Four barihunks in Glyndebourne Cup semi-finals

The 2020 Glyndebourne Opera Cup, an international competition for opera singers, will include four barihunks among its 19 semi-finalists. They are Americans Timothy Murray and Edward Nelson, German-American Gabriel Rollinson and Britain's Dominic Sedgwick. They will be joined by sopranos Alexandra Lowe, Maria Chabounia, Federica Di Trapani, Jessica Harper, Maya Kherani, Miriam Luisa Kutrowatz, Lauren Margison, Johanna Wallroth, Meigui Zhang; mezzo-sopranos Olga Syniakova, Valerie Eickhoff and Evgeniia Asanova; and, tenors  Eric Ferring, Sungho Kim and John Matthew Myers.

The competition was founded to discover and spotlight the best young singers from around the world. Thirteen nationalities are represented among the semi-finalists, who have a variety of backgrounds and interests.

The competition offers a top prize of £15,000 and a guaranteed role at a leading international opera house. The competition awards prizes for the top three singers, as well as a media prize (chosen by arts journalists), a most promising singer prize and an audience favorite prize.  

The semi-finals will be on Wednesday, March 4, 2020 at 11:00 AM with the finals on March 7, at 4:30 PM. Tickets are available online.

The final will once again be broadcast live on Sky Arts.

The competition was founded in 2018 with the stunning American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey winning the top prize, as well as the media prize. All six prizes in the inaugural competition were awarded to female singers.

Three barihunks advance to Operalia finals; No sopranos!

Sean Michael Plumb, Simon Shibambu and Johannes Kammler

Three barihunks have made it to the finals of the Operalia competition in Lisbon, Portugal. South Afrian bass Simon Shibambu, American baritone Sean Michael Plumb and German baritone Johannes Kammler are among the final 12 singers who will compete on September 2nd.

In a bit of shocker, not a single soprano made it to finals. Readers of Barihunks may recall the "Baritone Blackout" in 2014 when not a single baritone made it to the finals despite some amazing low voice talent in the competition.

Bass Simon Shibambu graduated from the Royal College of Music, and in 2017 entered his second season as a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He next appears at the English National Opera in Richard Strauss' Salome, which opens on September 28.

Johannes Kammler is a former Samling Artist and Britten-Pears Young Artist and a member of the Opera Studio at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He next appears in Trier in the title role of Mendelssohn's Elias on October 3. He then heads to the Canadian Opera Company to sing Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte.

Johannes Kammler sings Pierrot's Lied:

Sean Michael Plumb was graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and made his national television debut in the HBO documentary “Renée Fleming: A YoungArts MasterClass.” He is currently a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper ensemble. He next appears as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Kentucky Opera opening on September 21.

The other finalists are the brilliant American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey, Russian tenor Migran Agadzhanyan, Candian mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, Canadian/Italian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes, Chinese tenor Long Long, Belarus tenor Pavel Petrov, Swiss/French mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti and Russian tenor Arseny Yakovlev.

The competition's five Zarzuela finalists are mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, tenor Luis Gomes, tenor Pavel Petrov, Brazilian mezzo-soprano Josy Santos and Colombian/American soprano Vanessa Vasquez.

The September 2nd finals will be streamed on Medici.TV and Facebook.

Opera isn't dying, but you can find it at Green-Wood Cemetery

Andrew Bogard and Samantha Hankey

Opera isn't dying, but it will be at the Green-Wood Cemetery starting on June 6th and making a ghostly reappearance on June 8 and 10.

The world premiere of David Hertzberg's chamber opera The Rose Elf will be presented in the catacombs of the historic cemetery, which was founded in 1838. The opera will be directed by the visionary director R. B. Schlather and features bass-barihunk Andrew Bogard, along with the amazing, award-winning mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey, as well as lyric soprano Alisa Jordheim and hunkentenor Kyle Bielfield.

The Rose Elf, which is based on Hans Christian Anderson's 1839 story The Elf of the Rose,  tells the tale of two lovers torn apart by a senseless act of violence; and of a strange and sensuous being, at once near and distant, who witnesses this tragedy and is transformed.

Andrew Bogard (left) and Kyle Bielfield (right)

When the "rural cemetery" movement started in the 1830's and burials moved from churches to park-like settings, cemeteries became gathering places for the public. They were often designed by noted landscape architects like Frederick Law Olmsted and included Victorian gardens, beautiful statues, fountains and gathering areas.

Opera companies are also seeking out more original spaces to perform operas, with West Edge Opera performing in an abandoned train station and an old pipe and steel factory, On Site Opera put on a production at Madame Tussauds Wax museum as well as the Bronx Zoo, and an interactive opera was performed at the old Los Angeles Train Station complete with headphones and unsuspecting passengers as part of the "cast".

The amazing young mezzo Samantha Hankey:

For The Rose Elf, spectators will be placed in long single rows along the sides of the central space, with a nine-piece orchestra at the far end and the singers moving up and down. The catacombs, which were built in the 1850s are normally closed to the public. Ticket information is available online.

Andrew Bogard has a Master of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree from The Juilliard School. He won first place in the 2014 Mario Lanza Scholarship Competition, second place and audience choice in the 2015 Cooper-Bing Opera Columbus Competition, and was a Mid-Atlantic regional finalist and encouragement award recipient in the 2015 MET Competition. Last season he joined the Washington National Opera's Young Artist Program, where he sang the title role in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Baritones dominate first ever Glyndebourne Opera Cup

Clockwise top left: Dmytro Kalmuchyn, Cody Quattlebaum, Denis Milo and Hubert Zapiór

Baritones landed seven of the 24 slots for the inaugural Glyndebourne Opera Cup on March 22. The field will be narrowed to 10 finalist for the March 24th competition, which will be broadcast on Sky Arts.

The Glyndebourne Opera Cup focuses on a different single composer or strand of the repertoire. In 2018 the featured composer is Mozart and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will accompany the singers at the final.

The field includes some popular barihunks led by Cody Quattlebaum (US), Hubert Zapiór (Poland), Dmytro Kalmuchyn (Ukraine), Denis Milo (Germany), as well as Jorge Espino (Mexico), Jake Muffett (UK), Carl Rumstadt (Germany), Charles Sy (Canada), Jack Swanson (US), Jacquelyn Stucker (US), Anita Rosati (Austria), Emily Pogorelc (US), Eléonore Pancrazi (France), Alexandra Nowakowski (US/Poland), Gemma Ní Bhriain (Ireland), Diana Newman (US), Mirjam Mesak (Estonia), Aurora Marthens (Finland), Elbenita Kajtazi (Kosovo), Samantha Hankey (US), Adriana Gonzalez (Guatemala), Francesca Chiejina (US) and Adèle Charvet (France).

Hubert Zapiór sings the Count's aria from the Marriage of Figaro:

The winner will receive £15,000 and the guarantee of a role within five years at one of the top opera houses represented on the competition jury.

The international jury for The Glyndebourne Opera Cup includes representatives from top international opera houses. Among them are Barrie Kosky, Artistic Director of Komische Oper Berlin, Sophie de Lint, Artistic Director of Zurich Opera and Director Designate of Dutch National Opera, David Devan, who runs Opera Philadelphia, Fortunato Ortombina, Sovrintendente of Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and Joan Matabosch, Artistic Director of Teatro Real in Madrid. 

Acting as the competition’s honorary president is Dame Janet Baker, whose own early career was fostered by Glyndebourne. As well as presenting the prizes, she will adjudicate at the live final.

Young Barihunk featured on HBO with Renee Fleming

Set you DVRs for 6 PM on May 28th for "Renee Fleming: A YoungArts MasterClass" on HBO. The legendary soprano will work with four aspiring opera-singers on developing their voices and their careers. 

The students in this program are awardees of the Miami-based arts organization, YoungArts. Each year, YoungArts selects 150 high school students from an applicant pool of over 7,000.  The highly-popular first season of the Master Class Series featured tenor Placido Domingo, Julian Schnabel, Jacques d'Amboise, Frank Gehry, Olafur Eliasson, Edward Albee, Bill T. Jones, Liv Ullmann, and Michael Tilson Thomas.

The four singers who were selected to work with Fleming are Aaron Casey, Crystal Vanrell, Samantha Hankey and an emerging barihunk, Sean Michael Plumb. The 20-year-old Los Angeles native studies at the Curtis Institute of Music with Marlena Malas and Mikael Eliasen. He also holds a fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and School, where he has studied for the last two summers. 

He has performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Broad Stage, the Baryshnikov Arts Center, and as a United States Presidential Scholar, the Kennedy Center. Additionally, Sean performed at the 2010 Grammy Week Salute to Placido Domingo with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra. He has won many competitions including the Classical Singer Magazine 2009 High School Competition, the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards, and the top prize (Gold) at the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts’ YoungArts Week. At Curtis Sean has appeared in Apollo and Daphne (Apollo), Faust (Wagner), La Tragedie de Carmen (Lilas Pastilla), Il Signor Brushchino (Il Comissario), and The Cunning Little Vixen (Grasshopper). 

A 2010 graduate of Loyola High School of Los Angeles, Sean also plays piano and enjoys swimming and watching college basketball. Check out his website for more information.

You can follow the YoungArts Master Class program on Facebook.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com