Buff Ramin Karimloo singing in Evita at Vancouver Opera

Ramin Karimloo (photos by Matthew Murphy)

Ramin Karimloo will be performing Che in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita from April 30-May 8th at the Vancouver Opera. He'll be joined by Caroline Bowman as Evita and John Cudia and Perón in a full-scale production of the musical.

Last Fall, Karimloo was performing Jean Valjean in Les Misérables eight times a week at the Imperial Theatre in New York City and was buffing up at the Columbus Circle Equinox. That's when these photos were taken by Matthew Murphy and his assistant Mitch Dean.

Ramin Karimloo sings Bring Him Home from Les Misérables:

Karimloo, who is classically trained, has spent most of his career singing Broadway musicals. He considers himself a "high baritone" and reviewers have commented that he's a lyric baritone with an easy reach into the tenor range. The closet Karimloo has gotten to an opera performance is a few gigs on stage singing Gilbert & Sullivan. He remains one of the most popular singers on our site based on reader views.

Tickets for Evita at the Vancouver Opera are available online.

Sexy photo shoot of Ramin Karimloo

Ramin Karimloo

Barihunk Ramin Karimloo is performing the role of Jean Valjean in Les Misérables eight times a week at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. That alone is a workout, but he's also been buffing up at the Columbus Circle Equinox.

Fortunately, The Broadway Style Guide did a feature on his workout routine which includes some amazingly beautiful photos by Matthew Murphy and his assistant Mitch Dean. You can read the entire feature on their website. 

the Columbus Circle Equinox

Imperial Theatre

Imperial Theatre

Ramin Karimloo

Karimloo, who is classically trained, has spent most of his career singing Broadway musicals. He sang the Pirate King in the U.K. tour of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Tickets for Les Misérables are available online.

Waltteri Torikka advances to final round in MTV competition

Waltteri Torikka sings Fiddler on the Roof

Finnish barihunk Waltteri Torikka has advanced to the final round of the singing pop competition Tähdet, tähdet on MTV against Laura Voutilainen.

The two will compete head-to-head on Sunday to see who takes away the top prize. With Broadway musicals being the theme this week, Voutilainen sang  "Memory" from Cats and "All That Jazz" from Chicago, while Torikka sang "Stars" from Les Miserables and "If I were a rich man" from Fiddler on the Roof. The judges have praised him for his versatility and he has become a fan favorite with viewers.

You can watch his performances HERE and HERE.

Jesse Enderle crosses over into musical theater

Jesse Enderle

Jesse Enderle opens tomorrow in Claude-Michel Schönberg's Les Misérables at the San Antonio Playhouse's Russell Theater as Javert. Performances will run from October 3-November 3 and tickets are available online.

At 28 years, Les Misérables is now the longest running musical in the world. It has been translated into 22 different languages and performed in 42 countries and 319 cities.  The San Antonio production adds one more professional performance to the 48,000 that have occurred worldwide,  giving it a total audience of more than 60 million people. There have been over 47 cast recordings of Les Misérables including albums, singles and symphonic. Both the original Broadway cast album and the symphonic recordings won Grammy awards.

Philip Quast sings Javert's suicide aria:

We first learned about Fargo native Jesse Enderle when he was two-time regional winner in the Metropolitan Opera Regional Council Auditions in Wisconsin. We then saw him in a hysterical turn as Pooh-Bah in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado at the Fort Worth Opera Festival.

In addition to Fort Worth, he has appeared with the Central City Opera, Tulsa Opera and the Arbor Opera Theatre. Other roles he has performed include Baron Douphol in La Traviata, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Escamillo in Carmen, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Sid in Albert Herring.

Also, make sure to order your 2014 Barihunks charity calendar with 16 of the hottest baritones in all of opera. Click HERE to order today. All proceeds are going to benefit young artists and young artist programs.

Reader Submission: Jason Forbach

Jason Forbach

We've said it so many times, but it bears repeating: We love our reader submissions of new talent. We still seem to remind people that this site is dedicated to baritones, bass-baritones and basses. In January, we received four tenor submissions, four countertenor submissions, two directors and a mezzo soprano!

Our latest submissions come from the United States where a reader saw Jason Forbach on stage.

Jason Forbach is a former Metropolitan Opera National Council regional semifinalist, who has been perfoming the role of Enjorlas in the national tour of the 25th Anniversary production of "Les Miserables." Previously he appeared in a Las Vegas production of "The Phantom of the Opera."

Jason Forbach sings Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere":

Forbach was classically trained in opera as a lyric baritone and performed at The New York Festival of Song tribute to Hal Prince at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. He has also performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Abilene Philharmonic and Boston Lyric Opera. He holds a bachelor's degree in vocal performance from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master's in vocal performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Jason Forbach

Forbach was also an apprentice artist with the Central City Opera and studied with John Moriarty.  He was named the Spencer Penrose Artist for 2003.

He recently self-produced his first solo album, "A New Leading Man" and a collection featuring his songwriting debut, "Remembering To Dream."

Jānis Apeinis Strips for Mozart

Jānis Apeinis

An astute reader found these new video clips of Jānis Apeinis doing a little strip tease during the duet "La ci darem la mano"and walking around in his skivvies during "Ah, fuggi il traditor." The clips are from a recent performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Latvian National Opera. 

Gunta Davidčuka & Jānis Apeinis sing "La ci darem la mano":

Jānis Apeinis graduated from the vocal department of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music in 2002 and received his Masters in 2004. Jānis Apeinis made his debut at the Latvian National Opera in 2003. He made his debut in the title role of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at the Tiroler Landestheater in 2008 and returned to the Tiroler Landestheater as Carlo Gerard in Giordano's Andrea Chenier in 2010.

 Jānis Apeinis in skivvies as Asmik Grigorian sings "Ah, fuggi il traditor":

His roles include Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème, and Joseph in Ešenvalds's Joseph Is A Fruitful Bough. He can next be seen in the title role of Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Riga Opera Festival opening on June 12th. 

Jānis Apeinis sings Les Misérables:

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