Barihunk Bradley Travis singing Masetto opposite two fellow barihunks

Bradley Travis

We introduced Bradley Travis back in October when he won the Leonard Ingrams award. This Spring he'll be singing Masetto opposite fellow barihunk George von Bergen in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The company will begin this year's tour at the Hackney Empire on March 5th and perform through June 10th, when they wrap up at the Sands Centre in Carlisle. They will also be performing Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride and Donizetti's Pia de'Tolomei. The entire tour schedule is available online.

Shortly after the tour, Travis will join another barihunk, Jacques Imbrailo, for Don Giovanni with the Classical Opera Company at Cadogan Hall in London's Chelsea district. The June 17th performance will be the company's first production of Don Giovanni in their history.

Travis was born in Cheshire and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. He recently graduated from the Royal College of Music International Opera School (RCMIOS) where he won the Eric Joseph Shilling Award for Opera.

Bradley Travis sings Masetto's "Ho capito...":

Operatic roles performed include Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’heure espagnole, Lord Ellington in Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne, Ottone in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea all for the RCMIOS. He has also appeared as Count Robinson in The Secret Marriage for British Youth Opera who presented him with the Basil A. Turner Award, Minos Arianna in Handel's Creta, Argenio Imeneo under Laurence Cummings for the London Handel Festival, Alidoro in Rossini's La Cenerentola for Mananan Festival Opera and Lesbus in Handel's Agrippina for Iford Opera. 

He recently made his Opera North début singing Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and sang the Fireman in Šimon Voseček's Biedermann and the Arsonists at Independent Opera.

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Vittorio Prato, Malte Roesner & Cyril Rovery

 

Bradley Travis wins Leonard Ingrams Foundation Award

 

Bradley Travis as Mozart's Figaro (right) at the Royal College of Music

British bass-barihunk Bradley Travis is one of two winners of the 8th Annual Leonard Ingrams Foundation Award, along with soprano Llio Evans. The award honors the memory of Garsington Opera’s founder and is intended to nurture the best young artists involved in the creative process of bringing opera to the stage.

Last year, Travis won the Garsington Opera Helen Clarke Award in recognition of his contribution and musical skill during their 2014 season. He performed a number of small roles in their production of Britten's Death in Venice.

Travis has performed Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with Opera North, as well as a number of roles at the Royal College of Music International Opera School, including Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’heure espagnole, Lord Ellington Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne and Ottone in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea.  Along with Simon Lepper, he made a recording of Ancel Newton’s song cycle Doomed Youth.

From November 14-19, he appears as the Fireman in Voseček's Biedermann and the Arsonists with  Independent Opera. From March 11-May 31,  he performs Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni with the English Touring Opera. The performance also features fellow barihunk George Von Bergen in the title role. 

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Barihunk trio in Kansas City's Don Giovanni

Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni at NY City Opera

The Lyric Opera of Kansas City is opening its 58th season with Mozart’s Don Giovanni featuring the barihunk trio of Daniel Okulitch in the title role, Joshua Bloom as Leporello and Rhys Lloyd Talbot as Masetto. Performances are on September 26 and 30 and October 2 and 4 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are available online. 

The trio are also all alumni of the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, with Daniel Okulitch taking part in 2002, Joshua Bloom in 2001 and 2003, and Rhys Lloyd Talbot in 2013 and 2014. Elizabeth Caballero, their Donna Elvira, was in the program with both Okulitch and Bloom. 

After Don Giovanni, Bloom will portray The Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance in October at both Théâtre de Caen and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. Okulitch will head to the Manitoba Opera where he will sing Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Talbot just completed the Young Artist program at Glimmerglass where he performed the Speaker/Second Priest in Mozart's The Magic Flute and the Apparition in Verdi's Macbeth.

Interview with Evan Boyer

Evan Boyer

What do you do if you’re a kid whose deep voice always sticks out? For Evan Boyer, the answer was: become an opera singer. “No matter how quiet I tried to talk in class, I was always that kid who the teacher could hear,” Boyer says. As a teenager, he discovered his true talent accidentally at camp: some cute girls who liked his bass sound asked him to sing for them. He impressed his audience, and surprised himself with what turned out to be a defining moment. It led him to pursue choir in high school, and later, he studied voice in college. Now, Boyer is a recent graduate of Lyric Opera of Chicago’s professional training program. He makes his Seattle Opera debut as Masetto in Don Giovanni, and has been called “excellent” by The Seattle Times.

Welcome to Seattle Opera! You’re making your debut with us.
Don Giovanni was actually the first opera I ever saw as a senior in high school. It was the Kentucky Opera in Louisville. [He says the name with a Southern accent: "Lou-ville."] I guess here in Seattle you’d say “Louie-ville” [laughs].

Based on some of the names Masetto calls his wife, as well as his quick temper, it might be easy to assume that he’s a bad guy. However, he’s more complex than that, isn’t he?
Masetto has a temper, and tends to see things in black and white--there's very little gray area for him. But he’s a really honest, good guy; he's just trapped in an impossibly difficult situation. He thinks his wife is abandoning him for someone else on his wedding day; in an instant, the happiest day of his life has become a nightmare. Masetto is of a lower class. There’s nothing he can do when this nobleman starts coming on to Zerlina. She’s definitely not resisting as much as she should be. Naturally, he’s pissed off.

[CLICK HERE CONTINUE READING ON SEATTLE OPERA BLOG]

There are remaining performances of Don Giovanni on Oct. 29, 31 and Nov. 1. For tickets and more information, go to seattleopera.org. 

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A revealing introduction of Erik E. Larsen

Erik E. Larsen "hulked out of his pants"

We try to keep it (relatively) tasteful on Barihunks, but what do we do when someone tweets this photo with the caption "Hulked out of my pants" and hashtags it #Barihunks?

That's what Erik E. Larson (@unamplified) recently did on Twitter, so why not share it with our readers. You should see the stuff that gets mailed to us that never sees the light of day!

Larson isn't just some random tweeter on Twitter, he's a serious student of voice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is just finishing his second year of study and has sung multiple times with the University Opera, including the role of Masetto in University Opera’s recent production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Earlier this year, he sang Samuel in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance with the Madison Savoyards.

Larson is also a member of the Madison Opera chorus, where he as sung in Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Verdi's La Traviata, and Rossini's La Cenerentola.

We hope to see (ahem) lots more of Erik Larson (ahem, ahem). However, if he keeps tweeting about his love of "fried cream cheese" he may end up on BariChunks.

Reader Submission: Waltteri Torikka

Waltteri Torikka (Photo by Kurt Rodahl Hoppe)

Our latest reader submission is Finnish baritone Waltteri Torikka, who is wrapping up a run as Don Giovanni at the Royal Danish Opera Academy today. Torikka won the Finnish national “Lappeenrannan laulukilpailut” song competition in 2010 and received the “HSBC Laureates” prize at the prestigious  Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2009. 

Torikka has performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg. In 2009, he made his debut at the Finnish National Opera as Herastuomari in Leevi Madetoja's “The Ostrobothnians.” Other roles he has performed include “Il Re di Scozia” in Handel's “Ariodante,” Vorotov in Ville Raasakka's “Kohtalokkaat Oppitunnit” and Masetto in Mozart's “Don Giovanni.” Next year, he is scheduled to appear at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Torikka is apprentice artist in the Finnish National Opera 2012-13.

We'll be keeping an eye on this young talent.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Reader Submission: Sean Sullivan

Sean Sullivan

Our reader submissions continue with, Sean Sullivan who began singing at age nine with the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, and was subsequently invited to sing in the Children’s Chorus of the Los Angeles Opera, where he decided to pursue an opera career.

He made his solo operatic debut as Young Prince Hrothgar in the world premiere of Elliott Goldenthal’s Grendel at the Los Angeles Opera. He reprised this role in New York at The New York State Theater for the East Coast Premiere. Sean attended L.A. County High School for the Arts where he sang several roles including Mr. Peachum in Britten’s The Beggar’s Opera and Carl Olsen in Weill’s Street Scene. At CSUN, Sean played Antonio in Mozart’s Le Nozze de Figaro, David in Barber’s A Hand of Bridge and The Mysterious Man in Sondheim’s Into the Woods.

You can read an interview with Sean Sullivan HERE.

Sullivan can next be heard in an abbreviated concert version of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" at the Golden Gate Club in San Francisco on May 26 & 27. For reservations, call (415) 447-6274. Sullivan will perform Masetto opposite the Don Giovanni of his voice coach and fellow barihunk Eugene Brancoveanu.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

A Barihunks Don Giovanni at Virginia Opera

Once again, an opera company has had the good sense to cast a Don Giovanni with three barihunks. Who wouldn't want to see Mozart's classic with the barihunk trio of Matthew Worth as Don Giovanni, Daniel Mobbs as Leporello and David Krohn as Masetto? The three baritones will appear in the Virginia Opera production opening on February 13 and running through March 7.

All three singers have appeared on this site before.

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A Little S&M Between Our Sexiest Don Giovanni and Masetto?

[Top Photo: Randal Turner backstage; Bottom: Vittorio Prato headshot]

Regular readers of Barihunks might recall that Randal Turner was voted our sexiest Don Giovanni in the world beating out rakish studs like Erwin Schrott and Mariusz Kwiecien. Unfortunately, the only video of him comes from a 2005 production in Pisa where they must have been conserving energy, as the entire production was seemingly shot in the dark. Here he is with the Masetto of fellow barihunk Vittorio Prato singing "Meta di voi" from Act II, Scene I.

Randal Turner turns to a little S&M at the end of this video, giving Masetto a good lashing. It's a bit ironic, since Zerlina sings "Batti, batti, o bel Masetto, la tua povera Zerlina" which translates to: "Beat me, dear Masetto, beat your poor Zerlina." It's nice to see the Don give it back to Masetto. Perhaps Masetto will start singing, "Batti, batti, o bel Giovanni."

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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Shadi Torbey

Shadi Torbey was born in Sieburg, Germany of Belgian and Lebanese parents. He studied at the Opéra Studio of La Monnaie and with José van Dam at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth.

He has sung in a number of Barihunk operas, but not in the sexy roles, so finding pictures is difficult. He has performed in Rape of Lucretia (Collatinus), Don Giovanni (Masetto) and Orfeo (Caronte). He performs primarily in France, but we'll be keeping an eye on his career.

He has a CD of French songs available at:
http://www.amazon.com/French-Songs-Lionel-Lhote/dp/B000BVRMKE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1211079461&sr=8-1