Zacharias Niedzwiecki on the cover of our 2018 Barihunks Photo Book
Zacharias Niedzwiecki, who is prominently featured in both our 2018 Barihunks calendar and photo book, will be appearing next week in the Chicago Opera Theater's production of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul. Niedzwiecki appears on the cover of the photo book.
The Consul will feature the great American soprano Patricia Racette making her role debut as Magda Sorel, a strong-willed and passionate woman who will do anything to ensure her family’s safety.
Niedzwiecki will perform the roles of Assan, a friend of Magda's husband, and the Plainclothesman. Cedric Berry, who has also appeared on this site, sings the role of the secret police officer. Performances are on November 4, 10 and 12 and tickets and additional cast information are available online.
The Consul was Menotti's first full-length opera. It premiered on March 1, 1950 with Patricia Neway as Magda, Cornell MacNeil as John Sorel and Marie Powers as the mother. It went on to have a successful eight month run on Broadway, winning the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Music, as well as the 1950 New York Drama Critics' Circle award for Best Musical.
2018 Photo Book featuring Zacharias Niedzwiecki (right)
If you want to enjoy Zacharias Niedzwiecki and 19 other barihunks year around, you can purchase our 2018 Barihunks Calendar HERE or our Barihunks Photo Book HERE.
We don't review recordings, DVDs or performances, as our goal is simply to promote the barihunks that we love. But there are two new recordings that might be of interest to readers and they both feature Thomas Hampson.
Back in April, we posted about Luca Pisaroni singing Paolo Albiani to Thomas Hampson's portryal of the Doge Simon Boccanegra in Vienna. Also in the cast is fellow barihunk Carlo Colombara as the Genoese nobleman Fiesco. The Decca recording was made from live concert performances in Vienna. If the twists and turns of this family plot aren't complicated
enough on stage for you, Pisaroni is Hampson's son-in-law in real life.
At the complete other end of the spectrum is a new crossover album called Great Voices Sing John Denver, featuring some of the biggest names in opera. The album is of interest to our readers that they've included some of the most popular barihunks in the business, including Rod Gilfry, René Pape, Thomas Hampson and Nathan Gunn.
The album also features Plácido Domingo, Daniel Montenegro, Denyce Graves, Patricia Racette, Shenyang, Danielle de Niese and Dolora Zajick, Matthew Polenzani and Placido Domingo, Jr. 89-year-old Milt Okun, who produced all of John Denver’s recordings and won 16 Grammy awards in his career, produced the CD. We particularly enjoyed Rod Gilfry singing This Old Guitar.
Erwin Schrott at 54 Below Photo: Matt Madison-Clark
We covered Erwin Schrott's debut performance at New York City's nightclub 54 Below in a previous post, but now we have actual photos from the show. The evening of music from his award-winning CD "Rojotango" proved to be quite a hit, as there wasn't an empty seat in the house to see and hear the hunky Uruguayan barihunk. Schrott was accompanied by the Pablo Ziegler Quartet.
Erwin Schrott and bass player Pedro Giraudo Photo: Matt Madison-Clark
54 Below, which has been hosting the best of Broadway, is now hosting the best from the world of Opera. It appears to have caught on and regular readers will recall that barihunks Ildar Abradzakov and Dmitry Hvorostovsky showed up along with Schrott for tenor Charles Castronovo's show. Next up from the world of opera is soprano Patricia Racette, who performs for five nights opening on March 26th. Tickets are available online.
Schrott can be seen tonight and Saturday at the Metropolitan Opera where is he is singing Dulcamara opposite the Belcore of fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien in Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore. Schrott's real life wife, Anna Netrebko, is Adina. Tickets are still available.
If you can't make the concerts, Racette and Castronovo, both have CD's available at GPR Records that include much of the music from their shows. Also, available is the new CD "American Portraits" from the gifted BARIHUNK tee shirt model Andrew Garland (look to your right). Keep your fingers crossed and maybe he'll be the next opera singer booked in to the club.
Brett Polegato (Sharpless) at Seattle Opera (Elise Bakketun, photo
Fresh on the heals of Dallas Opera's successful simulcast of Mozart's "Magic Flute," the Seattle Opera will be featuring Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" in a broadcast at KeyArena tonight (Saturday, May 5th).
Doors open for those who have preregistered at 6 p.m., and for the general public at 6:30 p.m. Anyone without a ticket will be allowed into KeyArena until the capacity is met. The opera begins at 7:30 p.m. This is the first time the Seattle Opera has hosted a simulcast of one of its productions.
Seattle Opera's production stars Brett Polegato as Sharpless, Patricia Racette as Cio-Cio-San and Stefano Secco as Pinkerton.
Live performances of "Madama Butterfly" continue through May 19 at McCaw Hall. Visit the Seattle Opera website for more information.
Barihunk John Brandon will be part of a free afternoon of opera at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga on Sunday, April 15, at 3 p.m. in the Roland Hayes Hall.
An Afternoon of Opera sponsored by the Connor Society will be held on , UTC Fine Arts
Center, located at the intersection of Vine and Palmetto Streets. He will be joined by soprano Cherry Brendel, tenor Ron
Brendel and mezzo Rosella Ewing in selections from Carmen, Rigoletto, La traviata, Lakme, The Pearl Fishers,
Samson & Delilah, The Elixir of Love, and The Magic Flute.
For more information, call 425-4627 or email verbie-prevost@utc.edu.
Apple of our eye: Christopher Dylan Herbert
Christopher Dylan Herbert is breaking away from his role as the baritone/bass member of New York Polyphony to perform a free concert on Monday, April 16 at 1pm at St. Paul's Chapel near Ground Zero. Herbert will be performing Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantata 56, "Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen," one of only two solo cantatas for baritone written by the German baroque master.
Also on the program is mezzo Luthen Brackett performing Bach's Cantata 54, and organist Renée Louprette performing Bach's Fugue in Eb Major (BWV 551b). Click HERE for additional information. The concert will be broadcast live on WWFM.
Seattle's Best: Joseph Lattanzi & David Krohn
Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" is generally not a barihunk opera, but the Seattle Opera is featuring two of its hottest young artists in a free simulcast on Saturday, May 5th. David Krohn will sing Prince Yamadori and Joseph Lattanzi will sing the Registrar in the opening night performance that includes the Cio-Cio-San of Patricia Racette.
The live HD simulcast from McCaw Hall will be broadcast onto a 50' x 80' screen at KeyArena. Tickets are free, but are expected to go fast, so reserve your tickets by clicking HERE. Door will open at 6:00 PM and the broadcast will begin at 7:30 PM.
Talented, Competitive & Sexy: Jonathan Beyer & Brandon Cedel
We've always known that Jonathan Beyer is competitive and a winner. In fact, we've blogged about his penchant for winning major voice competitions, usually be nailing John Adams' "News has a kind of mystery..." from "Nixon in China." We had a difficult time finding some video, but you can click HERE and listen to "News..." and other arias sung by Beyer.
Apparently, that competitiveness is playing out in our "Favorite Opera Couple" competition, as he and his baritone partner Brandon Cedel have made a stunning leap into first place. You can listen to Cedel HERE.
Today is the last day to vote, so make sure to let us know who your favorite opera couple is. In the meantime, we'll keep searching for a Beyer/Cedel video.
Also, we received some pointed emails asking why Patricia Racette and Beth Clayton weren't included in the poll. It was an unfortunate oversight. To make up for the error, here they are as part of the "It Gets Better" campaign:
We also received some email about Erwin Schrott's hair, particularly if the photo we used was recent. The photo is from an event last weekend and the popular barihunk is indeed a blond now. Here's a better picture.
Christoph Zadra as Agamemnon (Center & Right) in Vienna
There are certain operas that give us particular delight, as they are both musically rich and filled with roles for barihunks. Don Giovanni, The Pearl Fishers, Billy Budd, Carmen and The Rape of Lucretia come immediately to mind. When looking through our stats of our most popular posts, it dawned on us that singers who performed in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride were some of our most popular singers. Among those are Rod Gilfry, Stephane Degout, Nathan Gunn and our all-time most popular barihunk Gabriel Bermudez.
We couldn't resist posting Christoph Zadra, who is pictured above. He is 34-year-old Viennese actor who works primarily in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. He was Agamemnon in the Vienna production of Iphigénie en Tauride with Stephane Degout and showed up in a number of the publicity shots (apparently for good reason).
Stephane Degout as Oreste in Vienna
Iphigénie en Tauride premiered in Paris in 1779 and was part of his reform movement that forever changed opera. Like Beethoven's Fidelio it is filled with a message of humanity and it became Gluck's greatest success during his lifetime. It's great to see it returning to the repertory of opera houses throughout the world, as it's an amazing piece of theater and filled with some of the most beautiful music ever written. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard and is based on Euripides great story. Like any great story, it is filled with emotion and conflict which creates moral dilemmas and turmoil for the characters.
Here is an extended scene with Rod Gilfry and tenor Deon van der Walt, which ends in the great baritone aria "Dieux protecteurs de ces affreux." You can watch the entire performance on YouTube at the site of carrangel2:
The story of the opera is pretty straightforward: Iphigenia has been saved from being sacrificed by her father. She now lives on the island of the Taurians and has the task of killing any foreigner that comes to the island seeking refuge. Her dreams are plagued by memories of the bloody destruction of her family. She does not know that her brother Orestes was able to escape the massacre. Years later she sees him and his friend Pylades who have been taken prisoner by the Taurians. But brother and sister fail to recognise each other. However, the unknown prisoner reminds Iphigenia of Orestes, so she decides to save him. Orestes, though, prefers to face death instead of Pylades. During the sacrifice, brother and sister recognise each other. Just as Thoas, the king of the Scythians, is about to kill Orestes, Pylades suddenly appears and murders the king. The people sing in praise of the coming peace and the end of the wars on Tauris.
Zadra & Degout in Vienna; Bermudez in Zurich
Clearly, readers of this site love Gabriel Bermudez in this role, as you've made him our most popular singer. Unfortunately, his YouTube site does not allow embedding, so we can't post the video of his singing "Dieux protecteurs de ces affreux," but you can watch it by clicking HERE.
Lately, the great tenor Placido Domingo has been taking up baritone roles, including Orestes in Iphigénie en Tauride. His performance at The Met was a huge success and now he's taken it to the Washington National Opera in Washington D.C., where we've learned that another one of our Über-popular singers, Randal Turner, is covering for the 70-year-old conductor/singer/impresario. Certainly, Turner would be about as perfect for this role as any singer around today. For those of you who still prefer a baritone in the role, we'll make sure to let readers know if Turner is scheduled to perform. Performances run from May 6-28 with a cast that includes the great soprano Patricia Racette as Iphigenie and barihunk Simone Alberghini as Thoas. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.
