Christopher Burchett returns to Soldier Songs

Christopher Burchett

The Fargo-Moorhead Opera, continues to present some of the most compelling new American operas, with their April 6 and 8 performances of David T. Little's gripping Soldier Songs with American barihunk Christopher Burchett returning to the role of the Soldier. Tickets are available online.  

Christopher Burchett in Soldier Songs:

Soldier Songs traces the shift in perception of war  from the age of 6 to the age of 66.  Follow the lead character through the  phases of life from boy to man:  playing violent video games as a boy, enlisting & serving in the military, dealing with the real-life horrors of war & later in life dealing with the real-life horrors of war - becoming a father whose worst fears are realized with the news of the death of his son.  Adapted from interviews with veterans of five wars, this opera theater experience explores the ideas versus the realities of the Soldier, the exploration of and exploitation of innocence along with the "seemingly impossible" of expressing the truth of war. 

Burchett has performed the piece with the Prototype Festival and Beth Morrison Projects in New York and Amsterdam.

Daniel Schmutzhard creates sensation in The Sandman

Daniel Schmutzhard

Austrian barihunk Daniel Schmutzhard has been creating a sensation as Nathanael in composer Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini's Der Sandmann at Opera Frankfurt, which has additional performances on October 3, 8, 13 and 23. The psychologically troubled character is a difficult vocal feat, accompanied by virtuoso orchestration and powerful choruses. He also has to sing much of the role clad in his scivvies

Based on E.T.A. Hoffmann's well known story The Sandman (1815), Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini and the librettist Thomas Jonigk combined essential elements from the story with creepy, romantic motifs for their opera. Nathanael's state of being, a psychotic trip in the homelessness of one's own self, is depicted in ten scenes. To him the sinister seems, in a Freudian sense, a chimera which shines light upon the known and surpressed. Jonigk's figures are our contemporaries: they speak our language, know the feelings of self doubt.

Daniel Schmutzhard

The story of E.T.A. Hoffmann and his conflict between artistic dreams and reality is not new to opera goers, with Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann and Hindemith's Cardillac being the best known. Other adaptations include Busoni's Die Brautwahl, Alfred Thompson's The Girl with the Glass Eyes, Adolphe Adam's La poupée de Nuremberg, Walter Braunfels' Prinzessin Brambilla and Jacques Offenbach's Le roi Carotte.

The cast also includes barihunk Daniel Miroslaw, who appears as Lothar. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

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Bo Skovhus to perform double-bill of operatic rarities

Bo Skovhus in Reimann's Lear

One of our most popular posts with readers was entitled "Lauri Vasar Strips Down for Il Prigioniero," which prompted us to put up a follow up post with additional photos of the barihunk in his scivvies. So imagine our excitement when we found out that über-barihunk Bo Skovhus would be performing the piece with Oper Köln in March and April 2015.

Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero is a 7-part, 50-minute opera which was first broadcast by the Italian radio station RAI on December 1, 1949. The work is based on the short story La torture par l'espérance ("Torture by Hope") from the collection Nouveaux contes cruels by the French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and from La Légende d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak by Charles de Coster. Some of the musical material is based on Dallapiccola's 1938 choral work Canti di prigionia.


Despite the taxing nature of the role, Skovhus will return after intermission to sing an equally demanding role, that of the bass solo in Bernd Alois Zimmerman's Ekklesiastische Aktion: Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht das geschah unter der Sonne ("I turned and saw all the injustice there was under the sun")

Bo Skovhus and Silvana Dussmann in The Merry Widow: 

The 35-minute piece is scored for two speakers, bass soloist, and large orchestra, with text based on the words of the Preacher in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. The work also requires enormous physical stamina, as it includes the stamping of feet, gesturing, jumping and performing in various yoga-like poses.

The piece was commissioned by the city of Kiel for the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Ekklesiastische Aktion was Zimmermann's final composition before he killed himself and the music quotes Bach's, "Es ist genug" (It is enough). That section is played fortissimo by trumpets and trombones in a jolting expression of mortality.

Bo Skovhus is currently singing the role of Graf Danilo in Franz Lehár's Die lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) at Oper Köln. Tickets and additional cast information for both shows are available online.

David Adam Moore & Xavier Rivera

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Lauri Vasar strips down for Il Prigoniero

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigoniero

One of our alert readers pointed out the barihunk Lauri Vasar is reprising the role of the Prisoner in Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero at Opéra de Lyon. The 7-part, 50-minute opera is being presented with Schoenberg's one-act opera Erwartung. This is the fourth time that we've featured the Estonian barihunk and his outfit of choice always seems to be his underwear, which is fine with us.

Il Prigioniero was first broadcast by the Italian radio station RAI on December 1, 1949. The work is based on the short story La torture par l'espérance ("Torture by Hope") from the collection Nouveaux contes cruels by the French writer Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam and from La Légende d'Ulenspiegel et de Lamme Goedzak by Charles de Coster. Some of the musical material is based on Dallapiccola's 1938 choral work Canti di prigionia.

Perfomances will run through April 13th. Visit the Opéra de Lyon website for additional information.

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigoniero

Vasar will now switch to the German repertory as Olivier in Richard Strauss' Capriccio. He then switches to Wagner, taking on Wolfram in Tannhäuser at the Staatsoper Hamburg in May and Amfortas in Parsifal at the Palace of Arts in Budapest. Somehow we think that he'll be more fully clothed for this series of performances.

You can listen to his Wolfram on his website, as well as view additional pictures from other productions of Il Prigoniero.

Christopher Burchett in skivvies for Soldier Songs

Christopher Burchett rehearsing Soldier Songs

Christopher Burchett begins the 2013 season in New York City with the one-man opera Soldier Songs by David T. Little as part of the PROTOTYPE New Music Festival produced by Beth Morrison Projects and HERE. Burchett has been running 30 miles a week to get into shape for the role. Of course, he's taking over the role from barihunk favorite David Adam Moore, who wowed readers with his photos from Soldier Songs.

Performances begin this Friday and run through January 18th at the Pace Schimmel Center for the Arts in New York City. Tickets are available online.

David Adam Moore in Soldier Songs

Burchett will also take Soldier Songs to Rotterdam in the Netherlands as part of the Operadagen Festival in 2015.

Soldier Songs combines elements of theater, opera, rock-infused-concert music, and animation. The  opera explores the perceptions versus the realities of the Soldier, the exploration of loss and exploitation of innocence, and the difficulty of expressing the truth of war.

Christopher Burchett discusses his preparations to play the leading role in Soldier Songs.

from PROTOTYPE Festival on Vimeo.