Hadleigh Adams featured in Pinchgut Opera promo materials

Hadleigh Adams in Pinchgut Opera's marketing

We've always wondered why some opera companies don't use their singers in their marketing materials, particularly when they have marketable appearances. We were thrilled to see that Pinchgut Opera in Australia has Hadleigh Adams' notoriously handsome face prominently featured on their marketing materials for Vivaldi's Bajazet.

The performances will be the Southern Hemisphere premiere of the opera. Hadleigh Adams is wrapping up his second season as a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow and returning to Pinchgut after a successful run as Pollux in their production of Rameau's Castor & Pollux in 2012.

Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735 and is a pastiche of Vivaldi's own arias, as well as those by Johann Adolph Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli, Nicola Porpora and Riccardo Broschi. The opera is also known as Il Tamerlano and the story was also successfully set to music by Handel.

Hadleigh Adams in Pinchgut Opera's Castor & Pollux

Vivaldi wove into the opera an underlying tale of power struggles and invasion, reflective of the ones going on at the time, when Neopolitan operas were trouncing their local Venetian counterparts in popularity. Music associated with Neapolitan composers is thus cleverly designated to the invaders Tamerlano, Irene and Andronico.

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

Vivaldi’s Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735. An opera of romantic entanglement and love triangles, Bajazet tells the tale of a struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars. When Bajazet’s daughter Asteria is threatened with marriage to the invading ruler, she conspires to murder him. The plot thickens after Tamerlano’s former betrothed, Irene, turns up to reveal the scheme, having taken issue with being pushed aside onto Tamerlano’s Greek ally (Andronico) who, unfairly, is also in love with Asteria - See more at: http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/news/pinchgut-opera-launches-2015-season#sthash.jSqY461i.dpuf

Adams has maintained a busy schedule this season while a San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow, having sung Schaunard in La boheme, the Marquis in La Traviata, Grand commissioner in Madame Butterfly and Jailer in Tosca. He also performed Gendarme in Poulenc’s Les mamelles de Tirésias with San Francisco's innovative young company Opera Parallèle.

Performances are on July 4, 5, 7 & 8  2015 at City Recital Hall Angel Place in Sydney. Tickets go on sale on February 9th, so mark your calendars. Also in the cast is Christopher Lowrey as Tamerlano, Helen Sherman as Irene, Emily Edmonds as Asteria and Russell Harcourt as Andronicus.

Zachary Gordin in our Barihunks Charity Calendar

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Keenlyside's Sexy ads for Met's "The Tempest"

Simon Keenlyside

If there was ever any doubt that sedxy men in opera are finally being recognized for having the same marketing potential as their female counterparts, it was firmly dispelled with the arrival of the new Metropolitan Opera 2012-13. In the past, one could count on Anna Netrebko, Kiri Te Kanawa or Elīna Garanča gracing the cover. Barihunk Simon Keenlyside graces the cover with a full body tattoo and have exposed torso. The British singer, who turns 53 on August 3rd, looks as stunning as singers half his age.

Composer Thomas Adès will conduct and Robert Lepage will direct the Met premiere of this modern masterpiece. Keenlyside will sing the role of Prospero, the banished Duke of Milan who practices his otherworldly arts. The entire cast could be out of Hollywood central casting. It includes Isabel Leonard as Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, Toby Spence as his brother Antonio and Audrey Luna as the spirit Ariel.

The cast also has other barihunk connections, as Leonard is the wife of barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Luna is the wife of barihunk Jordan Shanahan.

If you can't make it to New York City, you can watch the performance in the Met's Live in HD broadcast of Saturday, November 10, 2012.

Kyle Ketelsen to star in Carmen

Other barihunks performing at the Met his Fall include Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Un Ballo in Maschera and Don Carlo, Mariusz Kwiecien in L'Elisir d'Amore, Peter Mattei in Parsifal, Guido Loconsolo in Giolio Cesare, Kyle Ketelsen and Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Carmen, Nathan Gunn in Le Comte Ory, Ildar Abdrazakov and Erwin Schrott in Don Giovanni and John Relyea in Faust.

Visit the Met's website for additional performance and cast information.