Barihunk duo in Edmonton's Merry Widow

Aaron Durand and Mike Nyby

Two barihunks are featured in the Edmonton Opera's English language production of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. The operetta opened last night and will be performed again on Tuesday, October 27 and Thursday, October 29.

Michael Nyby sings Danilo Danilowitsch, Hanna Glawari's ex-lover who is less excited about being her lover and sharing in her recently inherited wealth, than most men.  Aaron Durand, who appeared with the company in their Barber of Seville last year, takes on Vicomte Cascada.

Preview of The Merry Widow at Edmonton Opera:

Nyby and lead soprano Sally Dibblee have been tasked with dancing duties as well as singing, as director Brent Krysa and choreographer Dave Ganert have found inspiration in Hollywood dance musicals. Dibblee even took ballroom dancing lessons for the part.

Nyby is a native of Hamilton, Ontario who created the roles of William Dale in Kevin Puts' Silent Night, Brent Colgate in Gregory Vajda's Georgia Bottoms and Demetrio in the US premiere of Kristin Hevner Wyatt's Il Sogno. This season he'll be creating the role of Seth in the Canadian opera Peter-Anthony Togni's Isis and Osiris with Opera in Concert. He'll be joining hunkentenor Karim Sulayman for Händel's Messiah with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra in Ontario on December 7 and 8.

Aaron Durand talks about being an opera singer:

Durand hails from 100 Mile House, British Columbia After graduating from the University of British Columbia in 2012, he joined the Vancouver Opera's Yulanda M. Faris young artist program, performing roles in several mainstage productions including La bohème, The Pirates of Penzance, Albert Herring and Don Giovanni. He was Masetto in the innovative production of #UncleJohn with the Against the Grain Theatre.

You can follow Aaron Durand on Twitter @Gingervanni. 

MAKE SURE TO ORDER YOUR 2016 BARIHUNKS CALENDAR BEFORE THE HOLIDAY RUSH; 18 OF THE WORLD'S HOTTEST SINGER FROM 9 COUNTRIES.

 

Listen to Kevin Puts' "Silent Night" on NPR

Mike Nyby

We've covered composer Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night extensively in its performances in Minneapolis and Philadelphia. You can plan on more coverage as it heads to Fort Worth Opera and elsewhere in the opera world as this barihunk-laden opera quickly enters the standard repertory. Not since Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking have we seen a new opera take the music world by storm like this. 

The opera was originally commissioned by the Minnesota Opera and is based on the screenplay by Christian Carion for the Oscar-nominated 2005 French film Joyeux Nöel, which dramatized actual events during WWI during the days before Christmas 1914. The opera which deals with French, Scottish and German soldiers enjoying a truce during the bloody war is sung in German, French, English, Italian and Latin.

 Liam Bonner sings Lieutenant Audebert's "J'ai perdu ta photo" from Silent Night:

National Public Radio (NPR) has posted the audio of the orginal performance from the Minnesota Opera, which included a slew of barihunks. They include Craig Irvin as Lieutenant Horstmayer, Michael Nyby as William Dale, Troy Cook as Father Palmer, Gabriel Preisser as Lieutenant Gordon,
Joseph Beutel as the British Major, Liam Bonner as Lieutenant Audebert, Andrew Wilkowske as Ponchel and Ben Wager as the General.

Acclaimed "Silent Night" to open in Philadelphia with an army of barihunks

Regular readers might recall that we generously covered the debut of Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera "Silent Night," when it premiered at the Minnesota Opera in 2011.  It featured a veritable army of barihunks including Troy Cook, Gabriel Preisser, Ben Wager, Michael Nyby and Craig Irvin, all of whom posed for a picture that we posted [see below].

Five of the barihunks from that production are reprising their roles at Opera Philadelphia opening on February 8th and running through February 17th. They include Craig Irvin as Lieutenant Horstmayer, the German commanding officer; baritone Liam Bonner as Lieutenant Audebert, the conflicted French commander and his aide-de-camp Ponchel sung by Andrew Wikowske; baritone Gabriel Preisser as Lieutenant Gordon; and, Troy Cook as Father Palmer.

Troy Cook, Gabriel Preisser, Ben Wager, Michael Nyby and Craig Irvin

Tenor William Burden stars as the drafted opera singer whose voice inspires peace among adversaries and soprano Kelly Kaduce as his love interest, Anna Sørenson. Kaduce also happens to be married to a barihunk in real life, Lee Gregory.

Liam Bonner sings Lieutenant Audebert's "J'ai perdu ta photo" 

Silent Night, which is based on the 2005 French film Joyeux Noel, recounts a miraculous moment of peace during one of the bloodiest wars in human history.   On World War I’s western front, weapons are laid down when Scottish, French and German officers defy their superiors and negotiate a Christmas Eve truce. Enemies become brothers as they come together to share Christmas and bury their dead.

Gabriel Preisser

Tickets and additional information is available online.

Also in 2014, the Fort Worth Opera Festival will give the regional premiere of the opera.

Emerging Barihunk Michael Nyby

I've been keeping an eye on Michael Nyby, hoping that he'll break out soon. He's currently performing in Donizetti's Elixir of Love with the Santa Fe Opera Spring Tour.

Here's a video of him singing "Deh, vieni alla finestra" from Mozart's Don Giovanni in Czechoslovakia. He also performs frequently with the Vancouver Opera and here is an interview with him from their blog (http://vancouveropera.blogspot.com/):

Guilty musical pleasure?
I love singing Karaoke.

Where do you love to sing?
I often sing when mountain biking or snowboarding.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
If only I knew.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
I have a serious professional hockey addiction.

Who are your favourite heroes/heroines of fiction?
Macbeth, Jean Valjean, Odysseus, and Batman

Who are your favourite characters in history?
I'd have to go with Cleopatra - her life reads like an epic novel.

Who are your favourite heroes/heroines in real life?
Leonard Warren, Barack Obama, and Wayne Gretzky

Who is your favourite author?
I've gone through many, but I always seem to come back to Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins.

Your favourite musician?
My wife.

Your favourite composer?
That's a tie between Mozart, Verdi and Curtis Mayfield. Only a true genius could write Die Zauberflote, Otello, or the Soundrack to Superfly.

What quality do you most admire in a person?
A sense of humour.

Your favourite virtue?
The ability to accept and make light of one's faults.

Your favourite occupation?
If I weren't an opera singer, I would wan to be Indiana Jones, so I suppose the anser is a totally-awesome-archaeologist-adverturer.

What did you want to be as a child?
Indiana Jones. I still do!

Your most marked characteristic?
It's hard for me to say, but my wife says the first thing she notices about me was my eyebrows. They're very pronounced.

What do you most value in your friends?
Constancy. I have very few friends whom I can contact after years apart and it is like no time at all has passed.

For what would you like to be remembered?
I'd be happy just being remembered.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
The Force.

What is your motto?
"Come on, it'll be fun!" Which could also qualify for my famous last words.

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