Properly introducing Brian Mextorf; Competing in Met SE Regional Finals

Brian Mextorf

We briefly introduced Brian Mextorf back in September 2013, when he was workshopping composer Clint Borzoni's Antinuous and Hadrian with Operamission in New York City. He recently was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (North Carolina District), so we thought this was a good time to properly reintroduce him to readers.

Mextrof hails from Williamsport, Pennsylvania and studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (B.M.) and the Westminster Choir College (M.M.). This season he'll be an Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera for the 2014-15 season. In 2012, he was a member of the Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis where he performed three roles in the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland.

A favorite of Operamission, in addition to Borzoni's work, he has appeared as Lesbo in their production of Handel’s Agrippina and Edward Ficklin’s Flash of Recognition. He sang Judas in the Philadelphia Orchestra's performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin in a cast that included fellow barihunks Luca Pisaroni and Andrew Foster-Williams.

Christian Zaremba and Alexander Elliott to compete in Met Semi-Finals

He will also be making his debut at Opera Saratoga as Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. His Dido will be Jennifer Johnson Cano and the performance will be led by the brilliant conductor Nicole Paiement. Performances run from July 6-21 and tickets are available online.

Mextorft will compete in the Metropolitan Opera's Southeast Regional Finals on February 15, 2015. We'll be watching those closely, as a number of other singers who have appeared on this site will be competing in the regionals, including Vasil Garvanliev, Robert Balonek, Ricardo Rivera, Cairan Ryan, Alexander Elliott, Colin Ramsey, Steven Eddy, Christian Zaremba, Andrew Lovato and Chris Carr.       

Also competing are a number of singers who we've not featured yet, but will profile this week. They include Jonathan Harris, Phillip Gay, Andrew Bogard, Zachary Read, Brian Vu, Ben Taylor, Nathan Milholin, Christopher Besch and Christian Pursell.    

Catching up with Damien Pass in France

Damien Pass

When we last featured Aussie barihunk Damien Pass in 2007, he had recently graduated from Oberlin, had won and Encouragement Award from the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition and was starting to get small roles in places like Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Opera North and the Music Academy of the West. Somehow we lost track of him until we received an email recently asking why he wasn't included in our poll of sexiest Aussie barihunks.

We're pleased to announce that we found him in France, where he's been singing smaller roles at the Paris Opera.  He's performed Don Inigo (L’heure Espagnole, Ravel), Frank Maurrant (Street Scene, Weill), Lucas (Les Troqueurs, Dauvergne), and the Marquese (Mirandolina, Martinů) with the Atelier Lyrique at the Paris Opera.

Damien Pass sings Aaron Copland's "At the River":

In September 2001, Pass made his Parisian recital debut with the Fesival les journées romantiques with a program that included Aaron Copland, Franz Liszt, Cole Porter, Franz Schubert and Henri Duparc.

He's also made his mark outside of France, singing the title role in Handel’s Saul with the Britten-Pears Orchestra conducted by Richard Egarr in Aldeburgh.

 Damien Pass sings Aaron Copland's "Long Time Ago":

Pass will next be seen March 15th at the Palais Garnier in a program of Massenet with the Paris Opera Orchestra. A week later he'll be part of a concert of music by Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf et Richard Wagner at the Goethe Institute in Paris. We'll try to keep better tabs on this promising young talent in the future.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Christopher Johnstone Featured in Orange County Register

[Photo by Chris Wagner/OC Register]


We've had our eye on barihunk Christopher Johnstone for some time, so it was nice to see him featured in the Orange County Register.

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