Watch Barihunks Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Mattia Olivieri at Berlin AIDS Gala

Mattia Olivieri & Edwin Crossley-Mercer at Berlin AIDS Gala

On November 5th, barihunk Edwin Crossley-Mercer performed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin's 22nd Grand Opera Gala in support of the AIDS Foundation. The event also features fellow barihunks Andrea Mastroni and Mattia Olivieri, as well as soprano Patrizia Ciofi, tenor Gregory Kunde and a host of other operatic luminaries.

Of course, we had to post our favorite barihunks for your viewing pleasure. If you speak German, you will enjoy the humorous introductions by legendary bandleader and singer Max Raabe.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer sings Mozart's "Madamina il catalogo è questo delle bello"

Michael Spyres & Edwin Crossley-Mercer sing Bizet's "Au fond du temple saint":

Mattia Olivieri sings Rossini's "Largo al factotum della città!":

Crossley-Mercer is so popular with our readers that we asked him to appear in our upcoming 2017 "Barihunks in Bed" calendar, which he graciously agreed to do. We hired a photographer in France to take a photo and made him our December feature, since his stunning prematurely gray hair evoked a perfect wintry night. You can purchase a copy ONLINE.

Glenn Seven Allen & Edwin Crossley-Mercer

Opera San José adds two barihunks to repertory roster

Colin Ramsey (Photo by Richard Corman)

Opera San José is adding four new singers to its roster for the 2016-17 season, including barihunks Brian James Meyer and Colin Ramsey. Ramsey is familiar to our readers, having appeared numerous times, but Meyer is making his debut. The company is a resident company that keeps singers on its roster for the season like many European houses.

However, Brian James Myer is not new to Opera San José, having performed Masetto in Don Giovanni during the 2013-14 season, Angelotti in Tosca in 2015-16 season, Alessandro/Enrico in the world premiere of Where Angels Fear to Tread and the Second Priest in The Magic Flute.

Meyer made his debut with the Florida Grand Opera this season. He has also performed Papageno in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Silvio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci with Sarasota Opera, Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni Opera Las Vegas, Yakuside in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Albert in Douglas Moore’s The Ballad of Baby Doe with Chautauqua Opera. This season at Florida Grand Opera, he will be seen as Figaro in performances of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville.

Brian James Myer

He holds a bachelors’ degrees in music education and romance languages from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a master’s degree in vocal performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is also a composer who has published a choral octavo that was performed by Santa Barbara Music.

Bass-barihunk Colin Ramsey will be performing Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and Basilio in Rossini's Barber of Seville with Opera San José. On May 22, he'll be performing the National Anthem at the USA Water Polo Olympic Trials at the University of Southern California. 

Colin Ramsey sings the Catalog Aria from Don Giovanni:

He has performed Mr. Kofner in Menotti's The Consul at both the Seattle Opera and Opera Santa Barbara. He made his debut with the Austin Lyric Opera as Il Frate in Verdi's Don Carlo, as well as his debut with Green Mountain Opera Festival as Alidoro in Rossini's La Cenerentola. He has also performed with Austin Lyric Opera, Sarasota Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Pacific Music Works, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. and Wolf Trap Opera.

Ramsey is a graduate of the Manhattan School of Music where he sang Giorgio in the US Premiere of Paisiello’s Nina, Bartolo in Le nozze di Figaro, and Sparafucile in Rigoletto.  He recently took 3rd Prize in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in the Rocky Mountain Region.

Henning von Schulman takes 2nd Place at Stenhammar Competition

Henning von Schulman

Baritones continued their streak of taking top prizes at international vocal competition, as Henning von Schulman, Alexander Sukhanov and Kyubong Lee took three of the seven prizes at the Wilhelm Stenhammar International Music Competition.

Swedish bass Henning von Schulman was the most consistent singer of the night and took 2nd place, finishing behind American mezzo Chrystal Williams, who brought the house down with her rendition of "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's Barber of Seville. The Swedish bass performed Mozart's Catalog Aria from Don Giovanni and Verdi's "Ella giammai m'amo" from Don Carlos.

Korean baritone Kyubong Lee won the coveted Stenhammar Prize for the best performance of one of the Swedish composer's songs. Russian baritone Alexander Sukhonov took 4th Prize and performed "O Carlo, ascolta" from Verdi's Don Carlos and "Kogda bi zhihn...Vymnia pichaly..." from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.

Henning von Schulman, trained at OperaAkademiet in Copenhagen where he graduated in the spring of 2013. He started his singing career in the well acclaimed Swedish male chorus Orphei Drängar, and continued on to study at the Vadstena Folkhögskola and the Malmö Academy of Music.

At the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen he has performed the prison guard in Puccini's Tosca and the messenger in Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten. He also performed Masetto and the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Danish Opera Academy.

This Fall, von Henning will sing Walton in Bellini's I Puritani at the Tivoli Festival, as well as Henrik in Carl Nielsen's Maskerade and Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Royal Danish Opera.