Theo Hoffman to perform free recital at Alice Tully Hall

When we first posted about Theo Hoffman, he was preparing for his performance as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze do Figaro at Julliard. We mentioned that he also had an upcoming recital, but we didn't have a date at the time. 

We've learned that he'll be performing as part of the Britten celebration with the Juilliard Songfest at Alice Tully Hall on December 3rd.  Hoffman will be joined by accompanist Brian Zeger to perform selections from Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Tickets are free and are available at the Juilliard box office.

Theo Hoffman sings Pierrot's Tanzlied from Korngold's "Die Tote Stadt":

This summer, Hoffman, who was a member of the 2013 Gerdine Young Artists at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, will perform the role of Thierry in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. The all-star cast will be led by Christine Brewer, Kelly Kaduce, Meredith Arwady,  David Porillo and fellow barihunk Troy Cook. Performances run from June 18-28 and tickets are available online.

Reader submission: Joa Helgesson

Joa Helgesson

Joa Helgesson, is our latest "reader submission" and he was submitted by a regular attendee at the Göteborgs Opera. He studied voice at the University College of Opera in Stockholm and studied acting at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. After his vocal studies in Stockholm he participated in young artist programs ae the National Opera Studio in London and the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House.

His roles have included Figaro in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Shaunard in Puccini's La boheme, Bill in Weill's Mahagonny, Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Francesco in Verdi's I Masnadieri and Arsamene in Handel's Xerxes.

Helgesson was awarded scholarships from institutions the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, Friends of Vadstena Academy and the Friends of Drottningholm Palace Theatre.

Joa Helgesson sings Largo al factotum:

He is currently performing Sharpless in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at the Stadttheater in Flensburg, Germany. There are performances running through February 14th. Additional information and tickets are available online. As soon as that run is over, he takes on Demetrius in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Performances run from February 15th to May 29th.

Cast Change: Jeremy Carpenter replaces Peter Coleman-Wright in ROH's Gloriana

Jeremy Carpenter

Australian baritone Peter Coleman-Wright has withdrawn from singing the role of Sir Robert Cecil for all performances of Britten's Gloriana. The role will now be sung by British baritone Jeremy Carpenter, marking his debut with The Royal Opera.

Jeremy Carpenter studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London under the tutelage of Ellis Keeler, Rudolf Piernay and David Pollard. He began the 2010/2011 season singing the role of Gérard in Andrea Chénier at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm with tremendous critical acclaim, followed by Belcore in L’elisir d’amore with the Angers Nantes Opéra. The last season included Escamillo in Carmen at the Royal Swedish Opera, followed by the same role at the Malmö Opera. During the current season he has returned to the Royal Swedish Opera for Carmen and sang Talpa in concert performances of Puccini's Il tabarro with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Harding. During the current spring he appears as Sharpless in Madama Butterfly at Grand Théâtre de Genève followed by Sir Robert Cecil in Britten's Gloriana at the ROH Covent Garden.

Tickets for Richard Jones’s new production of Gloriana went on sale last week and are available online. The production stars soprano Susan Bullock and tenor Toby Spence. Performances run from June 20th– July 6th.

Tarquinius Challenge

[Photos: Project Opera of Manhattan, © 2008 Ken Howard]

Within hours after posting David Krohn as Tarquinius, this picture of Michael Krzankowski appeared from a former colleague of his in Seattle. This person claims that Krzankowski is hotter than Krohn or Matthew Worth, who we have hailed as the ultimate Tarquinius.

Krzankowski is from Chicago and earned his Master’s degree from the acclaimed Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. He is currently performing Barone Douphol in Glimmerglass Opera’s production of La Traviata. In November, he will return to the Seattle Opera's Young Artist's Program to perform Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte and Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos.

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Does Matthew Worth Have a Challenger in David Krohn?

[Photos: Project Opera of Manhattan, © 2008 Ken Howard]

David Krohn lives in New York City, where he is pursuing his Master's degree at Juilliard. He has performed a number of small roles with the Baltimore Opera.

Krohn is currently at the Aspen Music Festival singing the sexy role of Tarquinius with Jane Glover conducting. He had previously performed the role with Peabody Opera, but wearing substantially more clothing. Barihunks has a message to directors: Tarquinius should be shirtless and hunky, especially in the rape scene! If ever there was a moment to show some justifiable skin in opera, this is it (and David Krohn proves this point). The picture on the bottom is from Peabody and the others are from Aspen. Which performance would you rather see?

Krohn has performed the role of the Prison Inmate in Jake Heggie’s “Dead Man Walking” and we can’t wait for him to graduate to the role of Joseph De Rocher. He’s done some Mozart and other Britten roles, so I suspect that we’ll be seeing more of him on this site.

You can find out about show times at Aspen Music Festival, but good luck finding out about the cast. This is a disturbing trend, as Barihunks was sent a notice about the Banff Summer Arts Festival, which had some operas that might have included some great material for this site. However, there isn’t a cast list in sight and when we emailed them they replied that they couldn’t find one either.

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FINALLY! Pix of David Adam Moore from La Scala

Many thanks to one of our loyal readers for providing the long-awaited pictures of David Adam Moore from the Robert Carsen/Matthew Bourne production of Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream" at La Scala. These pictures affirm our suspicion that Moore would be the hottest Demetrius to ever grace the stage.

We're still looking for pictures of Daniel Okulitch as Theseus. Anyone?

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2 Barihunks and a Hunkentenor

[Photos by Ed Hille]

Barihunks waited eagerly for the production of Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia" to open at the Opera Company of Philadelphia. We even promoted it over a year ago when we first heard that Nathan Gunn would play the role of Tarquinius, a favorite at this site. Our excitement and anticipation increased when we learned that the role of Collatinus would be played by emerging barihunk Ben Wager. To top things off, the critical role of the Male Chorus was being played by the hunky William Burden, meaning that the Gunn/Burden partnership was returning that created one of the original barihunk/hunkentenor partnerships when they performed Pearl Fishers together topless.

We have to confess that we were a little disappointed when Phillie took much of the sexiness out of their portrayals dressing them like they were headed to Siberia in winter. We prefer our Rape of Lucretia like this: http://barihunks.blogspot.com/2009/04/some-more-matthew-worthshowing-some.html.

Nonetheless, we can't complain with two barihunks and a hunkentenor on the same stage. Even the Philadelphia Inquirer took note:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/magazine/20090604_Looking_as_good_as_they_sound.html

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The Popular Matthew Worth

[Top photo of Matthew Worth backstage after Owen Wingrave; Bottom photo from Rape of Lucretia at Chatauqua]

Matthew Worth is clearly popular with readers of Barihunks. He has had the most hits on this site for over a week. Unfortunately, all good things must come to and end and the run of Owen Wingrave at COT is over.

However, Matthew Worth will be singing more Britten this summer as he reprises his stunning performance in Rape of Lucretia at the Chatauqua Institution School of Music, where he will also sing Eugene Onegin. If you're near Atlanta, you can see him with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra perform the Carmina Burana and the Barber of Seville.

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Matthew Worth in COT's Owen Wingrave

There are still two remaining performances of Matthew Worth in the Chicago Opera Theater's production of Britten's Owen Wingrave. If you can't make it to Chicago, then you can enjoy the trailer posted above.

For more information visit: www.chicagooperatheater.org

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Barihunks in a Fishing Village: Phares and Okulitch

[Top photos of Daniel Okulitch; Keith Phares photos by Dario Acosta]

Although Benjamin Britten operas provide this site with a plethora of barihunks, it usually doesn't come from the magnificent opera Peter Grimes. Usually, it's The Rape of Lucretia, Midsummer Night's Dream or Billy Budd that provide us with the most scintillating pictures.

One of our readers sent us a picture of Keith Phares with a note that he found him the hottest singer in the production, despite Daniel Okulitch's portrayal of Swallow [stop giggling]. Our view is that they're both hot singers, even dressed up as fishing town villagers.

Opera News profiled Keith Phares and wrote:

Keith Phares...started making music as a trumpet player in the pit orchestra of his New Jersey high school's annual musical. After the baritone and his family moved to North Carolina, Phares kept up his trumpet playing, but his senior year brought his first taste of center-stage stardom. "The school had no orchestra. They said, 'We need guys. Can you audition?' And believe it or not, I got cast as Emile de Becque in South Pacific."

Phares entered the University of Richmond as a psychology major, but a summer-stock gig in The Secret Garden set him on the path to serious vocal study and stints at New England Conservatory and Juilliard Opera Center. He made his Opera Theatre of Saint Louis debut in 1999, as the Second Noble in Paul Schoenfield's The Merchant and the Pauper, and was soon tapped by the company for two high-profile assignments that showed off his warm, supple baritone and wry, uncommonly expressive command of text — Pip in Dominick Argento's revised Miss Havisham's Fire (2001) and Charles Lindbergh in the world premiere of Loss of Eden (2002).

It was in Saint Louis that Phares's eye was caught by mezzo Patricia Risley, who sang Estella to his Pip in Miss Havisham. "When we met, I figured that she was so far out of my league, professionally and personally, that I didn't have a prayer. That changed." They were married in 2004, and they try to sing together when their schedules allow. "It's great working with her — we don't dicker about dumb things."

Phares's leading-man looks belie his affinity for off-beat, modern roles such as Charlie in the 2008 world premiere of Jake Heggie's Last Acts (Three Decembers) at Houston Grand Opera (an assignment he repeats next season at San Francisco Opera); the Pilot in The Little Prince at New York City Opera and Boston Lyric Opera (2005); Chou En-Lai in Portland Opera's 2006 Nixon in China ("I feel comfortable being the wingman"); and the barnstorming preacher in the world premiere of Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry at Nashville Opera (2007). "That was a great big punishing sing — it was wild. I don't think of myself as a real alpha-male type, but as Elmer, I had a blast.

You can search this site for information on Daniel Okulitch, who has been a regular feature and a fan favorite.

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Red-Headed Ryan de Ryke

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days, but my internet service was down. After the Hottest Barihunk competition, I figured it's time to start looking at the barihunk bench. There are a number of major hunks emerging on the operatic scene and I want to shere them with you over the next week.

I recently received an email from someone who heard Ryan de Ryke in recital. They called him "tall, red-headed and someone you can't take your eyes off of." Well that got me googling pretty quick, so you be the judge.

De Ryke has appeared in a number of barihunks standards including Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and our beloved Monteverdi and Mozart operas, which supply us with numerous barihunk images. He's rapidly establishing himself as an early music specialist and lieder recitalist of note, as witnessed from this beautiful clip of Schubert lieder.

De Ryke studied at the Britten-Pears Institute and his teachers have included Ian Partridge at the Royal Academy of Music and John Shirley-Quirk at the Peabody Conservatory.

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A Midsummer Night's "Dreamy" Cast at La Scala

[Top photo Okulitch in The Fly; center photo, Okulitch in Dead man Walking; Bottom photo by David Gribbin of David Adam Moore]

If you don't have summer travel plans yet, you might want to consider booking a flight to Milan between June 6-17. The Teatro alla Scala will be performing Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with two barihunks, David Adam Moore and Daniel Okulitch. The rest of the cast is pretty impressive as well, with countertenor David Daniels, sopranos Rosemary Joshua and Erin Wall, and Andrew Davis in the pit.

You can visit the La Scala website at www.teatroallascala.org.

For those of you who missed it the first time, I'm reposting the picture of Daniel Okultich from The Fly. It was the most viewed picture on this site over the Christmas holidays, so most of you were being naughty, not nice.

Okulitch can next be seen in Vancouver singing Escamillo in Carmen. For more information, click here: http://www.vancouveropera.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184&Itemid=15. David Adam Moore is next performing Zurga in The Pearl Fishers at the Seattle Opera. For more information, click here: http://www.seattleopera.org/tickets/2008-2009/fishers/artists.aspx.

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Teddy Down Under

Teddy Tahu Rhodes is back in his homeland of New Zealand after taking America by storm. The super sexy barihunks has dozens of new fans after showing off his physical and vocal talents in Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. He returns to the United States on June 11 and 13 at the Cincinnati Opera playing Count Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro(http://www.cincinnatiopera.com/performances).


You can contact this site at barihunks@gmail.com

Christopher Maltman as Tarquinius in "The Rape of Lucretia"

It looks like Christopher Maltman is spending as much time at the gym as with his scores. He sounds great and looks even better. Maltman is BUFF!

Quirijn de Lang

Barihunks readers will remember Quirijn de Lang from the steamy photos on this site from his portrayal as Escamillo in La Tragédie de Carmen. He is currently singing Count Robinson in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto at the Scottish Opera in Glasgow.

I recently discovered his MySpace page where you can enjoy his singing while staring at these lovely pictures.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=403897582

Craig Verm

Craig Verm established his reputation with the Pittsburgh Opera and set hearts aflutter with his shirtless portrayal of the Novice’s Friend in Britten’s Billy Budd [center photo]. That same season he portrayed Mercutio in Gounod’s Romeo & Juliette with the company, who has one of the better eyes for barihunk talent.

After a run of Gordon’s Grapes of Wrath in Pittsburgh, he heads to Italy to sing in two of our favorite operas at Barihunks, Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.

We hope to see a lot more of Verm and thank a reader for tipping us off to this up and comer. If you have a barihunk that you'd like to see on the site, email me at barihunks@gmail.com.

"Teddy Bare" Puts His (Terence) Stamp on "Billy Budd"

The pictures are finally in from Teddy Tahu Rhodes' debut in Billy Budd in Sante Fe. Needless to say, he is getting rave reviews and looking rather cute in his sailor's outfit. A reviewer at RedOrbit even likened him to the original from the movies.

And while vocal suitability should always be first and foremost in the casting of any opera, it must be said, he looks the part splendidly, not unlike the young Terence Stamp who played the role in the 1962 film version of the story.

His final, "Farewell to ye, old Rights of Man" is the emotional peak of the production.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes featured in Opera News

The feature in this month's Opera News is titled, "Too Darn Hot."

Truer words were never spoken.