Bass-barihunk Hadleigh Adams is going to rack up some frequent flyer miles singing Handel's Messiah this holiday season. Fresh off a huge success as Schaunard in Puccini's La boheme at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, he heads across the globe to his native New Zealand.
He will sing his first Messiah with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on December 7th in Wellington. He then hops back on a plane to his home base of San Francisco for three performances of Handel's holiday classic with the American Bach Soloists on December 11, 12 and 13. He then heads south to the Lone Star State for three more Messiah's with the Houston Symphony Orchestra on December 20. 21 and 22.
Composed in just 24 days in 1741, the Messiah received a lukewarm reception at its first London performance. However, over the years it has grown in popularity. Although Messiah is structured like an opera, it features no characters or dialogue.
He'll wrap up the year back in San Francisco for the American Bach Soloists New Years Eve concert. He'll be joined by mezzo-soprano Sarah Coit for arias and duets from Handel, Rameau, Vivaldi and Monteverdi.
If web traffic to our site is any indication, then readers are clearly enjoying the posts about Hadleigh Adams preparing for the Southern Hemisphere premiere of Vivaldi's Bajazet at Australia's Pinchgut Opera. Earlier today, we posted an amazing rehearsal video of him singing "Dov'e la figlia?," which shows why he's more than just a pretty face...the man can SING! We figured that we're share a few photos, as well, because he's clearly as easy on the eyes as the ears.
Adams is returning to Pinchgut after a successful run as Pollux in their production of Rameau's Castor & Pollux in 2012. The company clearly recognizes his marketability, as he's part of their recent advertising campaign, which includes online banners, print ads and outdoor advertising.
Hadleigh Adams in rehearsal as Bajazet
Bajazet, a rarely performed operatic tragedy, premiered in Verona in 1735 and is a pastiche of Vivaldi's own arias, as well as those by Johann Adolph Hasse, Geminiano Giacomelli, Nicola Porpora and Riccardo Broschi. The opera is also known as Il Tamerlano and the story was also successfully set to music by Handel. The libretto revolves around romantic entanglements and love triangles and the struggle for power between Bajazet, ruler of the Turks, and Tamerlano, ruler of the Tartars.
Performances of Vivaldi’s Bajazet will be on July 4, 5, 7 and 8 at City
Recital Hall Angel Place in Sydney. Also in the cast is Christopher
Lowrey as Tamerlano, Helen Sherman as Irene, Emily Edmonds as Asteria
and Russell Harcourt as Andronicus. Tickets and additional production
information is available online.
The Washington National Opera has released a preview video of their current production of "Le Nozze de Figaro" with barihunks Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Count Almaviva and Ildar Abdrazakov as Figaro. As you can see from the screen cap, "Teddy Bare" manages to give the audience a little shot of skin even when he's not singing barihunk classics such as Dead Man Walking, Don Giovanni or A Streetcar Named Desire.
There are two performances left with Rhodes and Abdrazakov and one with the alternate cast of Trevor Scheunemann and Kostas Smoriginas. Visit the Washington National Opera website for casts and times.
We went online to check out the new video of the Australian Singing Competition 2009 Mathy Awards winners. We knew that Barihunks regular Hadleigh Adams was competing and we were rooting for him. But were we ever thrilled to discover that of the five finalists, three were barihunks. Adams was joined by Lachlan Scott and Sam Roberts-Smith, who won the competition.
Here is the video from the competition and some bios of the three hunks from Down Under:
Sam Roberts-Smith is a 22-year-old barihunk who was born in Perth, Australia. He completed a Bachelor of Music at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA). Roberts-Smith was a Finalist in the McDonald’s Operatic Aria and a recipient of The Michelle Robinson Scholarship for voice; the McCaw-Marsh Entry Scholarship; the Lionel Edgerton Scholarship and the Joan Sutherland Society of Sydney Scholarship, 2006. He was recently selected as a Finalist in the New York Study Award.
His WAAPA Repertoire includes: Harry Easter: Street Scene (Kurt Weill), Maxamillian: Candide (Leonard Bernstein), Boniface: Angelique (Jaques Ibert) Demetrius: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Benjamin Britten). Other roles: Guglielmo: Così fan tutte (Mozart) – Pacific Opera, Batavia (Richard Mills) – WAO.
Roberts-Smith appeared as a Soloist with The Sydney Symphony Youth Orchestra and The Sydney Conservatorium Orchestra and Chorale. His broadcasts for ABC Classic FM include Rising Stars and Sunday Live.
Adelaide-born Bass Lachlan Scott completed a Bachelor of Music in Classical Voice Performance at the Elder Conservatorium in 2007, culminating a 15-year relationship with renowned Bass-Baritone Robert Dawe.
For State Opera of South Australia he has performed the roles of Sid in La Fanciulla del West and Caronte in their acclaimed studio production of Underneath, based on Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and has covered the roles of The Mandarin (Turandot) and Count Ceprano (Rigoletto). He has also sung regularly with the SOSA chorus since their 2004 production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. He performed a principal role in each of the Elder Conservatorium opera productions from 2003-2007, including Doctor Bartolo (Figaro), Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), and Don Alfonso (Cosi fan Tutte). For Co-Opera, he will perform the role of Don Basilio in Barbiere di Siviglia in late 2009.
He has extensive oratorio experience, performing bass arias and solos for a variety of Adelaide-based groups in Bach’s St. Matthew and St. John Passion, Handel’s Messiah, and the Mozart and Fauré Requiem masses.
Also an experienced chorister, he has been a core member of the award-winning and internationally recognised Adelaide Chamber Singers, directed by Carl Crossin, since 2005.
New Zealand bass baritone Hadleigh Adams was born in Palmerston North, and completed a Bachelor of Music degree in 2006 under the tutelage of Dr Te Oti Rakena at the University of Auckland . He went on to complete his Masters degree in Music, studying with Margaret Medlyn and Jenny Wollerman at the New Zealand School of Music, graduating in 2007. In February 2009, Hadleigh relocated to Australia, to take up his position as the Gertrude Johnson Scholar at Australia’s new opera studio, The Opera School - Melbourne.
In New Zealand, Hadleigh has already forged an impressive operatic and concert career. He has been a member of the NBR New Zealand Opera since 2004, and since this time has performed in all main stage productions with the company. In 2006 he was invited to begin understudying principal roles, and perform minor lead roles. Throughout 2007/2008 he was the PwC Dame Malvina Major Emerging artist with the NBR New Zealand Opera, during which time he was awarded the prestigious Circle100 Scholarship.
Hadleigh was a finalist in The Australian Singing Competition Mathy Award, and was a national finalist in the 2009 Final Opera Australia Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist Auditions. The recipient of many other awards and scholarships, Hadleigh has also received scholarship offers for postgraduate study at the Royal College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Royal Scottish Academy of Music, Royal Northern College of Music and has been accepted to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
In 2009 Hadleigh has enjoyed a busy concert schedule, both in Australia and New Zealand. Opera roles include Papageno in The Magic Flute; Coppelius in Les Contes d’Hoffmann; Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas; Baritone in Four Note Opera and Bob in The Old Maid & the Thief. Concert engagements will include; Purcell’s Come Ye Sons of Art (Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra); J.S. Bach’s St John Passion (The Orpheus Choir); David Hamilton’s Breaking the Quiet (Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra); and Handel’s Messiah (RMPS, and Napier Civic Choir).
One thing you need to know about Hadleigh Adams: he doesn’t appreciate being stereotyped. “I did an article for Express, New Zealand's gay paper, and they referred to me as ‘the queen of opera’. And I said, ‘You know what, that reinforces every negative stereotype about what this community is doing to itself and I really resent it. Take it down now.’ I’m just saying: you should treat me the same as everyone else and if you do differently I will let you know you’ve done so.”
After completing post-graduate music studies in New Zealand, the 23-year-old Kiwi baritone is studying at The Opera School Melbourne, a new, private studio that opened its doors March 2. It takes 20 students annually, by audition only, and offers an intensive, one-year program. In 2009, visiting lecturers include conductor Richard Gill and director Stuart Maunder. Its performance-based program suits Adams, whose aim is “to work as a professional singer at an international level”. As the recipient of the school’s only scholarship, he has the voice, the looks and the drive that could take him to the top in a competitive field. It’s a journey that began when he was 10 years old.
“I’m from a little place in New Zealand called Palmerston North, about 80,000 people, fairly small, rural. My parents had records, and I put one on and the needle hit the exact point of an aria called Vissi d’arte from Tosca by Puccini. It’s the most incredible aria. She’s crying out to God, saying, ‘What have I done wrong?’ At 10 you can’t grasp that. All I heard was this woman who was really, really sad, and it just sounded so intense, raw and passionate. Well, at 10, not those things, but – ‘Wow! Awesome! Cool!’”
Adams talks excitedly about a recent performance of Don Giovanni by the Victorian Opera. Giovanni, a baritone role in a Mozart opera, is a character his young voice could assay right now, he says. Other roles must wait until he matures.
“Verdi’s writing, especially his later stuff, is incredibly epic. You need vocal cords of steel. The youngest Verdi you would see would be round about 35. My voice is rich, it’s mature; it’s got a long way to go, but that’s when a guy’s voice starts to settle down, round about 35, 40. That’s when the colour and the richest of a voice gets in there.”
Adams has tried his hand at modelling, but the mention of a website devoted to “hunky baritones” causes him to jump out of his seat: “Oh my God! No, no, no. OK, first of all I just want to point out that I didn’t know that I was on there, I didn’t know that site existed!”
He shows me the difference between a pop singer’s voice and an opera singer’s – the latter sound nearly blowing my head off with its volume. He doesn’t look like he’s trying to be louder, the sound comes from what he calls “the musculature”. It literally makes me wince, as if I’m sitting in front of a shockwave. But it’s beautiful, too.
Adams has a private project: a performance of the AIDS Quilt Songbook, which he plans for late November this year. He was involved in the NZ premier a couple of years ago: “The energy in the room,” he says dreamily. “The music just hits you between the eyes. It was the proudest moment in my life.”
Rehearsals are underway for Teddy Tahu Rhode's debut in Samuel Barber's glorious Antony and Cleopatra. Here is a photo Teddy Bare hot as ever in a tee shirt during rehearsals.
Playbill describes him as the "...strapping 6-foot-5 baritone from New Zealand," while the City Opera website describes him as, "...a striking baritone from New Zealand." Clearly, we're not the only ones who find it tough to write about Teddy Bare without talking about his stunning good looks. Of course, this is a concert performance, so Barihunks fans will have to focus on the music. If you haven't heard this opera before, it is absolutely ravishing. Here are the words to the duet between Cleopatra and Antony. Cleopatra will be portrayed by the dramatically intense Lauren Flanigan. This should be a highlight of the night.
Antony and Cleopatra
Oh take, oh take, those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn
Cleopatra
And those eyes, like break of day. Oh lights that do mislead the morn. But my kisses bring again. Seals of love, though seal'd in vain.
Antony
Hide, oh hide, those hills of snow, Which they frozen blossom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are those that April wears. But first set my poor heart free. Bound in those ivy chains be thee.
Also, the New York City Opera has offered Barihunks readers a group discount if a bunch of you want to go see what promises to be a great performance, especially with the amazing Lauren Flanigan portraying Cleopatra. For more information concerning group packages, please contact Michelle Levengood by phone (212) 870-4259 or e-mail mlevengood@nycopera.com.
No word if Antony sings without his shirt.
Hopefully, the Leonard/Rhodes marriage ends better than the Cleopatra/Antony affair.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes recently showed off his tattoo to a TV reporter in his native New Zealand. The female reporter was very funny and seemed genuinely disappointed to learn that he was marrying mezzo Isabel Leonard in December. But she perked up as he began to disrobe to show off the tattoo.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes is back in his homeland of New Zealand after taking America by storm. The super sexy barihunks has dozens of new fans after showing off his physical and vocal talents in Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. He returns to the United States on June 11 and 13 at the Cincinnati Opera playing Count Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro(http://www.cincinnatiopera.com/performances).
I got the funniest email from a woman who has to be Teddy Tahu Rhodes' biggest fan. She wrote, "I get downright blue if I check your site and their [sic] is nothing new with Teddy Tahu Rhodes. Why does Nathan Gunn get so much space? He's cute, but boring. Teddy is edgy and gets me excited."
These are for her. Are this pictures from "Dead Man Walking" edgy enough? I wonder if she's the same woman who visits the "Night Stalker" in prison.
Photos and comments can be emailed to barihunks@gmail.com
OK, no bitchy emails from the purists for posting Roy Snow on Barihunks! Sometimes we have to bend the rules a little in order to post our favorite hunks.
Snow is well known in New Zealand for appearing on the TV show Shortland Street and for cameos on Xena, but he has regularly used his beautiful baritone to sing in The Threepenny Opera, Les Miserables and other musicals. I always think of him as the John Barrowman on Kiwi Kountry.
The photo above is from a production of The Threepenny Opera in New Zealand. He looks pretty good in a mezzo beater tee shirt, too. Moreover, it's nice to know that there are plenty of other Kiwi hunks besides Teddy Tahu Rhodes.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes has apparently seduced a few more people than his loyal fans. Here is what the stuffy Wall Street Journal and the esteemed New York Times had to say about his performance in Billy Budd in Santa Fe:
Wall Street Journal: The baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, singing the title role for the first time, impressively captured Billy's macho brio and his vulnerability. He was also physically well-qualified, since he could swing acrobatically from the rigging of Robert Innes Hopkins's workable warship set. Tenor William Burden, who ceded his frequent status as bare-chested beefcake to the well-sculpted Mr. Rhodes for this opera, had the gravitas, emotional range, high notes and lyricism needed for Captain Vere.
NY Times: There is no single Billy Budd look. He can be boyish or a dreamer or a lost soul baffled by the effect he has on people. At 6-foot-5, with his athletic build and six-pack abs, close-ups of which can be seen on numerous opera Web sites, Mr. Rhodes is a towering, rambunctious and jocklike Billy. On being pressed into service, Billy is made a foretop man, and repeatedly throughout the performance Mr. Rhodes climbs up and down rigging with abandon, sometimes using only his arms.
Hadleigh Adams is a current PwC Dame Malvina Major Emerging Artist with the NBR New Zealand Opera Company (http://www.nzopera.com/). He makes his professional debut this year in the NBR New Zealand Opera's productions of La Boheme, Hansel and Gretel, and Jenufa.
In 2008, Adams has a busy concert schedule. He'll be performing the Messiah with the Tudor Consort and Vector Wellington Orchestra, the World Premiere of David Hamilton's Breaking the Quiet with the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra, and Bach's Peasant Cantata with the Vector Wellington Orchestra.
A little birdie tells me that there might be some other surprises in store for his barihunk fans. We'll be happy to key an eye on him (and we love the new picture!).
The pictures are finally in from Teddy Tahu Rhodes' debut in Billy Budd in Sante Fe. Needless to say, he is getting rave reviews and looking rather cute in his sailor's outfit. A reviewer at RedOrbit even likened him to the original from the movies.
And while vocal suitability should always be first and foremost in the casting of any opera, it must be said, he looks the part splendidly, not unlike the young Terence Stamp who played the role in the 1962 film version of the story.
His final, "Farewell to ye, old Rights of Man" is the emotional peak of the production.
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