Happy Birthday, Randal Turner! 生日快樂

Randal Turner is about to debut in China

We'd like to wish Randal Turner a very special birthday.

We've met some amazing talents and incredible singers since starting Barihunks and Randal Turner counts among our favorites. He is one of many talented singers who we discovered singing in Europe who had yet to appear in the United States. Like Luca Grassi who made his belated U.S. debut at the Dallas Opera tonight, the American-born Turner didn't appear on stage in the U.S. until 2010 when he was cast as the title character in Don Giovanni at the Michigan Opera Theater.

Turner followed his critical success in Detroit with his West Coast recital debut in San Francisco, which has been recorded and is for sale on this site.  He was recently engaged by the Washington National Opera to cover Placido Domingo in Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride and will be making his debut at the New York City Opera in February 2012 in Rufus Wainwright's "Prima Donna." Turner was also named the world's sexiest Don Giovanni in a reader poll on this site, beating out international superstars like Simon Keenlyside and Mariusz Kwiecien.

Ads heralding Randal Turner's US Debut in Detroit

The legendary conductor Loren Maazel is now taking Randal Turner to China to make his Asian debut as the title character in Rossini's Barber of Seville. The performance is a co-production between the Beijing National Centre for the Performing Arts and Maazel's Castleton Festival. Performances run from November 24-27.

Listen to Randal Turner:

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"Castleton West" A Critical Success

Michael Weyandt & Matthew Worth

Loren Maazel took his Castleton Festival west to California from Virginia, where it was met with the same critical acclaim that it received back East. Many of the same singers returned to reprise their roles, but we found a new addition to the barihunk family in Michael Weyandt, who was a sexy Junius. Cal Performance in Berkeley mounted both the "Rape of Lucretia" and "Albert Herring."

Joshua Kosman, the respected and brutally honest reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, gave "The Rape of Lucretia" a great review, saying this about the trio of barihunks:

Tarquinius was embodied with sonorous menace by baritone Matthew Worth, and bass-baritone Michael Rice brought a gorgeous warmth of tone to the role of Collatinus, Lucretia's ostentatiously virtuous husband. Michael Weyandt did a muscular turn as the ambitious Junius...

We learned during the performance run that Michael Rice plans on making this his final performance on the opera stage. Luckily, we'll still be able to enjoy him on his wonderful OperaNow! podcast, one of the most enjoyable shows about classical music around. We wish him well in his future endeavors. He's one of our favorite people in opera!

Michael Rice Sailing Off Into the Operatic Sunset

"Albert Herring" featured barihunk Adrian Kramer, who stole the show in the critical role of Sid. You can listen to this talented young Canadian at InstantEncore performing songs by Rorem, Barber and Danielpour.

The opera world should be grateful to Loren Maazel, whose Castleton Festival has reintroduced important operas to the repertory as well as talented young singers.

Adrian Kramer

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

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