Christian Pursell wins Partners for the Arts Vocal Competition

Christian Pursell at the Partners for the Vocal Arts Vocal Competition

American barihunk Christian Pursell won the 6th Annual Partners for the Arts Vocal Competition today in Alexandria, Virginia. Second Place went to tenor Brandon Scott Russell and Third Place to soprano Robin Steitz.

The 2016 Metropolitan Opera semi-finalist performed "Aprite un po queli' occhi" from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and "O du mein holder abendstern" from Wagner's Tannhauser. 

Pursell is a first year Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera. This season he'll be performing a number of roles with the company, including Walter Raleigh in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux, the Jailer in Puccini's Tosca, Count Lamoral in Richard Strauss' Arabella, and a fourth of the Angel Quartet in Jake Heggie's It's a Wonderful Life.

Sneak preview of rehearsal for Marco Vassalli's US debut

Marco Vassalli (left) and Ronny Michael Greenberg (far right)

Rehearsals kicked off for the upcoming U.S. debut of Marco Vassalli with Musica Marin, who is performing the world premiere of the new Clint Borzoni songs for String Quartet & Baritone along with songs by Schubert, Richard Strauss and Tosti. He'll also be performing Samuel Barber's beautiful and moving Dover Beach, one of the few other pieces scored for String Quartet & Baritone.

Portions of this concert were funded by sales of the 2016 Barihunks calendar, so we would like to personally thank everyone who bought a calendar! Every year we donate proceeds to promote young artists and works written for baritone or bass. This year, we plan on funding a special baritone/bass prize at a major singing competition.

Vassalli's debut performances with Musica Marin are on Friday, January 22 and Sunday, January 24 in San Francisco. The German-Italian baritone kicked off rehearsals with accompanist Ronny Michael Greenberg, a current Adler Fellow at the San Francisco Opera and former participant in the Merola Opera Program. The Sunday matinee is almost sold out, but there are still tickets for the Friday night performance. Tickets for both shows are available on the Musica Marin website.

Here is a sneak preview of them rehearsing Schubert's Nacht und Träume.

Rehearsals for the Borzoni songs with texts chosen by Vassalli begin on Monday with the composer and members of the Musica Marin quartet led by Ruth Kahn. Vassalli chose Hermann Hesse's Stufen and Hilde Domin's Margere Kost, making these the first German language texts set by the composer. Our first charity calendar helped fund a performance of Borzoni's beautiful setting of Walt Whitman's "I Dream’d in a Dream" sung by Randal Turner, which you can listen to HERE.

Borzoni, one of the most talented of many gifted American composers on the scene, recently completed his fourth opera, When Adonis Calls, based on the poetry of Gavin Dillard and arranged by John de los Santos. The opera was presented at Fort Worth Opera’s 2015 Frontiers Showcase. He is currently working on his fifth opera, The Copper Queen, also with librettist John de los Santos for Arizona Opera’s program, Arizona Spark.

Vassalli just wrapped up a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Candide at the Staatsoper Hannover. He grew up on Lake Constance and began his studies at the Hochschule fur Musik in Cologne, where he studied with the famed soprano Edda Moser.

Hadleigh Adams in New York's latest indie opera success Orlando

Hadleigh Adams in Orlando (and at rehearsal)

It seems like every season, one of New York's innovative smaller companies produces a show that sets the international opera world on fire. Last season it was Gregory Spears' Paul's Case that Beth Morrison produced and starred barihunk Keith Phares.

This season, the buzz is surrounding R.B. Schlather's innovative opera/art installation of Handel's Alcina at the Whitebox Art Center starring barihunk Hadleigh Adams. The opera, which wrapped up tonight, also included soprano Kiera Duffy and the countertenor Drew Minter in the cast. Last season Schlater scored a huge success with another Handel opera, when he produced Alcina in the same
space.

Hadleigh Adams in Orlando

The innovative director has opened up these rehearsals to the public and live streamed the rehearsals. The rehearsals have become NY mini-social scenes, even attracting Yoko Ono, Justin Vivian Bond and rapper Big Dipper.

Word is that is only the second part of a trilogy, so there will be another chance to catch his latest work next season. 

Hadleigh Adams to star in Southern Hemisphere premiere of Bajazet

Hadleigh Adams in Castor & Pollux (left)

Australia's Pinchgut Opera just announced that they will be presenting the Southern Hemisphere premiere of Vivaldi's Bajazet. Starring in the title role will be barihunk Hadleigh Adams, who is wrapping up his second season as a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow. Adams is returning to Pinchgut after a successful run as Pollux in their production of Rameau's Castor & Pollux in 2012.

Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735 and is a pastiche of Vivaldi's own arias, as well as those by Johann Adolph Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli, Nicola Porpora and Riccardo Broschi. The opera is also known as Il Tamerlano and the story was also successfully set to music by Handel.

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria />

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria />

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

The libretto revolves around romantic entanglements and love triangles and the struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Andronico, Tamerlano’s Greek ally, who is also in love with Asteria.

Hadleigh Adams as the Marquis in San Francisco Opera's La traviata (left)

Vivaldi wove into the opera an underlying tale of power struggles and invasion, reflective of the ones going on at the time, when Neopolitan operas were trouncing their local Venetian counterparts in popularity. Music associated with Neapolitan composers is thus cleverly designated to the invaders Tamerlano, Irene and Andronico.

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

Performances of Vivaldi’s Bajazet will be on July 4, 5, 7 and 8 at City Recital Hall Angel Place in Sydney.  Also in the cast is Christopher Lowrey as Tamerlano, Helen Sherman as Irene, Emily Edmonds as Asteria and Russell Harcourt as Andronicus.

Adams has maintained a busy schedule this season while a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, having sung the Marquis in La Traviata, Grand commissioner in Madame Butterfly and Jailer in Tosca. He also performed Gendarme in Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias with San Francisco's innovative young company Opera Parallèle.

Ryan Kuster in Weber rarity "Euryanthe"

Ryan Kuster as Escamillo at Virginia Opera

Bard SummerScape 2014 is presenting Carl Maria von Weber's rarely performed Euryanthe with barihunk Ryan Kuster as Lysiart. There will be five performances running from July 25-August 3. Revivals of the complete opera are rare, especially in the United States, where it has not been seen since the Metropolitan Opera’s 1914 staging 100 years ago. A check on Opera Critic showed the last fully staged performance at the Badisches Staatstheater in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2010. Oper Frankfurt will present the opera next April with Erika Sunnegardh, Eric Cutler, Heidi Melton and James Rutherford.   

Ryan Kuster, who was part of the prestigious Merola Opera Program and Adler Fellows in San Francisco, has become an audience favorite on the West Coast.  In 2012, he made his symphonic debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic singing the role of Masetto in their highly acclaimed production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, directed by Christopher Alden and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. At the San Francisco Opera he has performed the Mandarin in Puccini's Turandot, Astolfo in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen (for families), Count Ceprano in Verdi's Rigoletto, the 4th Noble in Wagner's Lohengrin,  Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca.

The rest of the cast, which will be directed by Kevin Newbury,  includes Ellie Dehn as Euryanthe, William Burden as her fiancé Adolar, Wendy Bryn Harmer as Euryanthe’s rival Eglantine and Peter Volpe as King Ludwig. Performances will be at the beautiful Frank Gehry-designed Sosnoff Theater at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.T Tickets are available online.

Weber's greatest single success was probably his 1821 opera Der Freischütz. With his next opera, Weber wanted to break new ground. So in Euryanthe the spoken dialogue disappeared, replaced by continuous music. However, even the composer's great music couldn't save the opera from a ridiculous libretto, which has attributed to its relative obscurity. Perhaps the most well-known music from the opera is its overture, which is often performed by orchestras. It uses material from the opera, including Adolar's rebuttal of Lysiart and his second act romance.

Bay Area Reporter: "Hadleigh Adams sings out with pride"

Hadleigh Adams: Headshot and in Castor & Pollux

New Zealand barihunk Hadleigh Adams is profiled by Jason Victor Serinus in this week in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter:

Tall, rugged baritone Hadleigh Adams, 29, must be one of the straightest spined and proudest bearinged singers on the planet. Both his appearance and his lower-pitched, resonant voice make it hard to believe that during his youth in a small New Zealand farm town, two decades before he journeyed to San Francisco and was chosen for San Francisco Opera's prestigious Adler Fellow apprentice program, he was teased mercilessly for being gay.

"I acted very different," he explained during an hour-long chat in a cafe near the War Memorial Opera House. "I acted very effeminately. Not by choice; it's just how I was."

This didn't make life easy for him at an all-boys school.

"I wanted to fit in," he says. "I was two years ahead in my academic work because I was a smart kid. I played hockey and tennis, which were the gayer sports from a high-school boy point of view. I also did a lot of music, and I loved music. If you loved music, that meant you were gay.

"So it was horrible. I was teased a lot, and had very few friends. But I didn't really mind it or care, because while I loved my family and my country, which is the most beautiful place in the world, I always knew I was destined for more than a lot of my classmates. Not to say that more is better, or being on the stage or escaping is better, but I knew, from the age of 12 or 13, that I was destined for more in my life."

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE

Philippe Sly in Toronto recital tonight (and some upcoming shows)

Philippe Sly

We have a substantial number of readers in Canada, which is probably due in part to our generous coverage of Canadian singers. Of course, when you have talents like Québecois bass-baritone Philippe Sly it's a no-brainer. We've stated that he's one of the great low voice talents to emerge in the last decade. As wonderful as he is as a performer of opera, his true gift is the recital stage where he brings beautiful vocalism and a depth of interpretation far beyond his years. If you're anywhere near Toronto tonight, you won't want to miss his recital with pianist Julius Drake at Walter Hall.

He will be performing lieder by the Austrian composers Schubert and Wolf as well as mélodies by the French masters Ravel and Duparc. Tickets are available online and, remarkably, there are still unsold seats.

If you can't catch him tonight, he will be performing throughout Canada and the U.S. this year. From September 12-17, he joins Kent Nagano and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal for their season opener in performances of Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust. Tickets available online.


In December, he has two performances of Handel's Messiah: December 6 and 7 with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and on December 17 and 18 at the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

His next scheduled performance in the U.S. is with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra in performances of the Fauré Requiem. Tickets are available online.

Philippe Sly to release CD of Rameau cantatas

Philippe Sly

One of our favorite young barihunks, Philippe Sly, joins the wonderful soprano Hélène Guilmette in "Les amants trahis," an album of cantatas by Jean-Philippe Rameau. The cantatas were originally performed  at Salle Bourgie of the Montreal Fine Arts Museum last year and the CD includes the same ensemble consisting of Adrian Butterfield and Chloé Meyers (violin), Grégoire Jeay (flute), Mélisande Corriveau (viola da gamba) and Luc Beauséjour (harpsichord). The album is available for purchase on March 12.

Check out our previous posts about Sly's last recording "In Dreams."

Sly is the first prize winner of the prestigious 2012 Concours Musical International de Montréal and a grand prize winner of the 2011 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions singing the varied repertoire of Mozart, Bach, Handel, Stravinsky and Wagner. Later that year, he became a member of the ensemble at the Canadian Opera Company where he was seen as Hermann in Offenbach's 'Les contes d’Hoffmann', Amantio di Nicolai in a new production of Puccini's 'Gianni Schicchi' , as well as A Scythian Man in Gluck's 'Iphigénie en Tauride' alongside the Iphigénie of Susan Graham.

In the summer of 2012, Sly joined the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival where he made his Festival debut as Sithos in von Winter’s 'Das Labyrinth' under the baton of Ivor Bolton. This season, the French-Canadian singer becomes a member of the prestigious Adler Fellowship Program at the San Francisco Opera where he will make his mainstage debut as Guglielmo in Mozart's 'Così fan tutte' under music director Nicola Luisotti. Tickets for Così fan tutte are available on the San Francisco Opera website.

Hadleigh Adams stars in Castor & Pollux

Hadleigh Adams in Castor & Pollux

Earlier this year, San Franciscans got to witness first-hand barihunk Hadleigh Adams' gifts as an exponent of early music when he brought the house down with “Somnus awake! ... Leave me loathsome light … More sweet is that name”  from Handel's Semele at the Merola Grand Finale. The City by the Bay will be welcoming back the popular Kiwi singer as an Adler Fellow early next year. But Adams is making waves again in early music on the other side of the globe.

Adams is currently performing early music again as Pollux in Rameu's Castor & Pollux with Pinchgut Opera in Australia. For our fans Down Under, there are still three performances of the opera left between now and December 10th. Many people in the business are predicting stardom for the charismatic singer, so now is the time to catch a rising star. Tickets are available online.

Also, don't wait for Santa Claus, order your 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar today:

San Francisco Opera Delivers Another Great "Don Giovanni"

Ryan Kuster: What was Zerlina thinking?

There has been so much attention paid to the Met's "Don Giovanni" with the last minute cancellation and then probable return of Mariusz Kwiecien, that the opera world has almost forgotten about the Mozart classic opening on the Left Coast.

Regular readers of this site will know that Mariusz Kwiecien's performance of Don Giovanni at the San Francisco Opera was one of the inspirations for this website. In a world of competitive Don Giovanni's, including Teddy Tahu Rhodes' return to the role at Opera Australia, it's nice to see that the San Francisco Opera continues to deliver solid, well-cast performances of the opera.  To top it off, the performances are being led by their extremely popular music director Nicola Luisotti.

Lucas Meachem

The San Francisco Opera's "Don Giovanni" opened on Saturday night with a trio of men that would be the envy of any opera company: The vocally thrilling Lucas Meachem as the Don, Marco Vinco in his U.S. debut at Leporello and future superstar and certified barihunk Ryan Kuster as Masetto. In a bit of fantasy casting, the amazingly talented Kate Lindsey is Zerlina.

Ryan Kuster is a first-year Adler Fellow, recent graduate of the 2010 Merola Opera Program and a former participant in Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. He is performing a number of roles at the San Francisco Opera this season, including a Mandarin (Turandot), Astolfo (Lucrezia Borgia), Masetto (Don Giovanni), and Escamillo (Carmen).



Performances run through November 10th and tickets and additional cast information are available at the San Francisco Opera website.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Eugene Brancoveanu: "Velcome to my house..."

A week ago, we ran a post about barihunk Eugene Brancoveanu playing Dracula in the straight theater. Here is a video of him discussing the role and even providing us with a preview of the famous line, "Velcome to my house..." Brancoveanu was cast after he was seen in a very "carnal" production of Don Giovanni at the Berkeley Opera.



The production is currently running at the Center Repertory Company through November 20 at the Lesher Center for the Performing Arts in Walnut Creek, California (a short drive from San Francisco).

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email