Jenna Siladie & Jarrett Ott(Photo by Richard Termine)
Beards are clearly one of the hottest trends in the world right now, especially amongst so-called hipsters. They're so popular that the Retail Times maintains that the biggest drop in retail sales this year is for personal grooming products, particularly razors. The trend has clearly hit the opera stage, where some pretty epic beards are hitting the stage this month.
The Gotham Chamber Opera has given barihunk a beard to compete with Washington Nationals player Jayson Werth's crumb catcher. The innovative company is returning to the music of Bohuslav Martinů, which they performed to sold out shows in 2003 with their double-bill of Les larmes du couteau and Hlas lesa. This time they're back with another double-bill featuring Alexandre bis and Comedy on the Bridge.
The plot of Alexandre bisactually revolves around a beard, as a man decides to test his wife’s fidelity by shaving off his beard and posing as his own cousin from Texas. Comedy on the Bridge tells the story of two rival principalities separated by a river.
Peformances will be on October 14, 16, 17 and 18 at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College in New York City. Tickets are available online. Also in the cast is Joseph Beutel, who has appeared regularly on this site
Philippe Sly as Ormonte
On the opposite coast, the San Francisco Opera has added a giant soup saver to the baby face of barihunk Philippe Sly in Handel's Partenope. The young Canadian, who practically stole the show in last season's Cosi fan tutte, will be singing the role of Ormonte, captain of Partenope's guard.
The opera opens on October 15 and runs through November 2. Tickets and additional cast information are available online. During the month of December, Sly will return to his native country to perform in Handel's Messiah withthe Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Jarrett Ott(Photo Steve Riskind) & Joseph Beutel(Photo Kelly Kruse)
Gotham Chamber Opera has announced their new season, which includes the 2014/2015 season, which includes the Bohuslav Martinu double-bill Alexandre bis/Comedy on the Bridge, as well as a revival of their popular El gato con botas (Puss in Boots) by Xavier Montsalvatge.
The Martinu pieces are short comic operas that will star barihunks Jarrett Ott as Alexandre/Sykos and Joseph Beutel as Portrait/Bedron.
Alexandre bis (Alexander Twice) is a surrealist comic opera in one act composed in 1937 to an original libretto written in French by André Wurmser. The opera was intended for performance at the Paris World Exhibition of 1937. However, various delays, including World War II, prevented its performance during the composer's lifetime. The opera is subtitled 'The Tragedy of a Man who Had His Beard Cut', and the surrealist libretto is set in Paris about 1900. Although Martinů had asked Wurmser for a libretto including a singing cat, he compromised on Wurmser's suggestion of a singing portrait, which acts as narrator to a tale of bourgeois infidelity.
Comedy on the Bridge tells the story of two rival principalities
separated by a river. A woman returning from one side gets caught in the
middle by a bureaucratic snafu; soon she's joined in this absurdist
limbo by a letch, a fiancé, a vengeful wife, and a schoolmaster with a
riddle. Everyone has a secret, but no one has a clue - except the
composer, who gets them all happily sorted by the end.
Also in the cast are Jenna Siladie, Abigail Fischer, Cassandra Velasco and Jason Slayden. Performances run from October 14 - 18, 2014 and tickets are available online or by calling 212-279-4200.
Craig Verm
Check out our previous post about Xavier Montsalvatge's El gato con botas (Puss in Boots), which was a huge success for Gotham Opera. They are bringing back barihunk Craig Verm for the revival, in a cast that includes Andrea Carroll, Ginger Costa-Jackson, Karin Mushegain, Craig Verm, and Kevin Burdette.
The work is an operatic version of the classic children’s tale in which a
charismatic and cunning cat promises a poor miller everlasting love and
fortune. All he needs to pull off his ruse are a hat, a cape, a pair of
boots, and his wits.
Craig Verm in Il combattimento (Photo by Richard Termine) and from the Barihunks calendar
The Gotham Chamber Opera is presenting
a double bill of Monteverdi's Il combattimento
di Tancredi e Clorindaalong with a newly commissioned
work, I Have No Stories to Tell
You, by Lembit Beecher. Performances are on Wednesday, February 26 and Thursday, February 27, 2014 at 7pm at The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, who co-commissioned the production.
The performances will be staged in
two locations in the Museum: Monteverdi’s opera will be performed in the Museum’s
Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court, and Beecher’s new work will
be performed in the Medieval Sculpture Hall.
Barihunk Craig Verm stars in the production along with mezzo-soprano Beth Clayton. They will be joined by tenor Samuel Levine, mezzo-soprano Abigail Fischer, soprano Sarah
Tucker, and mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway.
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda from the Netherlands Opera:
Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda was
published in 1638 in the composer’s Eighth Book of Madrigals. This operatic scena tells the story of the Christian
soldier Tancredi who battles with a Muslim soldier, unknown to Tancredi as his
lover Clorinda because she is disguised in armor. When Clorinda is mortally
wounded, Tancredi discovers her identity. As she lies dying, she asks to be
baptized. The instrumentation for the scena
is string quartet and continuo.
I Have No Stories To Tell You, turns
from the battlefield to domestic life to tell the story of a soldier’s return
home after extended assignment in the Middle East. Haunted by her experiences
and reluctant to discuss them with a husband who no longer seems to understand
her, she struggles to readjust to home. As we see glimpses into her life over
the course of a year, we begin to understand the burden of guilt she carries,
her inability to communicate it with her husband, and the way in which her
husband's need to know will drive their relationship to the brink. Scored for a
period instrument ensemble and inspired by interviews with soldiers and army
psychologists, I Have No Stories To Tell You explores the
effects of war on one's identity and sense of home. The instrumentation for the
opera is string quartet, theorbo, harpsichord, Baroque oboe, and electronics.
The ascendant Gotham Chamber Opera will present the New York stage premiere of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers in partnership with the Choir of Trinity Wall
Street and Trinity Baroque Orchestra. Apollo, the god of beauty and the sun, will be performed by barihunk John Brancy. Joining him in the cast will be Daniel
Curran as Orphée, Jeff Beruan as Pluton, and Jamilyn Manning-White as
Eurydice.
Charpentier’s 1686 opera retells the story of Orpheus who,
upon learning of Eurydice’s sudden death, descends to Hades in order to
convince Pluto to allow her to return with him to earth. The
story of selfless love and the power of music to overcome death is being
staged by Andrew Eggert at St. Paul’s Chapel near the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Costume designs are by Vita Tzykun, who happens to be the partner of barihunk David Adam Moore.
John Brancy's winning performance at the 2013 Marilyn Horne Song Competition:
Tickets and additional information is available online.
Charpentier (1643-1704) was one the most important French composers of his generation and a premiere composer of French oratorios. His work is marked by its lyricism, skilled polyphony, and sensitive use of harmonic resources. In addition to his oratorios and sixteen operas, Charpentier composed 12 masses, elaborate motets with chorus, a Te Deum, a Magnificat and other works.
In 2014, Brancy can be seen as Harlequin in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos with Pacific Opera Victoria and Sonora in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West with Oper Frankfurt.
We recently introduced Aaron Sørensen to readers when he was appearing with the Fort Worth Opera Festival. Now New Yorkers are going to get a chance to experience this gifted and sexy young bass. He'll be appearing at (le) Poisson Rouge in an evening of music including Purcell, Gounod, Britten, Verdi, Mahler, and John Adams.
Gotham Chamber Opera and composer-in-residence Missy Mazzoli's band Victoire will be featuring Sorenson along with soprano Angela Fout, mezzo-soprano Abby Fischer and tenor Matthew Tuell in a night of music spanning 350 years. The show is on Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 7:30pm (doors
open at 6:30pm) at 158 Bleecker Street in New York City. Tickets
are $15-$25 and are available online.
Aaron Sørensen will be returning to the Fort Worth Opera Festival next season as the French General in Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night.
New York City's Gotham Chamber Opera announced its 2013-2014 season, which we found to be one of the most innovative and interesting programs that we've seen for the coming year. It aslo happens to feature two of our favorite barihunk calendar models, Michael Mayes and Craig Verm.
The season begins with Michael Mayes in Baden-Baden 1927, a staged evening of four one-act operas that appeared together at the Baden-Baden Festival in 1927. Those operas are Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel, Paul Hindemith's Hin und zurück (There and Back), Darius Milhaud's L'enlèvement d'Europe (The Abduction of Europa), and Ernst Toch's Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse (The Princess and the Pea).
Joining Mayes in the all-star cast will be legendary soprano Helen Donath, soprano Maeve Höglund, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera (wife of barihunk Michael Rice), tenors Daniel Montenegro and Matthew Tuell and bass John Cheek.
Craig Verm from the 2013 Barihunks calendar
Next up is Craig Verm, who will be featured in an opera double-bill of Claudio Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and the world premiere of I Have No Stories to Tell You, a newly-commissioned work from Gotham's Composer-in-Residence, Lembit Beecher. Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda was published in 1638 in the composer's Eight Book of Madrigals. I Have No Stories To Tell You, tells the story of a photojournalist's return home after extended assignment in the Middle East.
Other operas scheduled are Toshio Hosakawa's The Raven, a monodrama for mezzo-soprano and twelve instrumentalists and Charpentier's La descente d'Orphée aux enfers.
For more information on the season visit the Gotham Chamber Opera website.
Gotham Chamber Opera begins its 2012-2013 season with GOTHAM @ LPR: ORIENTALE, a collaboration with Company XIV and MAYA, featuring the artists of Gotham Chamber Opera. The program will include Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, along with music by Rameau, Lully, Szymanowski, Delibes, Schumann, Bizet, John Hadfield, and traditional Armenian music.
Michael Kelly and Zach Altman, two barihunks who have been featured regularly on this site, will perform along with soprano Maeve Höglund and Jennifer Rivera (wife of barihunk and OperaNow! podcaster Michael Rice).
The show will be performed on Monday, October 1st and Wednesday, October 3rd at 8pm (doors open at 7pm) at (le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, NYC. Tickets are $15-$25 and are available online at www.lepoissonrouge.com.
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (SV 153) is an operatic scena for three voices by Claudio Monteverdi, although many dispute how the piece should be classified. The piece has a libretto drawn from Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme Liberata ("Jerusalem Delivered", Canto XII, 52-62, 64-68), a Romance set against the backdrop of the First Crusade. Il Combattimento was first produced in 1624 but not printed until 1638, when it appeared with several other pieces in Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals (written over a period of many years).
In Il Combattimento the orchestra and voices form two separate entities. The strings are divided into four independent parts instead of the usual five – an innovation that was not generally adopted by European composers until the 18th century. Il combattimento contains one of the earliest known uses of pizzicato in baroque music, in which the players are instructed to set down their bows and use two fingers of their right hand to pluck the strings. It also contains one of the earliest uses of the string tremolo, in which a particular note is reiterated as a means of generating excitement. This latter device was so revolutionary that Monteverdi had considerable difficulty getting the players of his day to perform it correctly. These innovations, like the fourfold division of the strings, were not taken up by Monteverdi’s contemporaries or immediate successors.
Zach Altman just wrapped up a run as Zurga in Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" at Opera San Jose, where he is one of the resident artists. He will open as Dr. Falke in Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" on November 10th.
On October 6th, Michael Kelly will be appearing at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City in "Hommage a Debussy" - a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great French composer. On October 21st, he'll perform Durufle's glorious Requiem at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. before heading off for three performances of Orff's Carmina Burana with the Kansas City Symphony in November.
We recently ran a post about the U.S. premiere of Xavier Montsalvatge's opera “El Gato Con Botas” (“Puss in Boots”) at the New Victory Theater.
Here is the New York Times review. We particularly love the New York Post review by the beloved James Jorden, which describes Verm as a barihunk, defined as "a grand opera voice in a soap opera body." That's a classic line, which we can already admit will be recycled. You can read Jordan's review HERE.
Barihunk Steven Labrie will alternate performances with Craig Verm.
The Gotham Chamber Opera in collaboration with the Tectonic Theater Project is presenting Xavier Montsalvatge's operatic telling of the children's classic El gato con botas (Puss in Boots). The performances run from October 2-10 at the New Victory Theater, 209 W. 42nd Street in New York City.
This world premiere performance will feature barihunks Craig Verm and Steven LaBrie alternating roles. The work is an operatic version of the classic children’s tale in which a charismatic and cunning cat promises a poor miller everlasting love and fortune. All he needs to pull off his ruse are a hat, a cape, a pair of boots, and his wits.
L to R: Craig Verm, Jonothon Lyons, Stefano Brancato, Ginger Costa-Jackson
The opera will be directed by Moisés Kaufman, founder of Tectonic Theater Project and conducted by Neal Goren, founder of Gotham Chamber Opera. The production also features the London puppet masters Blind Summit Theatre, which dazzled audiences at The Met in Anthony Minghella’s "Madama Butterfly."
Fans of this site will recall that the Gotham Chamber Opera presented Haydn's "L’isola disabitata (Desert Island) with some extremely sexy pictures of a shirtless Tom Corbeil.
The posting of our hot barihunks bench continues with the stunning Tom Corbeil and some more pictures from the Gotham Chamber Opera's production of Joseph Haydn’s "L’isola disabitata (Desert Island)." You can find the earlier post at http://barihunks.blogspot.com/search?q=corbeil.
Corbeil is another in a long line of barihunks coming out of San Francisco's Merola Opera Program, like our previous barihunk Paul La Rosa.
I'm sure that all of us are grateful to the Gotham Chamber Opera for these pictures. If you're in the New York area make sure to support this company. The production continues through February 28. For more information click here: www.gothamchamberopera.org.
[Top three photos of Tom Corbeil courtesy of Gotham Opera, with soprano Takesha Meshé Kizart; bottom photo courtesy of SF Opera]
The most common email that I get is someone pitching a barihunk. Nine out of ten times, it's a non-starter and usually someone who belongs on BariChunks, not BariHunks.
So imagine my joy in finding Tom Corbeil in my inbox. It didn't take long for me to realize that I'd already seen him as part of San Francisco Opera's young artist program, Merola. With apologies to La Cieca and her definition of a barihunk that appears at the bottom of this blog, the Merola program seems to be pumping out more barihunks than anyone and they can actually sing! Other Merolinis on this site include fan favorite Daniel Okulitch, Lee Poulis, Ben Wager, Eugene Brancoveanu and emerging superstar John Relyea.
Tom Corbeil was not only a standout at Merola, but he has also won awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council and Musical Merit Foundation. He also studied with the great Virginia Zeani.
His current gig is with the Gotham Chamber Opera in Joseph Haydn’s "L’isola disabitata (Desert Island)." Perhaps the title explains the lusciously revealing outfit (it can't always be Pearl Fishers). The performance is staged by Mark Morris and will run from February 18-28 at John Jay College in New York City. For more information, visit www.gothamchamberopera.org.
