The Merola Opera Program has cast barihunk Edward Nelson in their upcoming performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The opera is being directed by James Darrah and conducted by Martin Katz.
The California native studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and took 1st Place at the 2013 Mid-South Region Metropolitan Opera Auditions. He has performed the title role in Britten's Owen Wingrave, Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola, the Forester in Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen and Le Podestat in Bizet's Le docteur Miracle.
Edward Nelson with Yujin Kim
Edward Nelson
The remainder of the cast includes Szymon Wach as Leporello, Rhys Lloyd Talbot as Masetto, Scott Russell as the Commendatore, Amanda Woodbury as Donna Anna, Yujin Kim as Zerlina, Benjamin Werley as Don Ottavio and Karen Chia-Ling Ho as Donna Elvira.
Performances are on Thursday, July 31 and August 2 at the Everett Auditorium in San Francisco. Tickets are available at the San Francisco Opera website.
Two of our most popular barihunks have upcoming recitals that are sure to be exciting nights in the theater.
Nathan Gunn will perform in concert as part of the Washington National Opera's "Celebrity Series" on Sunday, September 23 at 4 p.m. in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Accompanied by the Washington National Opera Orchestra under the baton of Tony Award winner Ted Sperling, Gunn will perform selections from operas by Mozart, Rossini, and Bizet, plus songs by Sondheim and other Broadway composers.
The duo that started the barihunk/hunkentenor craze:
American tenor William Burden will join him for a few duets. Regular readers of the site and "Barihunk historians" will recall that the shirtless duo of Gunn and Burden is what started the whole barihunk craze when they performed "Iphigénie en Tauride" at Glimmerglass in 1997 and then appeared shirtless together in Philadelphia in 2004.
Jesse Blumberg: A one man barihunk craze
Baritone Jesse Blumberg joins the amazing accompanist Martin Katz in a return to the Kerrytown Concert House to perform a variety of repetoire The program includes Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wolf, Debussy (in honor of his 150th birthday) and Tom Cipullo's "Excelsior." Blumberg and Katz wowed audiences in 2009 at the Kerrytown Center with a double-bill of Schubert's "Die Schöne Müllerin" and "Die Winterreise."
Visit the Kerrytown Concert House website to purchase tickets.
Susan Isaacs Nisbett's review at AnnArbor.com indicates that the three days of Schubert at the University of Michigan with barihunk Jesse Blumberg and accompanist Martin Katz is off to a good start. Here's her review:
The stars just won’t align for the hero of Schubert’s “Die Schöne Müllerin.” In the final song of 20 constituting this great Schubert song cycle, the hero, having lost the lovely miller’s daughter of the title to a rival, meets his end by the brook that has sung to him and led him to her.
But Friday evening at Kerrytown Concert House, the stars aligned perfectly for Schubert, and for the song cycle itself, which received a vivid, finely paced reading from baritone Jesse Blumberg and pianist Martin Katz. [Continued Here]
Yesterday's recital marked the one year mark from Blumberg opening night in Ricky Ian Gordon's newest opera "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis" at the Minneapolis Opera. There will be more to come on that production as opening night nears.
Anyone near Ann Arbor, Michigan is in for a real treat as Barihunks favorite Jesse Blumberg is coming from April 16-18 to perform three days of Schubert. Each day includes an entirely different fare. On April 16th, the gifted singer will perform "Die Schöne Müllerin." On April 17th, he will be joined by one of the world's greatest accompanists, Martin Katz, for a Schubert master class with young singers from the University of Michigan. The next day he tackles the daunting song cycle “Die Winterreise.”
Not only is Jesse Blumberg pure eye candy, but he's an extremely talented singer who will undoubtedly bring amazing insights to Schubert's music. Having Martin Katz at the piano only guarantees that this might be the best $20.00 opera deal in the country this year.
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