When we first posted about Theo Hoffman, he was preparing for his performance as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze do Figaro at Julliard. We mentioned that he also had an upcoming recital, but we didn't have a date at the time.
We've learned that he'll be performing as part of the Britten celebration with the Juilliard Songfest at Alice Tully Hall on December 3rd. Hoffman will be joined by accompanist Brian Zeger to perform selections from Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Tickets are free and are available at the Juilliard box office.
Theo Hoffman sings Pierrot's Tanzlied from Korngold's "Die Tote Stadt":
This summer, Hoffman, who was a member of the 2013 Gerdine Young Artists at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, will perform the role of Thierry in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. The all-star cast will be led by Christine Brewer, Kelly Kaduce, Meredith Arwady, David Porillo and fellow barihunk Troy Cook. Performances run from June 18-28 and tickets are available online.
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.
Barihunk Aubrey Allicock just completed a critically acclaimed run as the lead in Terence Blanchard's Champion at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. The buzz in the opera world is that this was a career launching performance. OUT Magazine recently ran a profile of the singer along with this amazing photograph.
Hot List: Aubrey Allicock by Jerry Portwood
Aubrey Allicock, currently studying at Juilliard, is explaining his path as a young opera singer. “As a bass-baritone, I’m a baby, I’m a child!” he says, punctuating his confession with a big, hearty laugh. “I’ll probably be 40 before my voice hits its prime.” Despite his relative youth in his field, the 29-year-old singer has the opportunity of a lifetime this summer when he originates the role of the young boxer Emile Griffith in the world premiere of Champion at Opera Theatre of St. Louis. [Read the entire article at OUT magazine].
Allicock was also featured in the Sound Bites section of Opera News.
Aubrey Allicock sings "Se vuol ballare" from Le Nozze di Figaro:
The Opera Theatre of St. Louis has announced that barihunk Aubrey Allicock is this year’s recipient of the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation prize.
The award recognizes extraordinary artistic potential in early-career artists and provides support for continued artistic and professional development. Allicock will receive a $10,000 cash prize, which may be used toward expenses that further artistic and professional growth. He was selected by a committee of Opera Theatre’s leadership.
Allicock began his professional career in 2009 as a member of Opera Theatre’s Gerdine Young Artist program. He then joined the roster at the Metropolitan Opera in 2010 and joined the Opera Theatre as a principal artist in 2011.
He will star in the title role in the world-premiere of Champion at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, co-starring Denyce Graves with music by Terrance Blanchard. Performances run from June 15-30 and tickets go on sale online on Saturday, February 23rd.
The Opera Theatre of St. Louis has announced that barihunk Aubrey Allicock will star as bisexual boxer Emile Griffith in the world premiere of Champion on June 15, 2013. The opera was written by jazz great Tereence Blanchard with a libretto by playwright Michael Cristofer and will also star mezzo Denyce Graves.
Aubrey Allicock has become an instant fan favorite at the Opera Theatre where he played Mamoud in The Death of Klinghoffer in 2011 and the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland in 2012. Local opera fans got to know him during his two year stint with the Gerdine Young Artist program where he performed the roles of Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin and the Customs Official in La bohème.
Terence Blanchard: Taxi Driver:
Emile Griffith was a three-time World Welterweight Champion and twice a World Middleweight Champion, fighting from the late 1950s into the 1970s. However, one of his greatest professional triumphs – winning back the Welterweight Championship from Benny “The Kid” Paret in 1962 – was also one of his greatest personal tragedies. The seventeen punches he landed on Paret in seven seconds resulted in not only a knockout, but also a coma from which Paret would never recover. Paret would die ten days later.
The end of the Griffith-Paret fight + Norman Mailer's commentary:
Before that life-changing televised fight, in a room full of press and officials, Paret mocked Griffith repeatedly with a derogatory term for homosexual. Years later, Griffith’s sexuality as a gay man was revealed to the public after he was nearly killed by a gang outside a gay bar in New York. “I kill a man,” Griffith was quoted to have said, “and most people understand and forgive me. I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgiveable sin.” In an inspiring, moving, and painful journey of self-discovery, Champion presents audiences with a great contemporary tragic hero – a man of strength and courage consumed ultimately by rage, regret, and the terrible consequences of his actions.
Today, Griffith requires full time care and suffers from pugilistic dementia.
Avirath Dodabele as young Omar and Paul LaRosa as Rambo
Our inbox has been filled with an unusually large amount of correspondence about the Opera Theatre of St. Louis' production of John Adams' "The Death of Klinghoffer." With our commitment to promoting contemporary opera we're kicking ourselves for not covering this production until late in the run. There is one performance left on Saturday, June 25.
Many of the emails were about Christopher Mageira, who plays the Captain, and who has not appeared on this site before. However, the heavy panting came through in the emails about Paul LaRosa's performance as Rambo. Fortunately, the opera company posted this photo on their website. We've posted a number of pictures of LaRosa and his muscled physique since his days at the Merola Opera Program.
Christopher Magiera as the Captain
Christopher Magiera is currently a member of the Dresden Semperoper., where he is singing Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Count Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Taddeo in L’italiana in Algeri and Robert in Iolanta. This summer, Magiera will make his Santa Fe Opera debut as Valentin in Faust where he will alternate the role with fellow American barihunk Matt Worth.
Magiera has won many awards and competitions. Most recently he won the 2009 Sullivan Foundation Grand Prize, was a 2008 Grand National Finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, an International Finalist in Placido Domingo’s World Opera Competition Operalia, and won First Place in the 2008 Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition. He has also received awards from the Jensen Foundation, Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, Florida Grand Competition, Maguerite McCammon Competition (Fort Worth Opera), Liederkranz Foundation, Bel Canto Foundation, Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation, San Antonio Opera Vocal Competition and the Annie Wentz Prize (Vocal Performance, Peabody Conservatory).
Here is the Chorus of Exiled Palestinians from the opera:
Elliot Madore in OTSL's Don Giovanni (Photo Ken Howard)
Elliot Madore had some big shoes to fill when he had to step in for Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He also had to worry about satisfying those who were eager to see Okulitch in another production where he showed off more voice than costuming. From all accounts, Madore delivered both a vocally and physically stunning performance. In fact, there was so little clothing in some scenes that the local press felt it necessary to issue a warning.
According to Lew Prince of the Riverfront Times, "If for some reason you're tempted to tote your grade schooler to see Don Giovanni, you might want to rethink that. The production features significant nudity (male) and beaucoup rolling around. Giovanni's final debauch, in particular, looks like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" as depicted by Hieronymous Bosch."
A reader who was attending the St. Louis production sent us an email pointing out that we've never covered what he believed to be the sexiest performance of "Don Giovanni" ever, Peter Sellar's updated production with Eugene and Herbert Perry, who are actual twin brothers. This production was part of Sellar's critically-acclaimed updating of Cosi fan tutte, Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, all of which were once available on DVD.
Here are some pictures and a snippet of one of the sexier scenes:
Eugene Perry as Don Giovanni
Madore's performances of Don Giovanni run through June 25 in St. Louis.
Copies of Randal Turner's CD are selling fast, so make sure to order your copy today, if you haven't already. The album is also available in download form. Turner sings music by today's greatest living American composers including Jake Heggie, Ricky Ian Gordon, Glen Roven, Clint Borzoni and Julia Schwartz. You won't want to miss having this in your collection.
We continue to monitor the progress of barihunk Daniel Okulitch, who suffered three cracked vertebrae and is confined to a harness after a horrific car accident in Los Angeles that also injured soprano Carin Gilfry. We contacted Okulitch directly who assured us that he expects to make a full recovery. We certainly join the chorus of his growing fans in wishing him a speedy return to the stage.
Okulitch will obviously not recover in time for his run as Don Giovanni at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis which opens next month, so the company has announced that Elliot Madore will replace him in the cast. Okulitch is a fan favorite in St. Louis, where he created the role of Willy Wonka in the world premiere of "The Golden Ticket" last year.
Performances of Don Giovanni will run from May 21 through June 25. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.
