Ryan Kuster to close Opera Colorado season as Figaro

Ryan Kuster

Bass-barihunk Ryan Kuster will star in the title role of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which closes the 2018-19 Opera Colorado season. The singer previously appeared as Escamillo with the company in Bizet's Carmen.

Kuster will be joined by soprano Maureen McKay as Susanna, bass-baritone Simone Alberghini as Count Almaviva, soprano Ellie Dehn as Donna Anna,  mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala as Cherubino, mezzo-soprano Margaret Gawrysiak as Marcellina and bass-baritone Stefano de Peppo making his Opera Colorado debut as Dr. Bartolo.
 
Also joining the the cast are members of Opera Colorado's 2018-19 Artist in Residence Program, including tenor Aaren Rivard, as both Don Basilio and Don Curzio, baritone Eric McConnell as Antonio and soprano Rebekah Howell as Barbarina.

The production opens Saturday, May 4, and runs through Sunday, May 12. For tickets and information, visit the Opera Colorado online.

Andrew Garland featured in world premiere of Holocaust opera

Andrew Garland

American barihunk Andrew Garland will sing Abe in the world premiere of Gerald Cohen and Deborah Brevoort's opera Steal a Pencil for Me with Opera Colorado, which opens on January 25th and runs through January 30th. Tickets are available online.

The opera is a true story about a group of Dutch Jews who are deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the last year of World War II. Surrounded by horrors of the Holocaust, Jaap and Manja Polak’s already fragile marriage dissolves as he turns his attentions to Ina Soep. The couple struggles to survive at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while surrounded by torture, disease, starvation, and death. The secret lovers exchange passionate letters written with stolen pencil stubs, keeping their hopes and hearts alive in a time of  darkness.

Andrew Garland sings The Gallows Tree:

In a happy ending to the real life story, Jaap and Ina Polak stayed married for 70 years after surviving the horrors of the concentration camp!

The Massachusetts native moved to Colorado last year to join the voice faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In February, Garland will join Camerata Pacifica for a series of lieder recitals in California with accompanist Warren Jones in Ventura, San Marino and Santa Barbara.

Matt Treviño sporting James Dean look as Leporello

Matt Treviño with Melody Moore, Elie Dehn and Christopher Magiera (clockwise)

After reading our post yesterday about "Barihunks on the air," an alert reader from Boulder, Colorado informed us that the current rum of Don Giovanni from Opera Colorado was being broadcast on Colorado Public Radio. Bummed out that we missed it, we were hoping that a link to the broadcast was still up, but we were sadly disappointed. (Are you folks at CPR reading this? Hint. Hint).

The production features our favorite cigar chomping barihunk Matt Treviño as Leporello and Christopher Magiera as Don Giovanni. The production is being updated to mid-century America with Matt Treviño looking very James Dean-esque. This is Treviño's third role in Don Giovanni, pulling off a rare trifecta. He previously sang the title role with Opera Naples and the Commendatore at the Fort Worth Opera.

If you're in the Rocky Mountain area, you can still catch it live on April 2, 5 and 7. Tickets are available online.

Matt Treviño

Upcoming performances for Treviño include the Ethel Smyth Mass in D with the Cecelia Chorus of New York at Carnegie Hall on April 14, 2013, Beethoven's 9th Symphony at his alma mater Baylor University on April 20th and Sparafucile/Monterone in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Lyric Opera Baltimore on May 17th and 19th.

Latest Hot Photo of Buff Keith Miller

Keith Miller prepares for Florencia en el Amazonas (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

The story about barihunk Keith Miller going from football fullback to full-fledged opera star has been covered extensively in the press. However, when we saw the latest article in the Denver Post with this photo, we figured it was worth covering again. After all, some shirtless pictures of Miller that we posted remains one of our most popular features.

Miller is opening in Daniel Catan's Florencia en al Amazonas on March 27 with Opera Colorado. 

If you haven't read about Miller's career change, you can read the article HERE.

You can learn about Miller's Puissance Fitness training HERE. 

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Keith Miller: Jock, Singer and now Youth Mentor and Professional Trainer

Keith Miller: From Buffaloes to Barihunks

We've featured American barihunk Keith Miller before and his story of "football player to opera singer" has been well-documented. He continues to draw attention and praise everywhere he goes. He was in the cast of Donizetti's Anna Bolena that featured Anna Netrebko and received international press coverage. He will return to that production in 2012. 

Miller will also perform in Billy Budd at the Met next year, with fellow barihunk Nathan Gunn in the title role.  Performances in other venues include a recital at the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado and singing the role of Riolobo in the production of the late Daniel Catán's opera "Florencia en el Amazonas" at Opera Colorado.

When we first featured shirtless photos of Miller, it created quite the sensation and the photos remain some of the most popular with our readers. Because of his own athletic training and how much it has contributed to his success as a singer, Keith has also founded Puissance Training (Meaning “Power” in French), a progressive new way of looking at opera today that helps singers train for physically demanding roles and scenes. And in yet another sign of how football and opera can mix, he’s doing the training with the help of a business partner, one of his former football trainers.

Of course, at Barihunks we love the idea of singers looking fit, as well as believable, on stage. We hope that his new venture takes off as fast as his singing career. His press release said it best"

"He's a perfect fit in the new world of opera where singers are expected to look like movie stars and where fitness is a non-negotiable requirement."   

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com