No singer will ever be claim the statement "I really suffer for my art" after barihunk Joa Helgesson's performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the Malzfabrik in Berlin. The production was part of the Body Suspension Symposium, which focuses on the practice as an artform.
Berlin's symposium was the third one, following one in Oslo in 2012 and New York in 2015, all of which a co-production with Anchors Aweigh/SKIN.
"The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so
inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of
our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its
pain... Music expresses only the quintessence of life and of its events,
never these themselves." - Arthur Schopenhauer
A suspension is the act of suspending a human body from hooks that have been put through body piercings. These piercings are temporary and are performed just prior to the actual suspension. Body suspension is frequently used for spiritual purposes or for entertainment, most famously by the magician and illusionist Criss Angel.
Helgesson also appears in our 2018 Barihunks Calendar and Photo Book, but without the hooks!
Joa Helgesson and Derek Chester from 2018 Barihunks Calendar and Photo Book
Our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for
purchase HERE.
In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book
this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the
calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!
28-year-old, German-born, Scottish bass-barihunk Dominic Barberi, who just wrapped up a run as Baron Douphol in Verdi's La traviata at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden opposite Ailyn Pérez, will represent the U.K. at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition on June 18th.
Barberi is currently a member of the ensemble at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, where he has also sung Colline in Puccini's La bohème, Sarastro in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, as well as roles in Wagner's Parsifal , Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Puccini's Manon Lescaut and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.
Barberi went to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he
graduated with Distinction in his Performance Masters in 2014. He then moved on to the Berlin Staatsoper International
Opera Studio. His big breakthrough came with Opera North where he performed in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.
Upcoming performances include the premiere of Daniel Pacitti's Luther Oratorio with the Berlin Philharmonic and Alvise Badoero in Ponchielli's La Gioconda at the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck.
We've just learned that Barihunks calendar model Aaron Sørensen will be joining the cast of Monteverdi’s Ulysses at West Edge Opera in the San Francisco Bay Area. He's replacing Christopher Filipowicz in the roles of Antinoo and Neptune.
The opera will be
staged at the American Steel Studios, a former pipe factory turned six
acre
art studio that’s now home to steel fabricators, sculptors, vertical
aerial and trapeze performers, glass artists, and more. The opera stars
Nikolas Nackley in the title role and performances are on August 1, 7
and 9.
The company is also presenting Laura Kaminsky's As One with popular barihunk Dan Kempson opposite soprano Brenda Patterson, as well as Alban Berg’s Lulu with Zachary Altman.
Tickets and additional cast information is available online.
For those who missed it in Baltimore and Houston, Sørensen will reprise his acclaimed Osmin in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail with the Huntsville Symphony on January 23rd.
The ever innovative West Edge Opera in Berkeley, California is about to launch their summer season and all three operas feature barihunks. The season will also be performed in three unique settings around the East Bay.
Laura Kaminsky's As One will
feature popular barihunk Dan Kempson opposite soprano Brenda Patterson. The piece be performed at The Oakland Metro, a punk rock venue reflective of
Oakland’s gritty art scene and the ideal space for such a provocative
piece.
As One premiered at The Brooklyn Academy of Music just this
past September with the husband and wife team of Kelly Markgraf and Sasha Cooke. Kaminsky was inspired to write the opera after reading an article in the
New York Times in 2008 about a New Jersey marriage in which one of the
parties transitioned from male to female, transforming the couple from straight to gay.
The opera is based on the life experience of noted filmmaker
Kimberly Reed.
Two singers, a baritone and a mezzo-soprano, together
portray the character Hannah. The two singers embody a young boy who
knows he is different but can't understand how or why. The 70-minute
opera traces the life of young Hannah through her eventual gender
reassignment. Performances are on July 26 and 31, and August 8th.
Alban Berg’s Lulu will be performed in the abandoned and decaying 1912 Beaux-Arts train station at 16th Street in Oakland where the movies Funny Lady and RENT were filmed. The Oakland 16th Street Station (also known as the Oakland Central Station) was for decades Oakland's main train station. It is now being revived as a space for arts and events. In a bit of luxury casting, barihunk Zachary Altman, who is making a name for himself in Basel, will perform the role of the Athlete. He also happens to be Dan Kempson's husband. Performances are onJuly 25, and August 2 and 8.
The final opera is Monteverdi’s, Ulysses, which will be
staged at the American Steel Studios, a former pipe factory turned six acre
art studio that’s now home to steel fabricators, sculptors, vertical
aerial and trapeze performers, glass artists, and more. The opera stars Nikolas Nackley in the title role and performances are on August 1, 7 and 9.
Tickets and additional cast information is available online.
Sasha Waltz's Dido & Aeneas(left)& Douglas Williams
Choreographer Sasha Waltz is bringing her provocative and entertaining work back to opera when she takes on Monteverdi's Orfeo with the Dutch National Opera. Waltz had great success with Purcell's Dido & Aeneas in 2005 and 2011 with her brilliant combination of dancers and opera singers.
Orfeo promises to have a lot of singing and dancing and the cast is lead by one of the most popular barihunks on our site, Douglas Williams. Williams has made a specialty of baroque music, singing Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane, Purcell's Apollo e Dafne, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Purcell’s King Arthur.
We can't imagine a singer better suited to a Sasha Waltz production. Performances are on September 3, 5 and 6 and tickets are available online.
We've been huge fans of German barihunk Dominik Köninger ever since he wowed the
judges at the 2011 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song
Competition. We always knew that he could sing, but now with this new video of him as Orpheus in
Komische Oper's controversial Monterverdi Trilogy, we've learned he can dance, too! Check him out singing and dancing in Act 2 and then giving a tour de force shirtless performance in Act 5.
Dominik Köninger
The production is by Barrie Kosky, who took the world by storm with his innovative production of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper, which was recently performed at the Los Angeles Opera and is now headed to the Minnesota Opera. There has seldom been a production where a singer was asked to sing, dance and perform this much and Köninger pulls it off brilliantly. It's evident from these videos why in the last few years he's become one of the most talked about and heralded young singers in the business.
Köninger starred in the marathon musical interpretation of Monteverdi's trilogy by the Uzbek composer Elena Kats-Chernin which was performed in a single day, running from 11a.m. until 11p.m. The trilogy included Orpheus, Odysseus and
Poppea and feautured 200 artists on stage. The production definitely wasn't for purists as Kat-Chermin integrated
jazz, klezmer, tango, and ragtime into the score.
Dominik Köninger sings a riveting rendition of "Machtvolle Gottheit" from Orpheus:
Köninger can currently be seen at the Komische Opera as Pantalone in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, which runs through February 19th. He then returns to his popular potrayal of Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, which he's alternating with Tom Erik Lie through May 4.
We originally noticed native New Yorker Theo Hoffman when someone pointed him out as a member of the 2013 Gerdine Young Artists at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. Next season, the young singer will be returning to the riverfront city to cover Papageno in Die Zauberflöte and performing in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites.
He is currently working on in his undergraduate studies at Juilliard with the great baritone Sanford Sylvan. He will be performing Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze do Figaro at Julliard in November and then perform a recital in Spring 2014. We will provide readers additional information closer to the performance dates.
"Tu se' morta" from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo and Charles Ives' "Tom Sails Away"
Last season, Hoffman made his Juilliard Opera debut as Lunardo
in Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari'sLe donne curiose. This summer, he covered Major General Stanley in Gilbert & Sullivan's The
Pirates of Penzance and Tomeš in Smetana's The Kiss for Opera Theatre of Saint
Louis.
In 2013, as a SongFest Stern Fellow, he performed John Musto’s The Brief Light at The Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he also performed Ravel’s famous Don Quichotte a Dulcinée with famed accompanist Martin Katz.. He appeared in recital as part of Juilliard’s Songbook series, Schubert & Co, as well as at the Bruno Walter Auditorium in Lincoln Center, the Chautauqua Institution, the Eastman School of Music, and Juilliard Pre-College.
Jesse Blumberg and Hai-Ting Chinn (Is it just us, or is this one of the sexiest pictures of Jesse Blumberg ever?)
Opera Omnia is presenting their third opera, Claudio Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses. As with all their operas, it will be performed in an English translation. The cast features barihunk Jesse Blumberg and mezzo-soprano Hai-Ting
Chinn in the leading roles, with accompaniment by a period-instrument
ensemble led by music director Avi Stein.
Opera Omnia, which was founded in 2008, concentrates on musical-dramatic works of the 17th century, performing
them in English translations with modern stagings. Their mission is to expose new audiences to early opera masterworks. They have previously performed Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea and Cavalli’s Giasone in English translations at Le Poisson Rouge. The Return of Ulysses will be performed at the Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Howard Gilman Performance Space with staging by Crystal Manich.
Jesse Blumberg & Laura Heimes perform Handel's Apollo & Dafne
Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses is the story of Ulysses’s return to Ithaca and reunion with his wife Penelope, who has remained faithful during his long absence. Also in the cast are Tammy Coil as Minerva, Joseph Gaines as Iro, Karim Sulayman as Eumete , Owen McIntosh as Telemachus, Joe Chappell as Neptune, Nicholas Tamagna as Peisander Richard Lippold as Antinous and Elaine Lachica as Love.
Performances run from September 10-12 and tickets are priced at the ridiculously low cost of $20.00 each. Go online and reserve your tickets today! You won't want to miss this.
New York City's Gotham Chamber Opera announced its 2013-2014 season, which we found to be one of the most innovative and interesting programs that we've seen for the coming year. It aslo happens to feature two of our favorite barihunk calendar models, Michael Mayes and Craig Verm.
The season begins with Michael Mayes in Baden-Baden 1927, a staged evening of four one-act operas that appeared together at the Baden-Baden Festival in 1927. Those operas are Kurt Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel, Paul Hindemith's Hin und zurück (There and Back), Darius Milhaud's L'enlèvement d'Europe (The Abduction of Europa), and Ernst Toch's Die Prinzessin auf der Erbse (The Princess and the Pea).
Joining Mayes in the all-star cast will be legendary soprano Helen Donath, soprano Maeve Höglund, mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera (wife of barihunk Michael Rice), tenors Daniel Montenegro and Matthew Tuell and bass John Cheek.
Craig Verm from the 2013 Barihunks calendar
Next up is Craig Verm, who will be featured in an opera double-bill of Claudio Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and the world premiere of I Have No Stories to Tell You, a newly-commissioned work from Gotham's Composer-in-Residence, Lembit Beecher. Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda was published in 1638 in the composer's Eight Book of Madrigals. I Have No Stories To Tell You, tells the story of a photojournalist's return home after extended assignment in the Middle East.
Other operas scheduled are Toshio Hosakawa's The Raven, a monodrama for mezzo-soprano and twelve instrumentalists and Charpentier's La descente d'Orphée aux enfers.
For more information on the season visit the Gotham Chamber Opera website.
West Edge Opera (formerly Berkeley Opera) is performing Claudio Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea in a new edition created by Mark Streshinsky and Gilbert Martinez. Performances will be on February 1, 2 and 3 and tickets are available online.
Seneca, a philosopher and Nero's tutor, will be played by Paul Thompson. The young bass studied with the Bay Area Summer Opera Theatre Institute and the American Institute of Musical Studies. He has performed a number of roles on the West Coast, including Dr. Grenvil in Verdi's La Traviata with Opera San Jose, the title character in Donizetti's Don Pasquale with Nevada Opera Theater and Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Michael Schopper sings "Solitudine amata" from L'Incoronazione di Poppea:
Poppea is one of the earliest operas ever written. But even in 1642 when it was written, sensuality ruled the day. Emperor Nero can’t get his mind off the beautiful Poppea. He thinks about her more than he thinks about his country. He certainly thinks about her more than he thinks about the Empress.
Nero is Christine Brandes, Poppea is Emma McNairy and Ottone is the rising countertenor sensation Ryan Belongie.
Gotham Chamber Opera begins its 2012-2013 season with GOTHAM @ LPR: ORIENTALE, a collaboration with Company XIV and MAYA, featuring the artists of Gotham Chamber Opera. The program will include Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, along with music by Rameau, Lully, Szymanowski, Delibes, Schumann, Bizet, John Hadfield, and traditional Armenian music.
Michael Kelly and Zach Altman, two barihunks who have been featured regularly on this site, will perform along with soprano Maeve Höglund and Jennifer Rivera (wife of barihunk and OperaNow! podcaster Michael Rice).
The show will be performed on Monday, October 1st and Wednesday, October 3rd at 8pm (doors open at 7pm) at (le) poisson rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, NYC. Tickets are $15-$25 and are available online at www.lepoissonrouge.com.
Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (SV 153) is an operatic scena for three voices by Claudio Monteverdi, although many dispute how the piece should be classified. The piece has a libretto drawn from Torquato Tasso's La Gerusalemme Liberata ("Jerusalem Delivered", Canto XII, 52-62, 64-68), a Romance set against the backdrop of the First Crusade. Il Combattimento was first produced in 1624 but not printed until 1638, when it appeared with several other pieces in Monteverdi’s eighth book of madrigals (written over a period of many years).
In Il Combattimento the orchestra and voices form two separate entities. The strings are divided into four independent parts instead of the usual five – an innovation that was not generally adopted by European composers until the 18th century. Il combattimento contains one of the earliest known uses of pizzicato in baroque music, in which the players are instructed to set down their bows and use two fingers of their right hand to pluck the strings. It also contains one of the earliest uses of the string tremolo, in which a particular note is reiterated as a means of generating excitement. This latter device was so revolutionary that Monteverdi had considerable difficulty getting the players of his day to perform it correctly. These innovations, like the fourfold division of the strings, were not taken up by Monteverdi’s contemporaries or immediate successors.
Zach Altman just wrapped up a run as Zurga in Bizet's "The Pearl Fishers" at Opera San Jose, where he is one of the resident artists. He will open as Dr. Falke in Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus" on November 10th.
On October 6th, Michael Kelly will be appearing at the DiMenna Center for Classical Music in New York City in "Hommage a Debussy" - a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great French composer. On October 21st, he'll perform Durufle's glorious Requiem at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. before heading off for three performances of Orff's Carmina Burana with the Kansas City Symphony in November.
Plutone (Matt Trevino) letting (Orfeo) Oliver Mercer sneak a peak at Euridice?
Opera Theatre Compnay, Ireland's premiere touring opera company, is opening Monteverdi's "Orfeo" tonight in Waterford at the Theatre Royal with and additional performance on Sunday. The production will then travel to Galway, Carlow, Limerick, Tallaght, Navan, Dublin, Bray, Mayo and wrapping up in Wexford on June 30th. Visit their website for additional information.
American barihunk Matt Trevino is singing Plutone/Caronte opposite the hunkentenor of Oliver Mercer.
You can watch an entire performance of the famous Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production of Orfeo under the baton of Nickolaus Harnoncourt from Zurich below.
Sharp was born in Augsburg, Germany and studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Known for his beautiful lieder singing, he has gone on to perform in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Mannheim, Venice, Naples, Frankfurt, Leipzig and in the U.S. at the Chicago Opera Theater. His mother is the soprano and music professor Norma Sharp.
Here he is singing Schubert's wonderful piece "Du bist die Ruh":
A little trivia about the city of Wuppertal, which sits in the Rhine Valley near Cologne: It is where aspirin was invented and was the home to Friedrich Engels, who wrote the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx.
This bottom picture is from Den Norske Opera's production of Monteverdi's sublime opera "L'incoronazione di Poppea." We believe that the guy in the rear is bass Giovanni Battista Parodi and the guy in the front is countertenor Jacek Laszczkowski. Despite the fake blood, this looks like a wonderfully fun time.
The photo on top is definitely of barihunk Giovanni Battista Parodi, who we're desperately trying dig up more photos of to post on Barihunks.
The divine La Cieca at www.parterre.com was the original inspiration for this site, so we're always happy when she discovers new barihunkinal talent. Her latest scoop, or hunkenscoop, is Holger Falk, who is certainly worthy of this site.
My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days, but my internet service was down. After the Hottest Barihunk competition, I figured it's time to start looking at the barihunk bench. There are a number of major hunks emerging on the operatic scene and I want to shere them with you over the next week.
I recently received an email from someone who heard Ryan de Ryke in recital. They called him "tall, red-headed and someone you can't take your eyes off of." Well that got me googling pretty quick, so you be the judge.
De Ryke has appeared in a number of barihunks standards including Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and our beloved Monteverdi and Mozart operas, which supply us with numerous barihunk images. He's rapidly establishing himself as an early music specialist and lieder recitalist of note, as witnessed from this beautiful clip of Schubert lieder.
De Ryke studied at the Britten-Pears Institute and his teachers have included Ian Partridge at the Royal Academy of Music and John Shirley-Quirk at the Peabody Conservatory.
Jesse Blumberg, who I had the pleasure of seeing in recital recently, is going to be debuting a new opera by Ricky Ian Gordon called "Green Sneakers." The opera is an homage to Gordon's lover who died of AIDS. Gordon explains why he chose the straight barihunk:
“Just in watching him work, and watching him sing, he’s completely guided by truth,” Gordon said. “He doesn’t get up there and fake anything. If he doesn’t feel it, he doesn’t do it. His sound is very easy to enter, it’s opulent and beautiful but it’s also sort of matter-of-fact.”
Already, the media has been starting to take notice of the baritone. A March 2007 article in The Baltimore Sun commented on Blumberg’s performance in “The Return of Ulysses to His Homeland” at the Opera Viventa: “In the title role, Jesse Blumberg commanded the stage, physically and vocally. His virile baritone grabbed the melodic lines with remarkable dynamic force, lighting up the hall with his every appearance.” Blumberg even got a shout-out in the blog “Barihunks,” which claims to chronicle “The Sexiest Baritone Hunks from Opera.”
It looks like Neptune is carrying two big spears in the bottom photo. Stunning barihunk Curtis Sullivan sings primarily in Canada, but made his debut with the San Francisco Opera alongside barihunk Bo Skovhus in The Merry Widow. He may be the first singer to turn Mozart's Idomeneo into a barihunk opera.
Other barihunk operas that he's performed in are the Magic Flute, Carmen and A Midsummer Night's Dream. We look forward to seeing much more of this singer...much, much more.
Perhaps the most talked about opera production in the world right now is Monteverdi's "L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA" at Glyndebourne. The bare sets and bare singers had the stiff British press in a twitter before opening night. However, the opera opened to rave reviews with much of the press focused on the steamy, young cast which includes the hot sensation Danielle de Niese, Alice Coote and cute countertenors Iestyn Davies and Christophe Dumuax alternating nights as Ottone.
Even the small roles were apparently cast with Hollywood looks in mind, as young German barihunk Patrick Schramm was cast in the tiny role of Littore. Schramm was Germany's representative in the 2005 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Until this performance, most of his career has been in the Netherlands and Germany.
