OperaVision will broadcast Mozart's Don Giovanni live from La Monnaie on March 24th featuring the barihunk trio of Björn Bürger in the title role, Alessio Arduini as Leporello and Iurii Samoilov as Masetto. The rest of the cast includes Simona Saturová as Donna Anna, Sophia Burgos as Zerlina, Lenneke Ruiten as Donna Elvira, Juan Francisco Gatell as Don Ottavio, Alexander Roslavets as Il Commendatore.
The livestream starts at 7:30 p.m. Central European Standard Time (2:30 p.m. EST/11:30 a.m. PST). The broadcast will be available on OperaVision until September 21, 2020.
Live performances at La Monnaie are on March 12, 15, 24 and 28. The opera is part of their Da Ponte trilogy of Mozart operas, with Le nozze di Figaro and Cosìfan tutte running simultaneously. Tickets are available online. Iurii Samoilov sings Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and Björn Bürger and Alessio Arduini sing the Count and Figaro respectively in Le nozze di Figaro.
Barihunk Sebastian Geyer will sing the lead role of Don Pomponio in Rossini's rarely performed two-act comedy La gazzetta (“The Newspaper”). The performances at Opera Frankfurt will be the first ever of the opera with the company, which was written for Naples’s Teatro dei Fiorentini in 1816.
The opera ran for 21 performances, but was only performed one more time in the 19th century when it was performed during the 1828 Carnival in Palermo. The opera was not revived until a 1960 Italian radio performance and a subsequent staging in 1976 by the Vienna Chamber Opera.
However, the late 1810s were an incredible prolific period for Rossini, who wrote many of his most famous works between 1815-1819, including Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Otello, Mosè in Egitto, La Cenerentola, La donna del lago and La gazza ladra, now best remembered for its frequently performed overture. The overture from La gazetta was recycled and used for La Cenerentola.
Geyer will sing Don Pomponio, who places an ad in the newspaper for a husband for his flirtatious daughter Lisetta. The opera satirizes the influence of newspapers on people's lives.
Rossini wrote the role for the great Neapolitan buffo Carlo Casaccia, because he could sing in the Neapolitan dialect.
Opera Frankfurt's production will open on February 2nd with subsequent performances on February 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16. Tickets are available online.
Additional performances with the company this season include Faninal in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and one of the officers in Henze's The Prince of Homburg with fellow barihunk Iurii Samoilov singing the lead role.
Canadian bass-barihunk Robert Gleadow has become the Figaro of choice in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro for many of the world's leading opera houses. He'll be singing the role at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia from September 27-October 6. The cast will include Andrzej Filończyk as the Count, María José Moreno as the Countess, Sabina Puértolas as Susanna, Cecilia Molinari as Cherubino, Susana Cordón as Marcellina and Valeriano Lanchas as Bartolo. Tickets are available online.
He then takes the role to the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris from November 26-Decmeber 7 with fellow barihunk Stéphane Degout as the Count, the legendary Jennifer Larmore taking on Marcellina, Sabine Devieilhe as Susanna, Vannina Santoni as the Countess and Mathias Vidal as Basilio. Tickets are available online.
He then flies to the La monnaie in Belgium for more of Figaro from February 18-March 21 with fellow barihunk Björn Bürger as the Count, Simona Šaturová as the Countess, Alexander Roslavets as Basilio, Ginger Costa-Jackson as Cherubino and Rinat Shaham as Marcellina. The company is doing the entire "Mozart-Da Ponte" series this season, with Gleadow's Leporello making up a "barihunk trio" in Don Giovanni that includes Björn Bürger in the title role and Iurii Samoilov as Masetto. Samoilov also appears as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte.Tickets are available online.
Marie-Adeline Henry as Donna Elvira & Robert Gleadow as Leporello (Photo: Mats Bäcker)
In Bordeaux, it will be Gleadow who sings roles in each of the "Mozart-Da Ponte" operas in May 2020, taking on Leporello, Figaro and Guglielmo. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.
We asked Gleadow about the role of Figaro and he had this to say, "I'd say he's one of the most loveable characters in the operatic repertoire. He's big-hearted, hot-blooded, quick-witted, overconfident; who's easy to root for and wears his heart on his sleeve (when the Count is out of the room anyway....). We see the entire spectrum of emotion throughout his "Folle Journée". Happiness, love, naiveté, jealousy, anger, humour, finding his parents, winning the girl, and defeating a rival. A true jack of all trades!"
Robert Gleadow and Serena Malfi sing Così fan tutte
Robert Gleadow was born in Toronto and was a member of the Opera Studio of the Canadian Opera Company of Toronto and the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme of the Royal Opera House in London.
Mozart has played a big role in his career, having performed the aforementioned roles, as well as Publio in La clemenza di Tito and the Speaker in Die Zauberflöte.
He can be heard as Lorenzo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko on Deutsche Grammophon.
Iurii Samoilov made his long overdue American debut on October 13th singing the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Michigan Opera Theatre in Detroit. The cast also includes Corinne Winters as Tatyana, Jamez McCorkle as Lensky and Carolyn Sproule as Olga.
There will be additional performances on October 17, 19 and 21 and tickets are available online.
Samoilov first sang the role of Onegin at age 19 in his native Ukraine.
He will return to his home base at the Oper Franfurt to sing Riccardo in Bellini's I Puritani on December 2. According to his website, he is also slated to make his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the near future.
Barihunk Iurii Samoilov will receive the Ottomar Päsel Prize after today's performance of Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in which he's singing Guglielmo.
He is the first member of the Ensemble at Oper Frankfurt to have received the award. The ceremony will take place tonight in the Holzfoyer of Oper Frankfurt after the performance.
After today's performance, he has remaining shows on December 17, 20, 22 and January 1st. In between performances, he heads back to his native Ukraine for a holiday concert at the Lviv Opera House on December 24th, which includes works by Ukrainian composers, as well as Puccini, Bizet, Mozart and Saint-Saëns.
Jason Duika from 2018 Barihunks Calendar/Photo Book
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South Korean bass Chan Hee Cho took the top prize for men at the Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition, delivering a powerful rendition of Banquo's aria from Verdi's Macbeth "Come dal ciel precipita." He followed this up with a thunderous performance of "La calunnia" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. Chan Hee Cho studied at Hanyang University College of Music in Seoul and won first prize at both the 2016 Gian Battista Viotti International Music Competition in Italy and at the 2015 Seoul Philharmonic Vocal Competition. In 2015, he made his professional debut at the Seongnam Arts Center opera house in the title role of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. Second place went to German baritone Johannes Kammler, who sang "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and "Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen" from Korngold's Die tote Stadt.
Johannes Kammler at Neue Stimmen
Kammler will be an ensemble member at the Bavarian State Opera for the 2017-18 season where he will perform Le Dancaïre in Carmen, Fiorello in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Count Dominik in Arabella. He made his debut at the Verbier Festival in 2015 as Marcello in Puccini's La bohème. Third place went to Chinese tenor Mingjie Lei. For the women, mezzo-sopranoSvetlina Stoyanova took the top prize, as second place went to mezzo-soprano Emily D'Angelo, and third place went to mezzo-soprano Zlata Khershberg.
In 2009, barihunk Iurii Samilov took top honors at the young age of 21. He has been a member of the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera since 2014.
Derek Chester and Marco Vassalli
Our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for purchaseHERE.
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 thatHERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!
The barihunk duo of bass-barihunk Luca Pisaroni in Mahomet II and Iurii Samoilov as Omar in Rossini's Le siège de Corinthe. They are joined by John Irvin as Cléomène, Nino Machaidze as Pamyra, Sergey Romanovsky as Néoclès, Carlo Cigni as Hiéros, Xabier Anduaga as Adraste and Cecilia Molinari as Ismène. Performances are on August 10, 13, 16 and 19 and tickets are available online.
The opera premiered at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra on October 9, 1826 and was a partial rewrite of the composer's 1820 Italian opera, Maometto II, with exactly the same story and characters. The original version premiered in Naples on December 3, 1820.
The opera commemorates the siege and ultimate destruction of the town of Missolonghi in 1826 by Turkish during the ongoing Greek War of Independence (1821-1829). The reference to Corinth is an example of allegory, although Sultan Mehmed II had indeed besieged the city in the 1450s. This same incident, condemned throughout Western Europe for its cruelty, also inspired a prominent painting by Eugène Delacroix (Greece Expiring on the Ruins of Missolonghi), and was mentioned in the writings of Victor Hugo. Lord Byron's 1816 poem The Siege of Corinth has little, if any, connection with the opera.
Luca Pisaroni sings "Sorgete... Duce di tanti eroi" from Maometto II:
On August 15, Pisaroni will also perform a recital of music by Schubert, Liszt and Rossini with Giulio Zappa at the piano. Tickets are available online. He returns to the US in December as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera. He rotates the role with fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien.
Iurii Samoilov returns to his home base at Oper Frankfurt in October as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes. He remains with the company this season to perform Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosí fan tutte, Marullo in Verdi's Rigoletto and Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola.
American barihunk John Chest, who just finished a successful run as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Philadelphia, is back in his home base of Germany where he's pulling off an amazing feat of operatic stamina: He'll be singing two English language operas in Germany simultaneously!
Chest opened on May 26th in the title character of Britten's Billy Budd at the Deutsche Oper Berlin before heading off to the Semperoper Dresden to sing the role of the wealthy stockbroker Nick Carraway in John Harbison’s The
Great Gatsby tonight, tomorrow and on June 1st. Hunkentenor Peter Lodahl is singing jay Gatsby and tickets are available online. He then heads back to Berlin for Billy Budd (where the Barihunks team will be in attendance!). To top it off, he also became a father for the first time this year along with his wife soprano Layla Claire.
Chest originally started working on Billy Budd back in 2008 as an apprentice artist and chorus member at the Santa Fe Opera. He made his role debut in 2014 in Berlin in a highly-acclaimed performance, which was the first performance of the piece at the Deutsche Oper. The current production features Gidon Saks as John Claggert, Richard Croft as Edward Vere, Simon Pauly as Donald and fellow barihunk Seth Carico as Mr. Redburn. Tickets are available online.
John Chest at Billy Budd and Gidon Saks as the evil John Claggert
After he wraps us Billy Budd, the jet-setting baritone heads off to the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World
Competition. Chest, where he'll represent the U.S. along with baritone Anthony Clark Evans. He'll be singing more American music, as he plans on performing Aaron Copland’s “Old America Songs.”
Other barihunks in the competition include bass Dominic Barberi
representing England, bass Roberto Lorenzi representing Italy and
calendar model Iurii Samoilov reprenting the Ukraine.
The Song Prize rounds will be broadcast in the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime
Concert (June13 -16) with the song prize final live on Radio 3 In
Concert (Friday, June 16) and on BBC Four presented by Petroc Trelawny
and American soprano Angel Blue (Saturday, June 17).The four concerts at
St David’s Hall, Cardiff will be broadcast on BBC Four (June13 - 16).
The Grand Final will be broadcast live on both BBC Four and BBC Radio 3
on Sunday, June 18.
Barihunk John Chest, who is currently based at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, will represent the United States at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition in June. Other barihunks in the competition include bass Dominic Barberi representing England, bass Roberto Lorenzi representing Italy and calendar model Iurii Samoilov reprenting the Ukraine.
Dominic Barberi
The winner of the main prize will receive £15,000 and the Cardiff Trophy, while the Song Prize, awarded to the best singer of Lieder and art song, carries a £7,000 prize and trophy. The judges for the main competition this year are Cardiff Chairman David Pountney, mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry, soprano Sumi Jo, baritone Thomas Quasthoff and conductor Anu Tali.
Roberto Lorenzi
A number of operas most famous low voices were winners at Cardiff, most famously Dmitri Hvorostovsky who won the main prize in 1989 and Bryn Terfel who won the Song Prize that same year. Other winners have included Tommi Hakala who won the main prize in 2003, Christopher Maltman who won the Song Prize in 1997, Paul Whelan who won the Song Prize in 1993 and Jacques Imbrailo who won the coveted Audience Prize in 2007.
Iurii Samoilov
The Song Prize rounds will be broadcast in the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert (June13 -16) with the song prize final live on Radio 3 In Concert (Friday, June 16) and on BBC Four presented by Petroc Trelawny and American soprano Angel Blue (Saturday, June 17).The four concerts at St David’s Hall, Cardiff will be broadcast on BBC Four (June13 - 16). The Grand Final will be broadcast live on both BBC Four and BBC Radio 3 on Sunday, June 18.
Iurii Samoilov discussing Billy Budd at a recent press conference
Barihunk Iurii Samoilov made history on November 25th, when he became the first singer to perform the title role in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at Russia's Bolshoi Theatre. Samoilov, who is on the roster of Oper Frankfurt and appeared in last year's Barihunks calendar, joins an all-star cast that will perform again on November 27 and 29, and December 1.
The Bolshoi performance is a co-production with the English National Opera and Deutsche Oper
Berlin and it features a number of other barihunks, including Gidon Saks as the evil John Claggart, Bogdan Volkov as A Novice and Aleksandr Utkin as Arthur Jones.
Billy Budd had its world premier at London’s Royal Opera House on December 1, 1951 conducted by the composer with the role of Captain Vere sung by
Britten’s partner Peter Pears. In 1966, in preparation for a
television broadcast, Britten cut the score from four acts to two with a prologue and epilogue, which has become the standard version for the opera.
Iurii Samoilov sings Rachmaninov's "Don't sing to me beauty":
The first production of Billy Budd in Russia occurred 100 years after the birth of Britten at St. Petersburg’s
Mikhailovsky Theatre in 2013. Billy Budd received its United States premiere in 1952 at the Indiana University Opera Company with Jack Gillaspy in the title role.
Britten originally intended the title role for Sir Geraint Evans, but he felt that the role sat to high for his voice, so he switched to the role of Mr. Flint. Britten then opted for barihunk Theodor Uppman to replace Evans in the title role. The performance launched Uppman's international career and he went on to become one of the definitive Billy Budd's off all-time. Uppman sang in an acclaimed performance in 1970 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which included Sir Geraint Evans as Claggart and Richard Lewis as Vere.
Bogdan Volkov, Gidon Saks and Aleksandr Utkin (L-R)
A number of famous barihunks have sung the role of Billy Budd, who many believe was secretly desired by the evil Claggart. Famous barihunk Billy Budd's include John Chest, Simon Keenlyside, Richard Stilwell, Nathan Gunn, Rod Gilfry, Bo Skovhus, Thomas Hampson, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Peter Mattei, Lauri Vasar, Craig Verm, Lucas Meachem, Jacques Imbrailo, Daniel Belcher and Liam Bonner.
Other upcoming performance of Billy Budd include Jacques Imbrailo at the Teatro Real in Madrid opening on January 31 and John Chest reprising his stunning debut in the role at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on May 24 (and Team Barihunks will be in the house!).
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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.
Iurii Samoilov will be making his role debut at the Frankfurt Opera as Don Giovanni on May 30th in the company's heralded production by Christof Loy. He was originally alternating the role of Masetto with fellow barihunk Bjorn Bürger. He'll also be appearing as the Don on June 5, 13, 26 and 28, before turning the role over to Daniel Schmutzhard in July. Somoilov will be joined by Simon Bailey as Leporello and Kihwan Sim as Masetto.
Until May 23, he's performing Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola. Earlier this season, he appeared with the company in Wagner's Parsifal, Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and Puccini's Labohème,
Samoilov joined the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera this season after
having been part of their Opera Studio since 2012. His debut with the company was as the Embittered Gambler in Prokofiev's The Gambler. Samoilov graduated from the
National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2011 and in 2009 he was the
youngest singer to ever reach the finals at the Neue Stimmen Competition
in Germany.
Iurii Samoilov showing off his barihunk credentials
Iurii Samoilov post the picture on the left after the closing of his run as Marcello in Puccini's La bohème at the Frankfurt Opera. He takes the stage again in two days as one of the Knights of the Holy Grail in the final night of Wagner's Parsifal with the company.
On May 10th, he takes over the role of Dandini from fellow barihunk Bjorn Bürger in Rossini's La Cenerentola. The production runs until May 23. After singing Tracolin in Adams' Le Torreador in Palermo and Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, he returns to the company on June 5th. He'll be alternating the role of Masetto in Don Giovanni with Bjorn Bürger in Christof Loy's production.
Iurii Samoilov sings Verdi's "Nell'orror di notte oscura"
Samoilov joined the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera this season after
having been part of their Opera Studio since 2012. His debut with the company was as the Embittered Gambler in Prokofiev's The Gambler.
Samoilov graduated from the
National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2011 and in 2009 he was the
youngest singer to ever reach the finals at the Neue Stimmen Competition
in Germany.
We've been following Björn Bürger ever since we first posted him, as he was instantly a hit with our readers. When we were scouring his upcoming performances, we ran across Ukrainian Iurii Samoilov often sharing the same roles or operas with Bürger at the Frankfurt Opera.
Samoilov joined the ensemble at the Frankfurt Opera this season after having been part of their Opera Studio since 2012. This season, he performs sings Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème, the 2nd Knight of the Holy Grail in Wagne's Parsifal, Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola and Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni. His debut with the company was as the Embittered Gambler in Prokofiev's The Gambler.
Iurii Samoilov sings Rachmaninov's Do not sing, my beauty:
Samoilov graduated from the
National Music Academy of Ukraine in 2011 and in 2009 he was the youngest singer to ever reach the finals at theNeue Stimmen Competition in Germany.
Last season, he also appeared in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims
at the 2014 Rossini Opera Festival. From April 18-26, he'll be at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo to perform in Adolphe Adam's Le Toréador opposite fellow barihunk Andrea Concetti.
Björn Bürger
You can catch him as Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème at the Frankfurt Opera on March 19th, as well as alternating the roles of Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni and Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola with Björn Bürger later this season.
