Barihunk duo in Zürich Pelleas et Melisande

Kyle Ketelsen, Corinne Winters and Jacques Imbrailo

Barihunks Jacques Imbrailo and Kyle Ketelsen are starring in the Zürich Opera's production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, which Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov has set in a contemporary living room and dining room. This marks Imbrailo's debut with the company.

Corinne Winters and Kyle Ketelsen

Tcherniakov opts to view Debussy's symbolic opera through the lens of Freudian analysis. Ketelsen's Golaud is portrayed as a psychoanalyst who has brought his patient, Mélisande, home for more intensive analysis after finding her weeping in the forest. This production makes Golaud very much the center of focus in the opera. Golaud never learns the reason for Mélisande’s melancholy, nor where she comes from, but she exerts a great fascination over him and he videotapes her therapy.

 

For those not familiar with the piece, the opera is tragic love triangle involving two noble half-brothers, Golaud and Pelléas, and the enigmatic Mélisande, who comes into their lives unexpectedly after a tremendous and undisclosed personal calamity. She marries Golaud, but he is soon convinced of her illicit union with his brother, and his jealous rage ends in Pélleas’ murder.  Mélisande dies after giving birth to a child.

Tickets and additional cast information is available online. 

Andrew Garland Returns to NY Festival of Song

Andrew Garland

We're unabashedly huge fans of Steven Blier's "New York Festival of Song" which is a guaranteed evening of great music and intellectual enlightenment. After his hugely successful "Manning the Gay Canon," Blier had turned his attention to women with a program aptly titled "Women."

The program features songs from John Musto, Ned Rorem, Benjamin Britten, Arnold Schoenberg, Thea Musgrave, Judy Collins and new works from Mark Adamo, Mohammed Fairouz, and Harold Meltzer. The songs explore the lives of women in their own words, as well as through the eyes of men.

Barihunk Andrew Garland will return to the Festival of Song and will be joined by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and soprano Corinne Winters. Garland will perform Carla Kihlstedt's  new piece "A Woman’s Body," which was inspired by Susan Sontag’s matter-­‐of-­‐fact list of observations about her own body. Kihlstedt asked some favorite women for their own lists, which make up the lyrics to the piece.

The performance will be at Merkin Concert Hall on December 4th at 8 PM. Tickets are available online.

After the Festival, Garland will perform Handel's Messiah with the Boston Baroque on December 7 and 8, and then with the Colorado Bach Ensemble on December 21 and 22.

Buy your 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar before the holiday rush:

John Brancy Back from Germany; Appearing at Poquatuck Hall in N.Y.

John Brancy

American barihunk John Brancy just wrapped up a six week intensive training program at the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt run by soprano Edith Wiens. The program offers emerging artists an opportunity to work with leading coaches and singers in developing their skills in opera, oratorio and Lied/Mélodie. European agents, promoters, opera directors and festival managers are invited to give seminars and to take part in roundtable discussions with the young artists, providing the networking and professional contacts important to the profession.

Brancy has appeared twice on this site, once upon his graduation from Julliard and more recently for a feature on the upcoming New York Festival of Song. We're big fans of this emerging talent and are eager to follow his career, which undoubtedly will be successful.

Brancy can next be seen on August 27th at Poquatuck Hall in Orient, New York with Steven Blier accompanying him in a program of classical art songs, duets, arias and American popular song. They will be joined by soprano Corinne Winters, mezzo-soprano Kara Sainz and Perlman Music Program Fellow Peter Dugan. Contact Jane Smith for reservations: 631-323-1378 or jansmith@optonline.net.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Tweet