LoftOpera sets Rape of Lucretian in Brooklyn auto restoration shop

Kevin Wetzel (L) and Adrian Rosas (R) (Center photo by Paulina Jurzec, Right photo by Vanessa Rosas)

The always innovative LoftOpera is presenting Benjamin Britten's chamber opera The Rape of Lucretia at 501 Union, a former car restoration shop in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Of course, we love the opera as it features three baritones in lead roles and they've cast some major young talent in those roles, all of whom who have appeared our site, Adrian Rosas who will sing the Roman general Collatinus, Kyle Oliver who is taking on Junius. and Kevin Wetzel is singing the critical role of Tarquinius.

The rest of the cast includes Michael Kuhn as the Male Chorus, Katy Lindhart as the Female Chorus, Kristin Gornstein as Lucretia, Toby Newman as Bianca, Melanie Leinbach as Lucia and Alexis Kelley as a Supernumerary. Performances run from December 2-12 and tickets are available online.

Kevin Wetzel  earned his Master’s degree in 2006  and his graduate  performance  diploma in 2008  at  The Peabody Institute. After graduating from The Peabody Institute, he became a member of the Virginia Opera Association’s Spectrum Resident Artist program.  Most recently, he was a resident artist with the Arizona Opera Company. He has appeared with Chesapeake Chamber Opera, Opera  in the Heights,  Virginia Opera  Association,  Glimmerglass  Opera,  Baltimore Opera Company,  Central City Opera  and Peabody Opera. 

In February, he'll perform The Silver Age of Russian Poetry in Music with the Russian Chamber Art Society.

501 Union, the site of LoftOpera's The Rape of Lucretia

Texas native Kyle Oliver is an alumnus of the Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist Training program, he appeared with the Pittsburgh Opera in numerous productions including singing Zurga in Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, Count Robinson in Cimarosa's Il matrimonio segreto and Dandini in Rossini's La cenerentola. He was a winner of the Grand Prize at the Bel Canto Foundation Competition, the Jeanette Rohatyn “Great Promise” award with the Metropolitan Opera National Council, as well as a career grant from the Sullivan Foundation. He is featured on an album entitled “New Voices” a compilation of art songs by contemporary American composers produced by Glen Roven Records and The Brooklyn Art Song Society. He earned his Master’s degree from The Juilliard School and a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, both in Opera Performance.

Adrian Rosas has performed with the Seattle Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Houston’s Opera in the Heights, and Michigan Opera Theatre. He made his Seattle Opera debut as the Sergeant in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, and as part of Seattle Opera’s Young Artist Program performed the roles of  Procolo in Viva la Mamma, Masetto and Il Commendatore in Don Giovanni. He made his Carnegie Hall/Stern Auditorium debut as the Angel Gabriel in the premiere of Oh My Son, an opera by Spanish composer Marcos Galvany. Rosas is on Voice Faculty of the California State Summer School for the Arts. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Western Michigan University, and a Master of Music degree from The Juilliard School.                                                     

Romain Dayez and Jason Duika

There is only one month left to purchase your 2016 Barihunks Charity Calendar, which you can order HERE. This year the proceeds will be used to fund the creation of the Foundation for the Advancement of Baritones (F.A.B.), which will fund baritone and bass cash prizes at song competitions, commission music for baritones and basses, and be used to fund other projects featuring low male voices. 

New York-based composer Clint Borzoni has already been commissioned to write two songs for string quartet and baritone, which will be performed by Marco Vassalli in January. Give the gift of music by supporting the Indiegogo campaign for this effort by clicking HERE. Even if you can't attend, there are exciting rewards, like Marco's CD of Italian songs or having a song dedicated to you by the composer.                                                 

Happy Birthday, Arnold Schoenberg!

Kevin Wetzel & Arnold Schoenberg

Less than an hour after we posted that it was a slow news day, we received an email bemoaning the fact that we weren't celebrating Arnold Schoenberg's birthday. Better yet, we got introduced to a new barihunk, Kevin Wetzel. 

Arnold Schoenberg remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. From the final years of the nineteenth century to the period following the World War II, Schoenberg produced music of great stylistic diversity, inspiring fanatical devotion from students, admiration from peers like Mahler, Strauss, and Busoni, riotous anger from conservative Viennese audiences, and unmitigated hatred from his many detractors.

Born in Vienna on September 13, 1874, into a family that was not particularly musical, Schoenberg was largely self-taught as a musician. Early in his career, Schoenberg took jobs orchestrating operettas, but most of his life was spent teaching, both privately and at various institutions, and composing.

The composer's early works bear the unmistakable stamp of high German Romanticism, perhaps nowhere more evident than in his first important composition, Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (1899). With works like the Five Orchestral Pieces (1909) and the epochal Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg embarked upon one of the most influential phases of his career. Critics reviled this "atonal" (Schoenberg preferred "pantonal") music, whose structure does not include traditional tonality.

Schoenberg fled the anti-Semitic political atmosphere of Europe in 1933 and spent the remainder of his life primarily in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1941. For Schoenberg, the dissolution of tonality was a logical and inevitable step in the evolution of Western music. Schoenberg is acknowledged as one of the most significant figures in music history. The composer, a well-known triskaidekaphobe (fear of the number 13), died in Los Angeles on July 13, 1951.

 

Here is Kevin Wetzel performing Schoenberg's Dank, Op. 1, No. 1:

Kevin Wetzel earned his master’s degree in 2006 and his graduate performance diploma in 2008 at The Peabody Institute. After graduating from The Peabody Institute, Kevin became a member of the Virginia Opera Association’s Spectrum Resident Artist program. Most recently, he was a resident artist with the Arizona Opera Company. He can next be seen in November with Houston's "Opera in the Heights" performing Guglielmo in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte."

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com
 

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