and tickets and additional cast information is available online.
British barihunk Christopher Maltman, who performed the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in Vienna last Fall, unexpectedly returned to the company last night. He replaced fellow barihunk Alessio Arduini in the title role of Rossini's Barber of Seville after the young Italian withdrew from the final two performances. Maltman will perform again on Friday, January 8th. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.
Maltman next heads to the Teatro Real in Madrid where he'll rotate the role of Friedrich in Wagner's Das Liebesverbot with James Rutherford. Performances run from February 19-March 15. In the Spring, he returns to the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Dutch National Opera alongside fellow barihunk Fernando Radó as Masetto.
Christopher Maltman in The Met's Barber of Seville:
Arduini is expected to return to the Vienna State Opera to perform Marcello in Franco Zeferelli's production of Puccini's La bohème on March 19, 22 and 26, as well as Figaro opposite Luca Pisaroni's Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro on June 22, 25 and 28.
We recently posted about the two runs of the Whitsun Festival at Salzburg's highly successful production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. The opening night performance on May 22 already has opera aficionados across the globe talking about the production, which included an all-star cast led by Christopher Maltman as Oreste, Cecilia Bartoli as Iphigénie, Michael Kraus as Thoas andTopi Lehtipu sings Pylade.
Iphigénie en Tauride
Beyond the great singing, much of the buzz has centered around an extremely fit Christopher Maltman's nude scene, which proves that a man can be as sexy at 45 than at 25. Maltman is no stranger to nudity, having bared all in the movie Juan, as well in the 2010 Salzburg production on Don Giovanni.
The Festival has already announced additional performances from August
19-28 to supplement the one remaining show on May 25. Fair warning if
you plan on attending, order your seats now because tickets are scarce.
Visit the Salzburg Festival website for additional information.
Christopher Maltman in Iphigénie en Tauride
With Iphigénie en Tauride, Gluck took the final step in his
mission of operatic reform, radically distancing himself from both the
formulaic opera seria, with its rigid sequence of numbers, and
traditional French opera, creating a psychologically sound musical drama
with self-contained scenes and integrated arias.
Christopher Maltman and Topi Lehtipu in Iphigénie en Tauride
Gluck had long since given the chorus an active role, and in this work,
the ballet scenes that were obligatory in Paris are no longer harmless,
non-committal amusements, but organically integrated in the action.
Gluck stated that opera “...should speak the language of the heart,
credibly portray great human passions, and serve poetry.”
Christopher Maltman inthe movie Juan and Don Giovanni in Salzburg
You can next catch Maltman at the Royal Opera in London as the title character in Don Giovanni with fellow barihunks Alex Esposito as Leporello and Nahuel Di Pierro as Masetto. He'll also be reunited with his fellow cast member from Iphigénie, Rolando Villazón, who is singing Don Ottavio.
Photos from the osterfestspiele, Monika Rittershaus and Salzburg
There will be two opportunities to see the highly successful production of Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at the 2015 Whitsun Festival at Salzburg, which still has two performances remaining on May 22 and 25. If you can't make the current run, it will be revived from August 19-28 and opening night is already sold out.
The opera features barihunk Christopher Maltman as Oreste in the best shape of his life (which is saying something!). He'll be joined in the cast by Cecilia Bartoli as Iphigénie, Michael Kraus as Thoas and Rolando Villazón as Pylade.
With Iphigénie en Tauride, Gluck took the final step in his mission of operatic reform, radically distancing himself from both the formulaic opera seria, with its rigid sequence of numbers, and traditional French opera, creating a psychologically sound musical drama with self-contained scenes and integrated arias.
Gluck had long since given the chorus an active role, and in this work, the ballet scenes that were obligatory in Paris are no longer harmless, non-committal amusements, but organically integrated in the action. Gluck stated that opera “...should speak the language of the heart, credibly portray great human passions, and serve poetry.”
Visit the Salzburg Festival website for additional information.
Italian barihunk and calendar model Gianluca Margheri finally has a website, where you can follow his career. It's loaded with great pictures and video. The first that caught our eye is that he'll be taking on Don Giovanni at the Hungarian State Opera from March 20-26. It's a traditional performance of the opera, so expect another shirtless, sexy, testosterone fueled performance like the one from Zomeropera last year.
You can enjoy some excerpts from that performance below or on his YouTube site.
Next up is Rossini's Stabat Mater at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino on May 14th. He'll be joined by tenor Edgardo Rocha and mezzo-soprano Marina Comparato.
We're still baffled why no-one in the United States has engaged this amazing talent. Make sure to check out his website and follow him on Twitter @GianlucaMargher.
Christopher Maltman and Fernando Radó as Don Giovanni
If you can't catch Margheri there are plenty of other barihunk performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Christopher Maltman will take on the role Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City from March 17-29. Opéra de Monte-Carlo will feature Erwin Schrott as the Don and Fernando Javier Radó as Masetto with the amazing Sonya Yoncheva as Donna Elvira. The Metropolitan Opera has two remaining performances left with Peter Mattei, Luca Pisaroni and Adam Plachetka as the male leads.
Christopher Maltman and Lawrence Brownlee in San Diego's Barber of Seville
A revival of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia will open at the Metropolitan Opera on November 18th featuring barihunk Christopher Maltman in his first Met performances of Figaro. He'll be joined in the all-star cast with Lawrence Brownlee as Count Almaviva, Isabel Leonard as Rosina, Maurizio Muraro as Dr. Bartolo and Paata Burchuladze as Don Basilio.
The November 22 matinee performance will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 2,000 movie theaters in 69 countries around the world. The Barihunks team will be at the November 26th performance!
On January 10th, Maltman goes to the Bavarian State Opera to perform the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni alongside the Leporello of Alex Esposito. On February 7th, he returns to the opposite coast in the U.S. to sing Beaumarchais in Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles at the Los Angeles Opera. The cast includes Broadway icon Patti LuPone, Patricia Racette and fellow barihunk Lucas Meachem.
Make sure to purchase your 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar by clicking the LULU button below. Also, vote in our sidebar for the sexiest photo.
Barihunk Christopher Maltman will be making his Ravinia operatic debut in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The performance will be at the Martin Theatre with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of James Conlon. Performances will be on Thursday, August 14 and Saturday, August 16.
The cast includes Tamara Wilson as Donna Anna, David Bižic as Leporello, Kristinn Sigmundsson as the Commendatore, Saimir Pirgu as Don Ottavio, Aga Mikolaj as Donna Elvira, Ailyn Pérez as Zerlina and Yohan Yi as Masetto.
Visit the Ravinia website for more information or to purchase tickets.
Next up for Maltman will be a somewhat surprising foray into the music of Richard Wagner, as he takes on Wotan in Das Rheingold in Seoul, Korea. The performance will be the kickoff of conductor Myung-Whun Chung and the Seoul Philharmonic's concert version of the Ring of the Nibelungen. The performance is on September 26 and includes fellow barihunk Alexander Tsymbalyuk as Fafner, as well as Michelle DeYoung as Fricka, Catherine Wyn-Rogers as Erda, Malin Christensson as Woglinde & Freia, and Yuri Vorobiev as Fasolt.
We posted about the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Mozart -Da Ponte Trilogy with a barihunk in Le nozze di Figaro trio back May. The main eye candy in that production, which also included Christopher Maltman and Brandon Cedel, was an oft-shirtless Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Figaro.
The production set was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean
Nouvel, with costumes by couturier Azzedine Alaïa. On alternating nights
you barihunk connoisseurs feasted their eyes on a Don Giovanni cast that included barihunks Mariusz Kwiecien and Ryan Kuster.
(Click to enlarge)
We posted a semi-shirtless of picture of Crossley-Mercer back in May, but we now have additional photos from the production. We can see why we received a generous amount of emails begging us to find some photos.
If you want to catch Crossley-Mercey live, on August 10th, he'll be
performing a song recital with accompanist Fernando Pérez at the Sala
Verdi in
Montevideo, Uruguay. From October 13-21 he reprises his huge success
as Pollux in Rameau's Castor et Pollux at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris. Tickets and additional cast information are available online.
Edwin Crossley Mercer sings Brahms' "Wie soll ich die Freude"
Also, don't forget about his upcoming release of Michael Linton's 17-movement song cycle Carmina Catulli, which we posted about last week.
Paulo Szot, Christopher Maltmann & Patrick Carfizzi (L-R)Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN
Two of the most prominent and beloved barihunks in the world will appear onstage together when the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus opens on New Year's Eve. Paulo Szot wil perform the role of Dr. Falke and Christopher Maltmann will be Eisenstein.
The cast also features an amazing blend of talent from the worlds of opera and Broadway. Opera is represented by sopranos Jane Archibald as Adele, Susanna Phillips as Rosalinde, Paulo Szot, Anthony Roth Costanzo as Prince Orlofsky, Michael Fabiano as Alfred and Patrick Carfizzi as Frank. Broadway is represented by Danny Burstein (South Pacific, Golden Boy) as Frosch and Betsy Wolfe (The Last Five Years) as Ida. According to the Met site, "the action is moved to turn-of-the-century Vienna, an elegant, opulent setting
with echoes of Gustav Klimt’s glittering paintings and of Sigmund
Freud’s newly fashionable ideas."
Paul Armin Edelmann sings "Brüderlein und Schwesterlein"
Die Fledermaus features a new book by Tony Award nominee Douglas Carter Beane (The Nance, Cinderella) with staging by Tony Award nominee Jeremy Sams (Amour, Noises Off).
The sold out December 31st performance will be broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74. Tickets for the remaining performances are available online.
Luca Pisaroni appeared on BBC's "In Tune" to talk about his Covent Garden debut as Figaro in David McVicar's "Marriage of Figaro." You can listen to the interview and hear him sing Schubert's "An die Musik" on BBC Radio 3 until September 19th.
Performances of the opera will run from September 16-October 7 and include fellow barihunk Christopher Maltman as the Count. The opera will be conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. The opera will be revived in May 2014 with barihunk Alex Esposito as Figaro and the sensational Gerald Finley as the Count. Tickets for all performacnces are available online.
Pisaroni actually made his opera debut
in 2001 as Figaro in Klagenfurt, Austria after completing his studies at the Verdi Conservatory
in Milan, and later in Buenos Aires and New York. He'll be reprising the role again at the Wiener Staatsoper in January 2014 opposite the Count of fellow barihunk Simon Keenlyside.
San Francisco's restored Nourse Theater, site of April 1, 2014 Luca Pisaroni recital
His fans in the United States will have to wait until 2014 to hear him live. He'll be performing recitals on opposite coasts, beginning in Washington D.C. on January 31 with the Vocal Arts DC series and then at the beautifully restored Nourse Theater in San Francisco on April 1. In between those recital, he will return to the Met as Caliban in The Enchanted Island from February 26-March 20.
Malin Christensson and Edwin Crossley-Mercer in Los Angeles (Lawrence K. Ho, Los Angeles Times)
We posted about the Los Angeles Philharmonic's Mozart -Da Ponte Trilogy awhile back. If you missed getting tickets for Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, you missed some serious eye-candy, with three barihunks who have been on this site. Leading the way was the sexy Figaro of Edwin Crossley-Mercer.
The LA Times wrote, "Baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer was a distant, angry, virile yet, as Alaïa dressed him, metrosexual Figaro." After seeing the pictures, we would have added "smoking hot" to the list of superlatives. Also in the cast is Christopher Maltman as the Count. The LA Times wrote, "Maltman [wore] tight whites that only a powerful man could get away with, but Maltman is a magnetic baritone scarily uncowed. When outwitted, he still holds all the power, and he sang that way." In the small role of Antonio is Barihunk calendar model Brandon Cedel.
Dorothea Röschmann and Christopher Maltman(Genaro Molina)
There are still two performances remaining on May 23 and May 25. Conducting wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel is leading the orchestra. Visit their website for tickets.
If you want to catch Crossley-Mercer in the United States, you may want to catch one of these performances. When he wraps up on May 25th, he heads back to Europe for a series of concerts and operas in France and Germany. He kicks of on June 9th at the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch Partenkirchen before heading to the Théâtre des Champs Élysées on June 20th for Fauré's Pénélope. There are no other U.S. performances listed on his schedule.
If you want to catch Brandon Cedel, he'll be appearing at the Wolf Trap Opera beginning on June 21st in Rossini's Il Viaggio a Reims. That production also includes barihunks Aaron Sorensen, Norman Garrett and Steven LaBrie. Additional information is available online.
We're unabashedly huge fans of Italian barihunk Alex Esposito, especially when singing Mozart. His calendar is full of Mozart again this year with his definitive Leporello in Don Giovanni up next at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Also in the cast is Seth Carico, one of our favorite American singers, who will be taking on Masetto. Performances are on January 17, 19, 24 and 30 and tickets are available online.
Other upcoming performances as Leporello include one at the Théâtre du capitole in Toulouse (with barihunks Christopher Maltman and Kostas Smoriginas alternating as Don Giovanni) opening on March 15. On May 3rd he'll reprise his Leporello at the Bayersche Staatsoper in Munich with Gerald Finley as Don Giovanni and Tareq Nazmi as Masetto.
Seth Carico from our 2012 Barihunks calendar
Carico, who is now part of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper, can be seen this year as Biterolf in Wagner's Tannhäuser, theSacristan in Puccini's Tosca, Count Ribbing in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Panthée in Berlioz' Les Troyens, Count Ceprano in Verdi's Rigoletto, Astolfo in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia andScriften in Dietsch's Das Geisterschiff.
Alex Esposito sings the catalogue aria from Don Giovanni:
Esposito will also be making his Rosenblatt Recitals debut at Wigmore Hall in London on February 5th. His program will include Leporello's catalogue aria, as well as "Vieni la mia vendetta" from Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, "Vi ravviso, o luoghi ameni"from Bellini's La Sonnambula, "Cade dal ciglio il velo" from Rossini's Mosè in Egitto. He will also sing songs by Beethoven, Cesti, Carissimi and Tosti. Tickets are available on the Wigmore Hall website.
Christopher Maltman (L) and Nathan Gunn (R) in Rape of Lucretia
Censorship in opera is not a 20th century phenomenon, as masters like Giuseppe Verdi saw some of their greatest operas altered by the moralists and political watchdogs of the day. Verdi ran afoul of both the religious and political entities of his time, perhaps most famously in Un Ballo in Maschera, with the offense being the assassination of a king.
Rigoletto would never have been produced had Verdi not changed the prostitute-loving King Francis I of Victor Hugo’s Le roi s’amuse to the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto. Rather than the Duke being killed, Verdi ends up killing Gilda.
La Forza del Destino, Luisa Miller and La Traviata were all famously altered after the censors weighed in.
Michael Krzankowski in Seattle
It should come as no surprise that Benjamin Britten was also the victim of the censors. He not only dealt with issues like the injustices of war, but dealt with homosexuality and even pedophilia, topics that were taboo in England at the time. Don't forget that it wasn't much earlier that Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for "gross indecency" and for being a sodomite.
A new book on Benjamin Britten by Paul Kildea, a conductor
and expert on the composer, has now revealed that his opera "The Rape of Lucretia" was altered by the censors. The most notable line was the changing of the following lines:
Male Chorus: “He takes her
hand/And places it upon his unsheathed sword.”
Female Chorus: “Thus wounding her with an equal lust/A wound only his sword can
heal”.
These lines were changed to the far less poetic:
“Tarquinius – 'Poised
like a dart’/Lucretia – 'At the heart of woman’/Male Chorus – 'Man climbs
towards his God’/ Female Chorus: 'Then falls to his lonely hell’.”
Amazingly, Britten's "Peter Grimes," which deals with the mysterious disappearance of young boys at the hands of a sailor, made it past the censors. However, the censors did make this comment:
“It is all very
wafty and nebulous and I don’t pretend I can make sense of the plot from the
verses, but there is no offence in them or in the production. Perhaps
Benjamin Britten’s music will carry it through.”
You can read more at the the Telegraph. You can also check out our photo tribute to Rape of Lucretia, which has provided us with some of our favorite pictures over the years.
Don't forget that there are only eight days left to purchase your 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar:
Since its release in April 2011, we've been deluged with questions about Kasper Holten's movie "Juan" starring barihunk Christopher Maltman. It had an extremely limited release in U.S. theaters and had been slow to appear on DVD. We've mentioned sites like www.iwannawatch.net and others where you can watch the movie online. However, most require that you sign up, download certain software and many don't work on Macs.
We have some good news, in that a European release of the DVD and Blu-Ray disc has finally happened, but it's not cheap. We couldn't find a new copy for less the £39.99. Also, the discs won't play on U.S. DVD players, although you can configure most laptops to play them. But if you're in Europe, you're in luck. Hopefully, sales will be brisk enough to encourage a U.S. release.
If you can't wait for "Juan" you might be interested in Opera Australia's "Don Giovanni" with barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes. He shows a lot of skin, although not quite as much as the fully nude Maltman, but it's an extremely sexy portrayal of the rakish title character. You can order it by clicking on our Amazon link to the right (and we'll get a small commission!).
