Marcus Farnsworth stars in Hereford and Bergen

Marcus Farnsworth

Barihunk Marcus Farnsworth will be joining soprano Elizabeth Watts for the Hereford Choral Society's winter concert, which takes place on Saturday, November 14 in Hereford Cathedral, which dates from the 11th century. He will be performing Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs along with Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem.

Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem, which was written when the composer was only in his thirties, possibly as a response to the recent death of his mother.  Brahms compiled the libretto himself from the German Bible of Martin Luther and the work offers in turn a terrifying view of judgment,  triumphant shouts of affirmation of Resurrection hope, and other contrasting passages of deep consolation.

Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs are set to texts by George Herbert have been much loved by British audiences since their first performance at the Worcester Three Choirs Festival of 1911.

Marcus Farnsworth sings Gurney Sleep:

From November 7-13 he'll be performing Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Bergen National Opera. The all-star cast includes Tim Mead as Oberon, Laura Claycomb as Tatyana, Ben Johnson as Lysander, Gidon Saks as Bottom and will be choreographed by Matthew Bourne and directed by Robert Carsen. Tickets are available online.

Farnsworth won the Song Prize at the Kathleen Ferrier Awards in 2011 and the Wigmore Hall Song Prize in 2009. Recent highlights include Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, the English Clerk in Britten's Death in Venice,  Novice’s Friend in Billy Budd for English National Opera, the title role in Britten's Owen Wingrave for the International Chamber Music Festival,in Nuremberg. Eddy in Mark-Anthony Turnage's Greek for Music Theatre Wales and Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Early Opera Company. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Southwell Music Festival and was recently been appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music.

MAKE SURE TO ORDER YOUR 2016 BARIHUNKS CALENDAR BEFORE THE HOLIDAY RUSH; 18 OF THE WORLD'S HOTTEST SINGERS FROM 9 COUNTRIES.

Henk Neven's sexy Don Giovanni in Bergen

Henk Neven in Bergen's Don Giovanni

For the Bergen National Opera's new Don Giovanni, British director Oliver Mears has transformed the stage of Grieg Hall in Bergen, Norway to a grand 1960s cruise ship with its classy salons and swimming pools. The production sets the story amongst the labyrinthine corridors and salons of a grand ship, with its upper and lower decks and their implicit privileges and deprivations. What could be more appropriate in a city set along Norway's famous fjords?

Mear's said of the production, "We wanted to set the production somewhere that was self-contained, labyrinthine, where it could be plausible that characters keep running into each other (as they do in the original libretto), and where the class and status differences so crucial to the original story could retain their importance.'

In the title role they've cast Dutch barihunk Henk Neven, who spends much of the opera in various stages of undress. Tickets and additional cast information are available online.

Henk Neven sings "Deh viena alla finestra" in Amsterdam:

After Don Giovanni, Neven returns to his native country to perform Bach's Matthäus Passion with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century from March 25-30. He then heads across the Pond for two performances of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, first in Quebec City on April 9th and then at New York's Carnegie Hall on April 12th.