Philippe Sly Documentary

Brothers Philippe and Mathieu Sly

There are few young singers who we're more excited about than Canadian Barihunk Philippe Sly. If it were possible that Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Simon Keenlyside had a love child, we're pretty sure that it would have been Sly. For a singer in his early 20s, his interpretive skills and musicianship is beyond singers with decades more experience.

We've seen him hone his craft in person and it a truly remarkable site. He searches for the perfect tone and mood in every song that he sings. He clearly wowed the judges at both the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Concours Musical International de Montreal (MIMC) where he took away top honors. As Radio-Canada host Françoise Davoine has said, "It was impossible not to be completely bowled over by this young man with the golden voice and the luminous expression."

His brother Mathieu Sly has put together a 15-minute documentary "IN DREAMS, EN RÊVES, IN TRÄUMEN" on the making of his latest album. It's a great opportunity to watch him perfect his music making.

The opera world is wasting little time in snapping up this young talent, recognizing that he's the perfect marketing passage: matinee idol looks + an amazing talent. After finishing a year with the prestigious Merola Opera Program in San Francisco, he was signed by by the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. He will also be touring Canada in a recital series with the Debut Atlantic Series.

The San Francisco Opera which got to witness Sly firsthand while he was at Merola also wasted little time in signing Sly and he will appear in their mainstage production of Mozart's Così fan tutte as Guglielmo opposite Heidi Stober, Ellie Dehn, Francesco Demuro and Marco Vinco. Performances will be led by music director Nicola Luisotti and begin on June 9, 2013. Visit the San Francisco Opera website for more information.

You can buy his new album by clicking on our Amazon link to the right or by going to iTunes or Spotify. We can guarantee you that you'll want to add this to your music collection.

Marco Vratogna profiled: Next Great Verdi Baritone

Marco Vratogna

We've been touting Marco Vratogna as one of the next great Verdi baritones for some time now. He's in San Francisco performing the title role in Verdi's "Rigoletto" right now and local writer Sean Martinfield penned this wonderful and insightful profile of the singer for the Huffington Post, which we just had to share.

San Francisco Opera opened its 2012-13 season this month with Verdi's Rigoletto. Conducted by Music Director Nicola Luisotti, the final performances on Tuesday, Sept. 25 and Sunday, Sept. 30 will feature Marco Vratogna in the title role, Albina Shagimuratova as Gilda, and Arturo Chacón-Cruz as the Duke of Mantua. In his third appearance with SF Opera, Italian baritone Marco Vratogna marks his debut as "Rigoletto," a role he began crafting years ago with Maestro Luisotti prior to either of them arriving in San Francisco. Still in his thirties, a lion-hearted Leo, Vratogna is that rare breed of natural dramatic baritone who owns the vocal prowess and seductive appeal of the alpha male so predominant in the Verdi repertoire.

"Maybe it's a side of me," he said during our recent visit. "I didn't choose anything. Maybe Verdi chose me." [Article continued HERE]

Coverboy: Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Dmitri Hvorostovsky: Feb 2012 Opera News & June 2011 BBC Music

We're really loving the trend of putting barihunks on the cover of leading music magazines. We've recently seen Luca Pisaroni, Mariusz Kwiecien, Nathan Gunn, Simon Keenlyside, Greer Grimsley and Christopher Maltman all grace the covers of major periodicals. Opera News has certainly been leading the way and not just with baritones, as hunky tenors Jonas Kaufmann and Roberto Alagna, as well as San Francisco Opera conductor Nicola Luisotti.

We particularly enjoyed the recent article on Dmitri Hvorostovsky by Ousamma Zahr. Unlike many puff pieces in music magazines, Zahr covered the "Siberian Hunky's" successes, as well as his challenges, including a recent vocal crisis. Both Zahr and the singer also deftly handled the issue of Hvorostovsky's good looks. In an age of press agents, media hypes and fan sites, it always seems disingenuous when singers deny any awareness about their sex appeal. It's refreshing when a singer like Hvorostovsky completely owns it. Here's are some excerpts from the article:

With his great looks and magnetic presence, Hvorostovsky seems tailor-made for the Live in HD craze...Long before Nathan Gunn, Erwin Schrott and Mariusz Kwiecien were baring their chests for their art and their audiences, Hvorostovsky was named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People," back in 1991.

Hvorostovsky flexing his muscles on Facebook

Hvorostovsky...is pragmatic on the subject of sex appeal. "In a way, it's part of my package - the way I look, that's the way I sound, actually. You can draw the parallel," he says. "I was working against it in the beginning, I was opposing the media approach of me as a sex symbol - red-hot, Siberian express and blahdy-blahdy-blah. I said, "Look and listen at what I'm performing! What am I singing about? And it really was a little distracting to begin with, because I was young and ambitious. Then soon I realized that you just have to get along."

It's worth noting that the one time Hvorostovsky went shirtless on the Met stage in 2007, it wasn't in Don Giovanni or some other predictable barihunk vehicle but in that jewel of a crown of a Russian opera, Eugene Onegin. [Read the remainder of the article at Opera News].

Verdi figures prominently in Hvorostovsky's 2012 schedule. He begins the year singing Don Carlo in Ernani at the Met, the title role of Simon Boccanegra at the Vienna State Opera and then Germont père in La traviata at the Met.

Hvorostovsky sings "Gran' Dio!... Oh, de'verd'anni miei" from Verdi's Ernani:

Hvorostovsky's performance of Ernani will be broadcast on the radio as well as part of a Live in HD broadcast on Saturday, February 25 at 1 PM EST/10 AM PST.

San Francisco Opera Delivers Another Great "Don Giovanni"

Ryan Kuster: What was Zerlina thinking?

There has been so much attention paid to the Met's "Don Giovanni" with the last minute cancellation and then probable return of Mariusz Kwiecien, that the opera world has almost forgotten about the Mozart classic opening on the Left Coast.

Regular readers of this site will know that Mariusz Kwiecien's performance of Don Giovanni at the San Francisco Opera was one of the inspirations for this website. In a world of competitive Don Giovanni's, including Teddy Tahu Rhodes' return to the role at Opera Australia, it's nice to see that the San Francisco Opera continues to deliver solid, well-cast performances of the opera.  To top it off, the performances are being led by their extremely popular music director Nicola Luisotti.

Lucas Meachem

The San Francisco Opera's "Don Giovanni" opened on Saturday night with a trio of men that would be the envy of any opera company: The vocally thrilling Lucas Meachem as the Don, Marco Vinco in his U.S. debut at Leporello and future superstar and certified barihunk Ryan Kuster as Masetto. In a bit of fantasy casting, the amazingly talented Kate Lindsey is Zerlina.

Ryan Kuster is a first-year Adler Fellow, recent graduate of the 2010 Merola Opera Program and a former participant in Philadelphia’s Academy of Vocal Arts. He is performing a number of roles at the San Francisco Opera this season, including a Mandarin (Turandot), Astolfo (Lucrezia Borgia), Masetto (Don Giovanni), and Escamillo (Carmen).



Performances run through November 10th and tickets and additional cast information are available at the San Francisco Opera website.

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