Philippe Sly Featured; Sidney Outlaw Carnegie Hall Announcement

Philippe Sly

Philippe Sly was recently featured in La Scena Musicale as one of opera's major new talents. 

With his superb voice, leading man good looks and astounding charisma, bass-baritone Philippe Sly has rapidly seduced a considerable part of his Montreal International Musical Competition audience. Yet it still came as a surprise when the young singer walked away with almost all of the prizes. 

This last year has been very fruitful for the 23-year-old artist. He was one of the 2011 winners of the famed Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Radio-Canada’s 2012-2013  “Révélations” in the classical music category, and the Radios francophones publiques’ Young Soloist prize winner. For the MIMC, Sly picked different styles of works and sang them with restraint, hoping that his personality would shine through. He even closed his performance on a meditative note with an excerpt from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. [Continued HERE]

Philippe Sly will record his first album in September with pianist Michael McMahon for Analekta Records. Among the pieces will be Dichterliebe; Quatre Poèmes d’après l’Intermezzo d’Heinrich Heine by French composer Guy Ropartz, based on the same Lyrisches Intermezzo by Heine that inspired Schumann; Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, and Three Tennyson Songs, composed for Sly by his friend, the English composer Jonathan Dove. A second CD, of Rameau’s Cantatas with soprano Hélène Guilmette, harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour and a small ensemble will follow the version performed in concert on September 30 at Bourgie Hall. 

Sydney Outlaw

Sydney Outlaw, another amazing young talent and fellow participant in San Francisco's Merola Opera Program, recently announced that he'll be performing at Carnegie Hall on January 17th. The gifted recitalist will perform lieder by Richard Strauss, Vaughn Williams' "The House of Life" and some Cole Porter and George Gershwin songs. 

We've had the great fortune of hearing Outlaw in recital and we highly recommend this concert. Click HERE for tickets and additional concert information.

Chicago Tribune Coverage of Barihunk Nozze

[John Relyea & Nathan Gunn]

We provided some advance coverage for Ravinia's current festival, including the recent cast changes to Le Nozze di Figaro. Ravinia is always a wonderful place to enjoy great music with family and friends and this year is no exception.

We were pleased to see that the Chicago Tribune's respected music critic John von Rhein not only enjoyed the performance where John Relyea replaced Ildebrando d'Arcangelo, but he referred to two of the singers as "barihunks" in his review:

I was even more taken with Oropesa, the bright-voiced, very musical singer who played the chambermaid Susanna. Her sharpwitted and beautifully sung portrayal was a smooth fit with John Relyea's amused and amusing manservant, Figaro. A big man with a deep, sonorous bass-baritone, he was a pillar of vocal and dramatic strength in a role completely different from the sardonic devil he played in Berlioz's "Damnation of Faust" last season at Lyric. One would never have guessed he was a late replacement for the indisposed Ildebrando D'Arcangelo.

The show's other "barihunk," Illinois baritone Nathan Gunn, brought manly elegance to Almaviva's music, playing the wayward aristocrat as a handsome seducer who realizes his days of aristocratic privilege in the bedroom are numbered.

We don't have any video or photos yet from Ravinia, but here is a selection from YouTube of Nathan Gunn singing from the Barber of Seville with tenor John Osborn. Gunn remains one of the most viewed barihunks on our site and appears to have what amounts to a cult following.



The Ravinia Festival runs through September 7th and you can still see Annie Get Your Gun, Kiri te Kanawa, Nelly Furtado, Counting Crows, the Beach Boy and Train.

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Daniel Okulitch Heads Home

After a highly-acclaimed performance in New York City Opera's "Don Giovanni," Daniel Okulitch returns to his native Canada to perform Friedrich in Mark Adamo's "Little Women." The production at the Calgary Opera opens on January 30th. The only downside is that he will be wearing a lot more clothing than in Don Giovanni. However, as this new photo will attest, he's still pretty damn sexy, even dressed for the Canadian tundra.

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A SEXY Don Giovanni at New York City Opera

If this is the look of the George Steel era at New York City Opera then we at Barihunks heartily approve. There was a lot of controversy and discussion about his hiring, particularly amongst opera aficionados on the East Coast. From what we heard from people who had worked with him, we knew all along that he would make the "People's Opera" interesting and he's lived up to his reputation.


[Jason Hardy as Leporello and Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]


[Joélle Harvey as Zerlina and Kelly Markgraf as Masetto; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]

Here is how City Opera described this new production:

Visionary director Christopher Alden reimagines this masterwork in a thrilling new production which explores the intersection of dark eroticism and strict Spanish-Catholic tradition in the early 20th century. Rising star Daniel Okulitch makes his City Opera debut as the notorious antihero.

[Jason Hardy as Leporello, Keri Alkema as Donna Elvira, Kelly Markgraf as Masetto, Joélle Harvey as Zerlina, Gregory Turay as Don Ottavio and Stefania Dovhan as Donna Anna; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]


[Jason Hardy as Leporello; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]


[Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]

Don Giovanni provides a lot of material for this site and we're grateful for some wonderful new images from NYCO. For more information visit the New York City Opera website. The production runs through November 22nd.


[Clockwise: Kelly Markgraf as Masetto, Gregory Turay as Don Ottavio, Keri Alkema as Donna Elvira, Stefania Dovhan as Donna Anna, Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni (center), Jason Hardy as Leporello and Joélle Harvey as Zerlina; Photo by © Carol Rosegg]

It is important the New York City has two major opera companies and this production shows why. City Opera will put on productions that one will never see at the Met. If you're in the New York, we encourage you to support this new regime which is working its way back to financial viability.

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Emerging Barihunk Mike Nyby Featured in Newspaper

Emerging barihunk Mike Nyby is featured in the Hamilton Spectator.

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Ramin Karimloo's Racy Testicular Cancer Ad

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Ramin Karimloo: Baritone?

We will never pass up the opportunity to post the picture of shirtless barihunk, even if we're quibbling with some relevant fact. First, the headline of the Toronto Globe & Mail article refers to Ramin Karimloo as a baritone. We went onto his site and it was a 3-0 vote that he's a tenor. But for the moment. let's trust his agent and the Canadian press. (Listen for yourself at: http://www.raminkarimloo.net/home.html.

Then there is the small matter of this site being dedicated to opera singers. The closet Karimloo has gotten to an opera performance is a few gigs on stage singing Gilbert & Sullivan. He is currently Andrew Lloyd Webber's handpicked choice to star in his follow up to Phantom of the Opera - Love Never Dies.

We decided that we could quibble all we wanted about the facts, but at the end of the day we decided to post these delicious pictures. Barihunks readers can decide on their own if he's an operatic baritone. One thing I'm sure we can all agree on, he's one of the hottest men on stage today!

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