It's been a rough couple of weeks for Opera Australia with the entire music world focused on the Tamar Iveri scandal. Hopefully, that episode is in the dustbin of history. So we figured it's time for some good news out of the company and that would be the role debut of Rigoletto with barihunk Giorgio Caoduro at the Joan Sutherland Theatre.
It's not his first time performing the opera, as he appeared in the movie version of the opera, but as Marullo opposite Placido Domingo's Rigoletto. Performances kick off tonight and Caoduro will perform the role nine times between today and July 19th, when he turns the role over to fellow barihunk José Carbó, who performs the role from July 23-August 24 (Warwick Fyfe performs one night, as well).
The cast also includes two other barihunks, Sam Dundas as Ceprano and Luke Gabbedy as Marullo. Gilda will be taken on by house favorite Emma Matthews, who recently updated her Facebook page to show artist support for the LGBT community after the Tamar Iveri episode. A classy act if there ever was one.
Tickets for all performances are available online.
Sam Dundas
After his run as Rigoletto, Caoduro returns to his native Italy to portray Sulpice in Donizetti's La fille du régiment at the Teatro Massimo di Palermo in the famed Franco Zeffirelli production. Performances run from September 17-24.
A little over a week ago, we posted about barihunks Bryan Watson and Giorgio Caoduro being nominated for Helpmann Awards for their performances in a leading role in opera. Also nominated in the category of "Best Male Performer in a Supporting
Role in an Opera" were barihunks Sam Dundas for his portrayal of
Marcello in La bohème at Opera Australia and José Carbó as Fritz in Die Tote Stadt at Opera Australia. Also nominated were, Wolf Matthias Friedrich for L'Orfeo at the Brisbane Festival and Douglas McNicol for Fidelio at the State Opera of South Australia.
The Helpmann Awards are the Australian equivalent of Broadway's Tony Awards and
London's Laurence Olivier Awards. They recognize distinguished artistic
achievement
and excellence in live
performances in Australia, including musical theatre, contemporary
music,
comedy, cabaret, opera, classical music, theatre, dance and physical
theatre.
José Carbó discusses and sings his aria 'Tanzlied des Pierrots' from Die tote Stadt:
Dundas was a member of the Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist program at Opera Australia. In 2009, he made his role debut as Don Giovanni in Victorian Opera’s production of the Mozart classic. He is currently performing as the Jailer in Puccini's Tosca at Opera Australia. which runs through August 31st. He then is featured in a number of consecutive performances at Opera Australia. He opens next week as Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, which will run from July 18-August 15. The day after that run wraps up, he opens as Sid in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring.
Dundas is also featured on a new recording of Brahms' German Requiem with the ChorusOz® Choir & the Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra. Click HERE to order your copy.
José Carbó can be seen as Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata at Opera Australia, which runs from July 30-August 31.
Three things that we love are all back and under the same roof on June 4th: the great Steven Blier returns with his latest "Sing for your Supper" show with barihunks Jesse Blumberg and Tim McDevitt. Blier always creates interesting themes for his shows and his latest offering will center on summertime.
Blumberg and McDevitt will be joined by Alex Mansoori, Adrian Rosas and Gennard Lombardozzi in selections by Cole Porter, Frank Loesser, Jason Robert Brown, Eubie Blake, Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Kern.
The show is at Henry's at Broadway and 105th in New York City and reservations are required.
Jose Carbo's "My Latin Heart"
Jose Carbo has released his first solo recital, My Latin Heart, which includes selections by Granada, Piazzolla and other Latin favorites.
The CD is available at ABC Records. You can also preview the CD and purchase it on iTunes.
Sidney Outlaw (L), Philippe Sly (C) and John Brancy (R)
Regular readers will know that we love to follow all the vocal competitions, especially as barihunks keep sweeping away all the tenors, sopranos and mezzos. We'll be closely monitoring the Montreal International Musical Competition this Tuesday and Wednesday as three of the eight finalist are not only barihunks, but some of our favorite singers around.
Sly was named our "Best Newcomer" along with Dominik Köninger in our "Best of 2011" feature. We still play his rendition of Schubert's DerErlkönig to anyone who will listen. Sly was the winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and left the Merola Opera program a year early to join the Canadian Opera Company.
Brancy has won or come in second in a number of competitions and has already worked with the aforementioned Steven Blier. A recent graduate of Julliard, Brancy recently studied at the International Meistersinger Akademie with sopranos Edith Wiens and Ann Murray, as well as pianist Malcolm Martineau.
Like Sly, Sidney Outlaw is another product of the Merola Opera Program in San Francisco. While in San Francisco he gave a recital that included Schubert's rarely heard Il traditor deluso, which still has lieder aficionados buzzing. On stage he stole the show with his performance of Dr. Dulcamara in L’elisir d’amore.
Brancy and Outlaw will be representing the United States, while Sly is representing Canada in the competition. Both performances will be broadcast at 7:30 PM on Radio Canada. Click here to listen to the broadcasts. You can listen to the preliminaries here.
Jose Carbo and Sean Pendry with real Barber of Seville owner Michael Romeo (Photo: Manuela Cifra)
We're all about cross promoting opera, as long it exposes new people to the art form and it maintains a reasonable degree of integrity. One of our favorite cross promotions that we've seen lately is Opera Australia joining forces with the owner of a local hair salon aptly named the "Barber of Seville." We'll let you figure out which opera the company is performing.
Michael Romeo is the owner of the salon in Richmond, Australia and the photo op with the singing barber, Jose Carbo, was great publicity for his new salon in Moonee Ponds, Australia. We also love his slogan, "Come get chopped at the Barber of Seville." If he ever opens a salon called "Sweeney Todd," he can keep his tagline.
Michael Romeo's fun banner for his operatically inspired hair salon
The Opera Australia production of Rossini's opera is moving the action forward to the Roaring 20's with some amazing costumes and fun "Keystone Kops" action scenes. We last saw Carbo as the Barber at the Seattle Opera where he was sharing the role with fellow barihunk David Adam Moore and making his belated U.S. debut. Carbo, who is of Italian and Spanish heritage, was raised in Australia since childhood, so this performance is a return to his "hometown stage."
Jose Carbo and Maria Bayo sing "Dunque io son" from the Barber of Seville in Madrid:
The opera also features barihunk Sam Dundas, who we recently showcased in some sexy, shirtless shots when he was performing Mozart's Cosi fan tutte. He'll be singing three small roles in the Barber: Fiorello, Ambrogio and the notary. [You don't want to miss those photos!].
There are six performances from May 4-17. Visit the Opera Australia website for additional information and production photos.
New Zealand barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes has been singing the title role in Don Giovanni for twelve years. He recently sat down for a video interview that was featured on the online version of the Sydney Morning Herald, which you can watch HERE. He discussed how his interpretation of the role has changed among other topics.
The print article is a good read as well. Our favorite paragraph is this:
His impressive physique hasn't gone unnoticed, either by directors, who delight in undressing Tahu Rhodes for the stage, or critics - The Dallas Morning News wrote of his performance in The End of the Affair: ''Connoisseurs of the male derriere will sit up and take notice when the curtain rises.''
Performances at the Sydney Opera House will run from September 24-November 5 and he will alternate the role with fellow barihunk Jose Carbo. Click HERE for additional cast and ticket information.
The death of Dame Joan Sutherland reminded us that Australia has a long tradition of producing amazing operatic talent. Names like Joan Hammond, Frances Alda, Marjorie Lawrence, Nellie Melba and Yvonne Minton jump immediately to mind. Australia also produced one of the greatest baritones ever, John Brownlee, who you can hear here:
Our recent post of Sam Roberts-Smith also reminded us that we've featured some major barihunks from Down Under. Although we find them all hot, we're wondering who you think is the hottest hunk from Down Under. Check out the photos and vote in the box to your right.
We got so caught up in David Adam Moore singing the Barber in Seattle that we relegated Jose Carbo's U.S. debut to an aside. This gifted singer and performer apparently is quickly becoming an audience favorite. Here is a blurb from "The Classical Review.":
Carbó swaggers around the stage as if he owns it, as a good Figaro should. He’s handsome, charismatic, and utterly assured, with a beautifully produced baritone that has a surprisingly easy top (he matches the tenor in several passages). He’s also a good ensemble member, working well with the other singers and not merely doing his own star turn.
Ticket and cast information are available at the Seattle Opera website.
There are some barihunks who we can never get enough of and David Adam Moore, who is about to heat up Seattle in the Barber of Seville, is one of them. Here are two more pictures from the opera's recent promotional event "The Barber of Seattle" taken by the gifted photographer Alan Alabastro. You can see more of his work on his website.
Moore, who will perform only on January 16, 21, 23 and 28, is alternating the role of the Barber with Jose Carbo. For ticket and cast information visit the Seattle Opera website.
David Adam Moore (Photo by Alan Alabastro)
On another note, we're thrilled that the recent post of Pisaroni, Hampson and Sinatra went viral on Facebook and Twitter. The post quadrupled our traffic and we even learned that Luca Pisaroni is Thomas Hampson's son-in-law, a fact that we didn't know when we put up the post.
Our poll to the right shows that readers like pictures and audio/video, and the traffic counts back that up. We promise plenty more of both.
As a bonus, here are Pisaroni, Hampson and Sinatra also singing music from the Barber of Seville.
Many of our best ideas come from you, so please keep sending us tips, photos, schedules and audio/video to Barihunks@gmail.com.
Nathan Gunn, Gunther Groissböck, Paulo Szot & Simon Keenlyside
If you're in the New York area and you love barihunks, you might want to buy tickets to the next five performances at The Met. On Monday, the Met opens with a new Don Carlo featuring Simon Keenlyside that was featured in the Sunday New York Times. The article is a must read for fans of The Met or Verdi.
Fans of Nathan Gunn will be able to see him as Gugliemo in "Cosi fan tutte" and Papageno in the "Magic Flute" over the next few weeks. Not had enough? Carmen will alternate Escamillo's with John Relyea and opera's new superstar stud Paulo Szot. If you missed the sizzling hot Gunther Groissböck in La Boheme there is no need to worry, as Peter Mattei is about to join the cast.
You can purchase tickets and check casts at the Metropolitan Opera website.
David Adam Moore in Soldier Songs
Due to time constraints, we missed informing readers about tonight's performance of Peter Lieberson's rarity "King Gesar" featuring barihunk David Adam Moore. Moore now heads to Seattle for a run of the Barber of Seville on January 16, 21, 23, and 28. The December cast will feature barihunk José Carbó as Figaro.
The blogosphere continues to be the best the source of classical music and opera news in the wake of arts sections being decimated in the newspaper industry. Our latest find was this amazing interview with David Adam Moore (aka DAM) on the blog Billevesées.
Moore will be performing Schubert's Winterreise onSunday, September 26 at 2:30 PM at the Theater of the Performing Arts Center at Houston Community College. Tickets can be purchased by calling (713) 718-5620.
DAM will be joined by Thomas Jaber on the piano for a multi-media production of the famous song cycle. According to the website, the use of video "aims to present Schubert's Winterreise as a visually rich dramatic monologue that will guide the audience intimately along the protagonist’s journey of love and loss in wintertime."
One thing is certain, anything involving David Adam Moore always proves to be interesting (and incredibly sexy!).
Moore will also be recording Winterreise in composer Glen Roven's English translation. That recording will be released on the GPR label. Fans of the Emmy-award winning composer Glen Roven can also hear his songs performed by barihunk Randal Turner in San Francisco on December 6th. [Check out the box to the right for concert information and tickets.]
Barihunks will be in Seattle to see DAM in his upcoming performance in the "Barber of Seville," where he will be alternating the role of Figaro with fellow barihunk Jose Carbo.
About two months ago I posted a video of the adorable Jose Carbo singing the Largo. Here he is at the Teatro Real with the amazing tenor Lawrence Brownlee singing "Al idea di quel metallo." In a bit of luxury barihunk casting the role of Basilio was sung by Ildebrando d'Arcangelo.
I've received a couple of emails from Carbo's colleagues who say that he is the nicest person to work with.
You've probably heard about singers using their chest. Well Jose Carbo gives that term new meaning. How's this for a singer with "nice chest," showing it off above in Don Giovanni?
Australian baritone José Carbó was born in Argentina of Spanish and Italian descent, and moved with his family to Australia at an early age. He was the winner of the prestigious Australian Singing Competition Opera Award in 2005.
José made his début with Australia’s principal opera company, Opera Australia, in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos , returning for their production of Il Barbiere di Siviglia. For Opera Queensland, he starred in their production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in the title role [see photo]. He was a principal singer in the world première of John Haddock’s Madeline Lee at the Sydney Opera House.
His European début was in Madrid, at the Opera Real, where he sang once again the title role in Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
