Watch Quirijn de Lang as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti on OperaVision

Quirijn de Lang as Sam in Trouble in Tahiti (Image courtesy Opera North)

You can watch Dutch barihunk Quirijn de Lang in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti with Opera North on OperaVision from August 25-September 11. He will be joined by the Canadian mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta as the other half of the argumentative couple.

Bernstein wrote the libretto and music for Trouble in Tahiti and directed and conducted the premiere himself in June 1952 at the University of Brandeis, Massachusetts. Eager to make his one-act satirical opera seem as realistic as possible, Bernstein set it in the aftermath of World War II, a time when consumerism was spreading through society. His work had a number of autobiographical references and the male protagonist, Sam, shares his name with Bernstein’s father who left Russia to find the 'American Dream'.

The opera opens with a jingle performed by a musical trio who sing into the microphone of a recording studio. Bernstein wanted this trio to "never stop smiling". The jazz rhythms evoke the radio commercials of the time and the trio is reminiscent of an ancient Greek choir that satirically comments on the story.

Quirijn de Lang will be performing Danilo in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow with Opera North beginning on September 29th and running through November 17th.

Introducing Hungarian barihunk Attila Dobak

Attila Dobak in The Merry Widow (left) at Boston Lyric Opera

Jesse Blumberg and David McFerrin, two barihunks who we've frequently featured on this site, just performed in Lehar's The Merry Widow with the Boston Lyric Opera. Not featured in the credits was another barihunk, Attila Dobak, who was in a minor role, but has major barihunk chops.

Dobak was born in Budapest, Hungary and studied clarinet when he was seven and piano when he was twelve. He was inspired to study voice after watching the 3 Tenors Concert with Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo. He started studying voice at age sixteen and eventually was accepted into the Béla Bartok Conservatory of Music in Budapest, where he majored in Classic Voice and Opera. He also has a Masters Degree in Marketing & Communications from Corvinus University in Budapest.

He went on to study at the Longy School of Music at Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Longy and Opera North (where he was a young artist), he performed Bartolo and Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor, and Gideon March in Mark Adamo's Little Women.

In 2014, Dobak was invited to perform at the Miami Summer Music Festival by Michael Rossi, the conductor of the Washington National Opera, where he sang Figaro in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. He also appeared on NBC giving a solo opera performance with the Miami Summer Music Festival Orchestra.

He is currently based in Boston, where he is a member of the Boston Lyric Opera. In addition to The Merry Widow, he appeared in their production of Puccini's La boheme.

His goal in life is to become an opera/crossover singer and you can find examples of him singing opera on his YouTube page, as well as covers of Bruno Mars, Josh Groban and Broadway musicals.

Barihunk duo in Edmonton's Merry Widow

Aaron Durand and Mike Nyby

Two barihunks are featured in the Edmonton Opera's English language production of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. The operetta opened last night and will be performed again on Tuesday, October 27 and Thursday, October 29.

Michael Nyby sings Danilo Danilowitsch, Hanna Glawari's ex-lover who is less excited about being her lover and sharing in her recently inherited wealth, than most men.  Aaron Durand, who appeared with the company in their Barber of Seville last year, takes on Vicomte Cascada.

Preview of The Merry Widow at Edmonton Opera:

Nyby and lead soprano Sally Dibblee have been tasked with dancing duties as well as singing, as director Brent Krysa and choreographer Dave Ganert have found inspiration in Hollywood dance musicals. Dibblee even took ballroom dancing lessons for the part.

Nyby is a native of Hamilton, Ontario who created the roles of William Dale in Kevin Puts' Silent Night, Brent Colgate in Gregory Vajda's Georgia Bottoms and Demetrio in the US premiere of Kristin Hevner Wyatt's Il Sogno. This season he'll be creating the role of Seth in the Canadian opera Peter-Anthony Togni's Isis and Osiris with Opera in Concert. He'll be joining hunkentenor Karim Sulayman for Händel's Messiah with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario on December 7 and 8.

Aaron Durand talks about being an opera singer:

Durand hails from 100 Mile House, British Columbia After graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2012, he joined the Vancouver Opera's Yulanda M. Faris young artist program, performing roles in several mainstage productions including La bohème, The Pirates of Penzance, Albert Herring and Don Giovanni. He was Masetto in the innovative production of #UncleJohn with the Against the Grain Theatre.

You can follow Aaron Durand on Twitter @Gingervanni. 

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Bo Skovhus to perform double-bill of operatic rarities

Bo Skovhus in Reimann's Lear

One of our most popular posts with readers was entitled "Lauri Vasar Strips Down for Il Prigioniero," which prompted us to put up a follow up post with additional photos of the barihunk in his scivvies. So imagine our excitement when we found out that über-barihunk Bo Skovhus would be performing the piece with Oper Köln in March and April 2015.

Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero is a 7-part, 50-minute opera which was first broadcast by the Italian radio station RAI on December 1, 1949. The work is based on the short story La torture par l'espérance ("Torture by Hope") from the collection Nouveaux contes cruels by the French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and from La Légende d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak by Charles de Coster. Some of the musical material is based on Dallapiccola's 1938 choral work Canti di prigionia.


Despite the taxing nature of the role, Skovhus will return after intermission to sing an equally demanding role, that of the bass solo in Bernd Alois Zimmerman's Ekklesiastische Aktion: Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht das geschah unter der Sonne ("I turned and saw all the injustice there was under the sun")

Bo Skovhus and Silvana Dussmann in The Merry Widow: 

The 35-minute piece is scored for two speakers, bass soloist, and large orchestra, with text based on the words of the Preacher in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The work also requires enormous physical stamina, as it includes the stamping of feet, gesturing, jumping and performing in various yoga-like poses.

The piece was commissioned by the city of Kiel for the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Ekklesiastische Aktion was Zimmermann's final composition before he killed himself and the music quotes Bach's, "Es ist genug" (It is enough). That section is played fortissimo by trumpets and trombones in a jolting expression of mortality.

Bo Skovhus is currently singing the role of Graf Danilo in Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) at Oper Köln. Tickets and additional cast information for both shows are available online.

David Adam Moore & Xavier Rivera

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Childhood internet sensation now a barihunk

Régis Mengus as a baritone and boy soprano

32-year-old Régis Mengus was a childhood internet sensation long before he became known in the world opera. A few years ago, a video of him with fellow boy soprano Hyacinthe de Moulins singing Rossini's Cat Duet began appearing on blogs and websites drawing millions of views. The performance was with the famed boys choir Les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois, who were presenting a concert in Seoul, Korea in 1996.  

Mengus, who came from a blue collar family with little exposure to the arts, was drawn to music as a young boy. He started piano lesson at the age of six, but joined the choir two years later after realizing that singing was his true passion. Shortly after joining the group, he rose to the coveted role of soloist with the boys choir (and the video shows why). 

Later, he joined the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Metz Métropole Gabriel-Pierné in Metz, France. After being granted First Prize by the jury, he made his stage debut at the Opéra de Metz at the age of nineteen. He subsequently performed Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale and Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

In 2008, he made debut outside of France at the National Opera of Athens is Christian in Cyrano et Roxane, before returning to Metz to sing Thomas' Hamlet. 

Régis Mengus as Danilo in The Merry Widow in Lausanne

Other performances throughout France have included  Pas sur la bouche (Not on the Lips) at the Opéra de Tours, Moralès in Carmen at the Opera Caen, Yamadori in Madama Butterfly at Opera of St Etienne, Wagner in Faust Opéra de Metz, Danilo in Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) at the Théâtre de Reimsand Robert Perceval in Andre Messager's Passionnement at the Opéra de Tours.

In October 2013, he won both the First Prize for me and the Audience Award at the International Competition of Singing in Vivonne. In March 2014, he won First Prize, the Audience Award, and a Special Award at the International Competition of Bordeaux.

He is currently singing Danilo in The Merry Widow through December 31st at l'Opéra de Lausanne.Tickets and additional cast information are available online.

Doug Carpenter and Richard Alexandre Rittelmann in the Barihunks calendar

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