Brandon Cedel, Duncan Rock and David McFerrin (Photos from artist's websites)
Boston Lyric Opera’s season of rebels, dissenters and tales of strong women continues with Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, The entire series of operas is being led by women directors.
The Rape of Lucretia will feature a trio of barihunks, led by Duncan Rock as Tarquinius, Brandon Cedel as Collatinus and David McFerrin as Junius. They'll be joined by Kelley O’Connor as Lucretia, Margaret Lattimore as
Bianca, Sara Womble as Lucia, and Jesse Darden and Antonia Tamer as the Male Chorus and Female
Chorus. The opera runs from March 11-17 at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter in Boston's Fort Point Neighborhood. Tickets are available online.
Brandon Cedel & Duncan Rock rehearsing (Photo: BLO)
Duncan Rock created a sensation when he performed the role of Tarquinius with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in a performance that was broadcast worldwide. He also performed the role at the Deutsche Oper Berlin to great acclaim. Rock made his U.S. stage debut the Boston Lyric Opera in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2015.
The opera tells the story of Lucretia, who is raped by the tyrant Tarquinius Superbus, ruler of Rome. Unable to live with the shame, Lucretia commits suicide. The action of the opera is commented on throughout by a Male and Female Chorus who occupy another dimension, at times narrating the story and at times voicing the thoughts of the different characters. The opera was not particularly well received by audiences or critics at the time, but the chamber opera has grown in popularity in recent years.
Duncan Rock rehearsing Tarquinius (Photo courtesy BLO)
Brandon Cedel is making his role debut as Collatinus. David McFerrin has been a regular at the Boston Lyric Opera, appearing as Ferguson in Burke & Hare, an Officer in Glass' In The Penal Colony, Kuligin in Katya Kabanova, Captain McFarlane in Lizzie Borden and Yamadori in Madam Butterfly.
Did you know that Duncan Rock started his musical career playing the
bagpipes, and that he also played basketball as well as the bass?
Our post on Edward Laurenson performing in The Rape of Lucretia prompted a reader to point out that Benjamin Britten's opera is also being performed in Lisbon with a singer who is new to us, André Baleiro. He'll be performing Tarquinius on December 5 and 10 at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlo.
He'll be joined by Christian Luján as Junius, Luís Rodrigues as Collatinusand Maria Luísa de Freitas in the title role.
André Baleiro began his musical and vocal studies at the age ten in Lisbon, Portugal. He completed his Bachelor in Choral Conducting at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa before heading to Berlin to study Voice at the University of the Arts in Berlin.
André Baleiro performs the Das Lied International Song Competition:
He is a frequent collaborator with the Kammeroper München, where made his debut as Figaro in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Some of his operatic experience includes Don Parmenione in Rossini's L’occasione fa il ladro at Teatro Pérez Galdós in Las Palmas, Conte Belfiore in Sarti's Fra due litiganti il terzo gode, and the Captain in Bohuslav Martinů's Les trois Souhaits at the Universität der Künste Berlin.
In 2012 he was awarded a scholarship by the Walter & Charlotte Hamel Foundation in Hamburg, and was sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon from 2012-2015.
He can next be seen in recital at the Museu Francisco Tavares Proença Jr. on December 13th. He'll be performing music by Joly Braga Santos, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ruy Coelho, Caio Facó, Fernando Lopes-Graça, Luiz de Freitas Branco, Armando José Fernandes and Cláudio Carnevro. Tickets are available online.
ONLY 28 DAYS LEFT TO ORDER our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!
The barihunk trio of Nathan Lay, Jeremy Kleeman and Simon Lobelson opened this weekend in the Sydney Chamber Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. This is the company's first production of the opera, which is being directed by Kip Williams, winner of the coveted Helpmann Award for his work as a director. Additional performances are on August 21, 22, 24, 25 and 26 and tickets and additional cast information can be found online.
We introduced Nathan Lay, who sings Tarquinius, to readers last year. He has won the National Liederfest, Australian Music Events’ Opera Scholar
of the Year, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria, placed third in
the Herald Sun Aria and won the 2016 Australian International Opera Award. He has performed with Opera Australia, Melbourne Opera,
and has recently completed the Victorian Opera Developing Artist
Program along with his Master of Music at The
University of Melbourne. He is featured prominently on Remembrance, a CD of songs and poems in memory of the soldiers that fought in World War One. During his time at Victorian Opera, he
performed in Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, Puss in Boots, La traviata, Hansel and Gretel, The Magic Pudding – The Opera, Richard Mills’ Remembrance, I Puritani, Weill’s Die sieben Todsünden featuring Meow Meow, Massenet's Cendrillon, and Mr. Mayor in Richard Mills’ world premiere of The Pied Piper.
Nathan Lay sings Britten's "Look! Through the port comes the moon astray":
We also introduced Jeremy Kleeman, who will be singing Collatinus, to readers last year after a reader submitted him to us. Kleeman is a graduate of Victorian Opera’s Developing Artist Program, and has a
Master of Music in Opera Performance and Bachelor of Music from the
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. In 2014 and 2015, Jeremy was a
scholar with Melba Opera Trust on the Joseph Sambrook Opera Scholarship,
and was the 2016 recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award. Upcoming engagements will include soloist in the Duruflé Requiem with the Melbourne Bach Choir, Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea with Pinchgut Opera and soloist in Nielsen’s Symphony no. 3 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Roles with the Victorian Opera have included Lord Valton in I puritani, Marquis D’Obigny in La traviata, Rapunzel’s Prince in Into the Woods, Jonas Fogg in Sweeney Todd, Mother in Seven Deadly Sins and Albert the Pudding in the Green
Room award-winning world premiere The Magic Pudding – The Opera.
Simon Lobelson has been featured three times on Barihunks, dating back to 2008! He was born in Sydney to Egyptian parents and spent his childhood in Brussels before moving to Australia. He received his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sydney and his postgraduate degree at London’s Royal College of Music. He was a finalist in the 2011 Wagner Society Competition and a Tait Memorial Trust 2011 Thornton Foundation Award recipient. He is also a coach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Lobelson has performed over 70 operatic roles including Doctor Falke in Die Fledermaus, Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Geôlier in Dialogues des Carmélites, Osmin in Mozart’s Zaide, and Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff. His recordings include The Sofa, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Nicolai Mass with the Israel Camerata, The Fairy Queen and Charpentier’s David et Jonathas. He has also been featured on broadcasts for Classic FM, Fine Music FM, Foxtel and
BBC Radio 3, as well as soundtracks to exhibitions at both the Australian and
British Museums, and on the inflight soundtrack for British Airways and
Qantas flights.
Austrian barihunk Thomas Weinhappel was nominated for a Thalia Award for his portrayal of the title role in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at the National Opera of Ostrava. Weinhappel was nominated in the category "Best Opera Singer" for a performance at a Czech opera company in 2016.
The Thalia Awards are presented by the Czech Actors' Association and are named after the muse of comedy. Awards are given out for theater, opera, musicals and ballet. Past winners have inlcuded Eva Urbanová, Dagmar Pecková and Kate Aldrich.
The award ceremony will be broadcast on Czech television and radio from the Czech National State Opera on March 25.
Thomas Weinhappel as Joseph Calicot in Madame Pompadour
He also took some pictures for us in his Barihunk tee shirt during rehearsals for Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at the National Opera of Ostrava. He will be performing the role of Tarquinius with fellow barihunk Lukas Barak as Junius. Performances run from February 16-April 19. During March, he'll also be singing the role of Joseph Calicot in Leo Fall's Madame Pompadour in Baden.
