Randal Turner to make role debut as Ned Keene

Randal Turner

It's just been announced that Randal Turner will be replacing Christoph Plessers as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes at the Theater Koblenz. This will be his role debut and his third Benjamin Britten character, having previously performed Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Pisa and Mr. Redburn in Billy Budd in Torino.

Ned Keene is an apothecary and quack who supplies the old widow Mrs Sedley with her pills. He also finds a new apprentice for Grimes after the last one mysteriously disappeared at sea. To cause a distraction and thus avoid an unpleasant scene in the Boar, he leads the crowd in the round of the sea shantly "Old Joe has gone fishing." The role was created by Edmund Donlevy in 1945 at Sadler's Wells in London.

Performances run from May 30 to July 3. He'll be joined in the cast by Ray M. Wade, Jr. as Peter Grimes, Aurea Marston as Ellen Orford and Jongmin Lim as Swallow. Additional cast and ticket information is available online.

There are a number of performances of Peter Grimes throughout Europe this year, including in Ulm, Vienna, Saarbrucken, Reykjavik, Mönchengladbach, Krefeld and Berlin. 

Barihunks on the air from Lyric Opera of Chicago

Thomas Hampson

If you love great baritone singing, make sure to tune in your radio or go online to WFMT, Chicago's public radio station. The next three Saturday's will feature a bevvy of our favorite singers including three in this week's broadcast of Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. The opera will feature the ageless barihunk Thomas Hampson in the title role alongside the riveting Ferruccio Furlanetto as Fiesco and rising superstar Quinn Kelsey as Paolo. Amelia will be sung by Krassimira Stoyanova and Adorno by Frank Lopardo.

Hampson is currently starring in Verdi's La traviata at the Wiener Staatsoper. 

Craig Verm

The following week barihunk Craig Verm can be heard as Albert in Massenet's Werther, in a cast that includes tenor sensation Matthew Polenzani in the title role and Sophie Koch as Charlotte. Verm opens as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes at the Des Moines Metro Opera on June 22nd.

On June 1st, Italian sex symbol Ildebrando D'Arcangelo takes on the very un-barihunk title role in Donizetti's Don Pasquale opposite the Norina of Marlis Petersen. D'Arcangelo is currently performing the role of Selim in Rossini's comic masterpiece Il turco in Italia at Barcelona's beautiful Gran Theatre del Liceu.

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

Future broadcasts include Richard Strauss' Elektra, Humperdinck's Hansel & Gretel, Puccini's La boheme, Wagner's Die Meistersinger, Verdi's Rigoletto and Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire with an all-star cast featuring barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey and soprano Renée Fleming. 

Listen to Michael Mayes & Edward Hanlon in Don Giovanni on Iowa Public Radio

Edward Hanlon at Seagle Music Colony

If you're like us and can't wait to see and hear Michael Mayes in Glory Denied at the Fort Worth Opera Festival then you can catch him online on Saturday, April 6th. Mayes and fellow barihunk Edward Hanlon performed the opera during the Des Moines Metro Opera’s 40th Anniversary season last year. The performance will be at 7 PM CST on Iowa Public Radio.

Michael Mayes as Don Giovanni in Des Moines

The broadcast is part of Iowa Public Radio's Arias in April series opens. Don Giovanni will be followed by two other broadcasts from the Des Moines Metro Opera, Puccini’s La Rondine on April 13th and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on April 20th.

Craig Verm

This season, the Des Moines Metro Opera will feature barihunk calendar model Craig Verm, who will be performing Mercutio in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette and Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes. Their other opera is Richard Strauss' Elektra. Visit their website for additional information.

Benjamin Britten's Centenary Will Keep Barihunks Busy

Duncan Rock: Hugely popular with our readers

When we flip over the December 2012 Barihunks calendar in twelve days, we will enter the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth. It will prove to be a busy year, as along with Mozart, his operas have provided the most eye candy to our readers.

Britain's The Independent takes a look at the upcoming year and lists their Top 10 performances of 2013 (listed at the end of this post). We have our own list of performances that we're looking forward to since certain operas like Billy Budd and The Rape of Lucretia have provided us with some of our favorite posts.

On August 10th, the Glyndebourne Festival will present Billy Budd with three barihunks who have appeared on this site: Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd, Christian Van Horn as Lieutenant Ratcliffe and the mega-popular Duncan Rock as The Novice’s Friend. We should also mention that the sublimely gifted tenor Mark Padmore will be Captain Vere. Visit the Glyndebourne website for additional information.

Dae-Hee Shin als Tarquinius und Carolina Krogius als Lucretia in Eisenach

Although many schedules and much casting has not been announced yet, here are some of the notable performances that we're watching. The Rape of Lucretia will be performed in Eisenach, Florence, Oslo and Trieste. Jacques Imbrailo will take his Britten on the road as Tarquinius in Florence in May. Peter Grimes is scheduled in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Stockholm. Albert Herring will be performed in Milwaukee, Sydney, Toulouse and Victoria with barihunk Sam Dundas taking on the role of Sid in Sydney,  Barihunks Calendar cover model Craig Verm taking on the same role in Toulouse and Phillip Addis as Sid in Victoria. The Pacific Opera in Victoria is also having a mini-Britten festival that will also include his rarely performed opera Noye's Fludde and Let's Make an Opera/The Little Sweep. There will be plenty more of these being announced and we'll make sure to keep you apprised.

The Turn of the Screw may end up being the most performed of Britten's operas in 2013, with performances already announced for Bologna, Istanbul, Kassel, Cologne, Mannheim, New York City Opera, Saarbrucken, Tel Aviv and West Palm Beach. 

Sam Dundas

10 INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS from The Independent:
• Brazilian premiere of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', São Paolo (March 2013)
• 'Peter Grimes' performed on the beach during the Aldeburgh Festival (June 2013)
• Royal Opera House: 'Gloriana', new production by Richard Jones (June 2013)
• Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics give joint performance of the 'War Requiem' in Berlin conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (June 2013)
• Choir of London tours the Palestinian Territories (August 2013)
• Israeli premiere of 'Curlew River', Tel Aviv (September 2013)
• Focus on Britten at Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals, USA (August 2013)
• Opera North devotes entire season to Britten operas (from September 2013)
• Moscow Festival of Britten includes Russian premiere of 'Death in Venice' at Moscow Conservatoire and an exhibition at the Pushkin Museum (November 2013)
• 75,000 schoolchildren in the UK sing 'Friday Afternoons' simultaneously on Britten's centenary (22 November 2013)

ONLY 11 DAYS LEFT TO BUY YOUR 2013 BARIHUNKS CHARITY CALENDAR FEATURING DUNCAN ROCK AND 13 OTHER STUNNING MEN!:

Peter Grimes Premiered June 7, 1945

Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Ned Keene at The Met

Benjamin Britten's "Peter Grimes" is certainly not a "barihunk opera" like "Billy Budd" or "Rape of Lucretia," but it is one opera's greatest pieces of theater. The opera premiered on June 7, 1945 and was the first opera to be performed at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre near the end of the Second World War.

Britten’s first full length, and possibly best known, opera originated in part from the composer’s reading of the article ‘George Crabbe: the Poet and the Man’ by E.M. Forster, which appeared in The Listener in May 1941. It was through Forster that Britten developed an interest in the work of Crabbe, a fellow East Anglian, a curate as well as a writer born in the Suffolk town of Aldeburgh on the east coast of England in 1754. Peter Pears purchased a volume of Crabbe’s poetry shortly after Britten read Forster’s article and, as he was later to inscribe in the flyleaf of the book, it was from his and Britten’s reading of the long poem ‘The Borough’ that “we started work on the plans for making an opera out of Peter Grimes”.

Britten and Pears were at the time resident in the United States and had of course come into contact with a number of American musicians and music lovers. They met Serge Koussevitzky, the Russian born American conductor who became a champion of the young composer’s work. The Koussevitzky Music Foundation was set up to support the encouragement of new music and it was through this that Britten was awarded a $1,000 commission to write an opera. Britten realised his debt of gratitude to the conductor and the opera is dedicated to the memory of Koussevitsky’s wife Natalie. It was Koussevitsky’s request that Britten’s manuscript of the full score of Peter Grimes remain in America and it can seen at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

Philip Langridge: "Old Joe has gone fishing":

In 1942 Britten and Pears returned to England, but it was not until January 1944 that work was begun on the opera. Composition took place while Britten was living in the converted Mill in Snape, five miles from Aldeburgh. The scenario was selected from one section of George Crabbe’s poem about the lives of people on the Suffolk coast. For Crabbe, Peter Grimes was a sadistic figure whose rough ways earn little sympathy from the reader. The character is, however, depicted somewhat differently in Britten’s opera. The story was adapted by Montagu Slater, with the assistance of Britten, Pears, Ronald Duncan and Eric Crozier. The Grimes of Britten’s opera, although isolated and at times violent, is more to be pitied than despised. In the words of Peter Pears he is ‘neither a hero, nor a villain’.

 [Material adapted from Britten-Pears Foundation]

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Barihunks in a Fishing Village: Phares and Okulitch

[Top photos of Daniel Okulitch; Keith Phares photos by Dario Acosta]

Although Benjamin Britten operas provide this site with a plethora of barihunks, it usually doesn't come from the magnificent opera Peter Grimes. Usually, it's The Rape of Lucretia, Midsummer Night's Dream or Billy Budd that provide us with the most scintillating pictures.

One of our readers sent us a picture of Keith Phares with a note that he found him the hottest singer in the production, despite Daniel Okulitch's portrayal of Swallow [stop giggling]. Our view is that they're both hot singers, even dressed up as fishing town villagers.

Opera News profiled Keith Phares and wrote:

Keith Phares...started making music as a trumpet player in the pit orchestra of his New Jersey high school's annual musical. After the baritone and his family moved to North Carolina, Phares kept up his trumpet playing, but his senior year brought his first taste of center-stage stardom. "The school had no orchestra. They said, 'We need guys. Can you audition?' And believe it or not, I got cast as Emile de Becque in South Pacific."

Phares entered the University of Richmond as a psychology major, but a summer-stock gig in The Secret Garden set him on the path to serious vocal study and stints at New England Conservatory and Juilliard Opera Center. He made his Opera Theatre of Saint Louis debut in 1999, as the Second Noble in Paul Schoenfield's The Merchant and the Pauper, and was soon tapped by the company for two high-profile assignments that showed off his warm, supple baritone and wry, uncommonly expressive command of text — Pip in Dominick Argento's revised Miss Havisham's Fire (2001) and Charles Lindbergh in the world premiere of Loss of Eden (2002).

It was in Saint Louis that Phares's eye was caught by mezzo Patricia Risley, who sang Estella to his Pip in Miss Havisham. "When we met, I figured that she was so far out of my league, professionally and personally, that I didn't have a prayer. That changed." They were married in 2004, and they try to sing together when their schedules allow. "It's great working with her — we don't dicker about dumb things."

Phares's leading-man looks belie his affinity for off-beat, modern roles such as Charlie in the 2008 world premiere of Jake Heggie's Last Acts (Three Decembers) at Houston Grand Opera (an assignment he repeats next season at San Francisco Opera); the Pilot in The Little Prince at New York City Opera and Boston Lyric Opera (2005); Chou En-Lai in Portland Opera's 2006 Nixon in China ("I feel comfortable being the wingman"); and the barnstorming preacher in the world premiere of Robert Aldridge's Elmer Gantry at Nashville Opera (2007). "That was a great big punishing sing — it was wild. I don't think of myself as a real alpha-male type, but as Elmer, I had a blast.

You can search this site for information on Daniel Okulitch, who has been a regular feature and a fan favorite.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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Teddy Down Under

Teddy Tahu Rhodes is back in his homeland of New Zealand after taking America by storm. The super sexy barihunks has dozens of new fans after showing off his physical and vocal talents in Peter Grimes and Billy Budd. He returns to the United States on June 11 and 13 at the Cincinnati Opera playing Count Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro(http://www.cincinnatiopera.com/performances).


You can contact this site at barihunks@gmail.com