Barihunk duo in world premiere of Stonewall

Joseph Charles Beutel and Brian James Myer

The New York City Opera continues its Pride Initiative of producing an LGBT-focused work each June in commemoration of Gay Pride Month with the premiere of Iain Bell and Mark Campbell's Stonewall. ” The opera will be performed at Rose Hall,at Jazz at Lincoln Center, on June 21, 22 (matinee and evening), June 27 and June 29. 

The opera features the barihunk duo of Joseph Charles Beutel as Troy and Brian James Myer as Carlos, a Dominican-American English teacher recently fired from a Catholic school.

Stonewall will be the first opera to feature a transgender character specially created for a transgender singer when Liz Bouk takes the stage as Sarah. Liz identifies as male and lives as a trans man.

The opera captures the rage, grit, humor and hope of the nascent LGBTQ movement.  On a hot night in 1969, a cross-section of characters find themselves thrown together in a Greenwich Village dance club with explosive results that give birth to a movement.

The cast also includes Andrew Bidlack as Andy, Lisa Chavez as Maggie, Michael Corvino as Sal, Jessica Fischenfeld as Leah, Marc Heller as Larry, Jordan Weatherston Pitts as Renata and Justin Ryan as Edward. Tickets are available online.

Barihunk duo in new opera at Boston Lyric Opera

Jesse Blumberg & David McFerrin

Barihunks Jesse Blumberg and David McFerrin will be featured in the world premiere of composer Julian Grant and librettist Mark Campbell’s The Nefarious, Immoral but Highly Profitable Enterprise of Mr. Burke & Mr. Hare. The opera will be the first full-length piece in Boston Lyric Opera's New Works series.

Set in 1820s Scotland – when the city’s famed schools of anatomy faced a severe shortage of fresh cadavers for their lectures – the opera follows William Burke, William Hare and their accomplices who discover a money-making opportunity by murdering disenfranchised citizens and selling their corpses to Dr. Robert Knox at his renowned medical academy.

The opera will be staged at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, an historic building whose neoclassical Victorian style reflects the story’s 19th century time period, and whose circular interior recalls early operating theaters where observers watched medical procedures.

The cast also includes tenor William Burden and soprano Marie McLaughlin. 

The upcoming season will also include Puccini's Tosca, Kurt Weill's Three Penny Opera and Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.