Watch Philippe Sly as Don Giovanni at Aix-en-Provence

Philippe Sly as Don Giovanni as Aix-en-Provence

Barihunk Phillipe Sly is a particularly sexy (and scantily clad) Don Giovanni in Mozart's classic at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. This performance marks his debut in the role, as well as the role debut of Isabel Leonard as Donna Elvira.

Performances are running through July 21, but one can also catch a broadcast of it on July 10th on Medici.tv at 12:30 PM PDT.

 The new production by Jean-François Sivadier includes Nahuel Di Pierro as Leporello, Eleonora Buratto as Donna Anna, hunkentenor Pavol Breslik as Don Ottavio, Julie Fuchs as Zerlina,  Krzysztof Baczyk as Masetto and David Leigh as Il Commendatore.

Randal Turner in world premiere of operatic Bonfire of the Vanities

Randal Turner

Randal Turner, who recently had a successful run as Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes at the Theatre Koblenz, is now jumping into a completely different different English-language opera. He will portray Wall Street trader Sherman McCoy from Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, in a new operatic adaptation from composer Stefania de Kenessey and librettist Michael Bergmann.

The story takes on the universal socioeconomic tensions in 1980s New York City that is home to both Wall Street and Harlem. Turner's character is a successul bonds trader whose popularity propels him to the top of the financial world. But just as he meets the peak of his success, he collides with a scandal that brings all of New York City crashing down upon him. His former admirers and current problems include a ferocious Harlem reverend, played by fellow barihunk Keith Miller; a wealthy and sexually predatory femme fatale, sung by Yingzie Zhou; Sherman's cossetted housewife, sung by Anne-Carolyn Bird; and, an idealistic lawyer who demands better for her city, performed by Adrienne Danrich. 

Expect to see the gym-toned Turner show a little skin, because in Act 3 his character Sherman McCoy is in prison and the other prisoners know he is the one responsible for the hit and run that has put the young African-American kid Henry Lamb in a coma even though his mistress Maria Ruskin was driving and is thus far taking the rap for it. The prisoners strip him of his clothes and then Sherman sings his aria "Masters of the Universe."

The world premiere will be on October 9 and 10 at the El Teatro at El Museo del Barrio in New York City. Tickets are available online.

Franco Pomponi's revealing Hamlet

Franco Pomponi & Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

Readers may recall the post about Stéphane Degout's nude scene in the title role of Olivier Py’s production of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at La Monnaie in Brussels. He rotated the role with fellow barihunk Franco Pomponi and we managed to find the photo above, but nothing as revealing as our Degout shots. The production also featured barihunks Jérôme Varnier as the ghost and Henk Neven as Horatio.

Director Olivier Py has never been shy about featuring male nudity, whether in operas like Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet or Alban Berg's Lulu, or theater productions like Die Sonne at Volksbühne Berlin. His Hamlet featuring Stéphane Degout in the buff created quite a buzz at both the Theater an der Wien and La Monnaie in Brussels. You can watch the entire opera below:



Pomponi opens today in John Adams' A Flowering Tree at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, which runs through May 13. The piece is inspired by a southern Indian folk tale and describes the trials and tribulations of a young couple subjected to a series of rituals and trials designed to demonstrate the power of love. Tickets are available online.

Another barihunk "exposed" at Nationale Reisopera's "Barber of Seville"; Meet British baritone Nick Crawley

We love when a post about a barihunk begets more barihunks, which is what happened when we ran a feature on Peter Bording's run as the title character in Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Nationale Reisopera. Not only that, but we learned about the sexy set and costume designer Gary McCann, who will drive our ginger lovers into fits of frenzy.

It's not often that the role of Basilio makes it onto Barihunks, but former tenor and director Laurence Dale has made him the sexiest character in the opera. We were sent these tantalizing pictures of British barihunk Nick Crawley with the "3 Bertas," a novel concept that looks like loads of fun.

Crawley, who is new to this site, is a member of the ensemble at the Nationale Reisopera where he's also singing Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, three roles in Purcells The Fairy Queen and the bass part of Bach's St. John Passion. Crawley was born in Buckinghamshire and started his musical career at St. Albans Cathedral Choir where he was head chorister. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music and completed the Royal Academy Opera Advanced Diploma course.  Nicholas won a place on the Concordia ensemble 2010 and was awarded The Independent Opera Vocal Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music 2012.

Gary McCann & the 3 Bertas

And for you lovers of great beards and all things ginger, we present costume and set designer Gary McCann and his red-headed Bertas - Zinzi Frohwein, Sonja Volten and Ruth Willemse.

Redhead Jonathan Estabrooks as he appears in the 2014 Barihunks Calendar

Have you purchased your Barihunks Charity Calendar? The holiday shopping season is kicking into full gear next week, so order NOW by clicking the Lulu button below.

Fire Island Opera Festival features sexy Matt Morris is Gluck rarity

Fire Island is known more for its circuit parties booming with house music, rather than presenting high culture, but that will all change this weekend.  The annual Fire Island Opera Festival will be presented on August 23-25 at the famous gay resort and will feature Christoph Willibald Gluck's rarely performed L’arbre Enchanté (“The Magic Tree”) and Lee Hoiby's Bon Appétit.

The festival kicks off with a VIP event on Friday, August 23 featuring a special gala performance of Bon Appétit, as well as a program of famous opera arias performed by the stars of the Fire Island Opera Festival.  Bon Appétit provides a witty take on one of chef Julia Childs, played by 2013 "BBC Cardiff Singer of the World" winner Jamie Barton. The evening will be hosted at an exclusive private home on the bay.

The real treat for lovers of all think barihunky will be L'Arbre Enchanté, which features Matthew Morris, who created a huge sensation in the Barihunks Calendar eating a sandwich in his boxers[see above]. Morris was also recently featured in Buzzfeed's "33 Opera Hunks Who Need To Serenade You Right Now." Word is that Morris will be showing a lot of skin...A LOT OF SKIN! This is Fire Island, after all.

The opera, which was last performed in 1775 for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, with some equally lusty men we assume, also features David Pittsinger, David Garry, Will Ferguson, Amy Justman, Yiselle Blum and Emmett O'Hanlon.  L'Arbre Enchanté is the story of two men fighting for the love of a beautiful young man. The young man must choose between a  dashing, rich business man with a beach mansion or a hot, penniless, pool boy.

Saturday evening's performance of L'Arbre Enchanté, August 24, will be followed by a late-night dance party in true Fire Island style. Click HERE to buy tickets.

Performances will be at the newly rebuilt Pavilion on Fire Island Pines, converted into a beach opera house by Marfa-based installation artist Charles Mary Kubricht using only repurposed wood and materials from trees and structures destroyed during Hurricane Sandy. A portion of the proceeds from the inaugural Fire Island Opera Festival will benefit the Sea Shore Defense Fund.

Ramin Karimloo

Theater producer Cameron Mackintosh announced today that popular singer Ramin Karimloo will extend his run playing ‘Jean Valjean’ in the legendary musical “LES MISÉRABLES” at the Queen’s Theatre in London until 31 March 2012.

Although we generally only feature operatic baritones, when we posted Karimloo in March of last year, dressed only in his birthday suit, it created a lot of chatter about whether he was a baritone or if he should even be included on the site. For the record, Karimloo considers himself a "high baritone" and reviewers have commented that he's a lyric baritone with an easy reach into the tenor range.

One thing we know for sure, he's popular with our readers. Since we posted him last year, he has regularly been one of our ten most visited posts.

Karimloo is touring his concert in the U.K. from May 1 through May 26. You can visit his website for additional details. 

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Support Young Artists with the 2012 Barihunks Calendar

Actual Cover of Barihunks 2012 Calendar

People visit Barihunks for a variety of reasons, mostly to see some hot baritones showing off their vocal and physical gifts. However, the emails that matter most to us are the ones where we've learned that we've made a difference in a young artist's life. We often hear about singers being cast after someone saw and/or heard them on the site. Our favorite email of all-time was this, "Thanks to your site, my mom thinks I'm a big star in opera. Best of all, she doesn't complain about the all the money she's spent on my career anymore."

We strive to keep this site positive and about promoting both opera and careers. If you've written a bitchy post, you've probably noticed that it's been removed. We believe singers work too hard and make too many sacrifices to be attacked on a blog. Many singers know that we frequently show up to support them live in theaters throughout the world.

The most frequent request that we receive is for a Barihunks calendar and we've finally relented and put one together for 2012. We've collected lots of beautiful photos from the 33 of the hottest men in opera for your enjoyment. Many of the singers took the time to have exclusive photos taken just for the calendar.


Consistent with our desire to support young artists, all proceeds from the Barihunks 2012 calendar will go to support either young artist programs or young artists directly.  The only hitch is we haven't decided who will be the beneficiary. We'd like to hear from you. If you know of a training program that deserves our support, please write us at Barihunks@gmail.com and let us know why in 100 words or less. Click on the calendar image to the right to purchase a calendar now.

Wes Mason

Singers featured in our calendar include Aaron Agulay, Zach Altman, Dan Kempson, Jonathan Beyer, Brandon Cedel, Christopher Herbert, Christopher Temporelli, Craig Verm, David Adam Moore, David Krohn, Douglas Carpenter, Douglas Williams, Erik Anstine, Justin Hopkins, Jonathan Boehr, Jonathan Estabrooks, Michael Mayes, Michael Rice, Jordan Shanahan, Joseph Lattanzi, Matthew Trevino, Matthew Morris, Michael Kelly, Milos Galaz, Nick Parker-Pendree, Peter Brathwaite, Philip Kalmanovitch, Randal Turner, Remo Tobiaz, Seth Carico, Tom Forde, Wes Mason and Zachary Gordin. If you see any of these singers on a program, please buy a ticket and support their artistry.

Michael Mayes: Texapolitan Opera Show

We'd also like to thank all of the artists, agents, photographers and opera companies who graciously granted us rights to the images. In appreciation of the photographers, we are going to feature them and their sites throughout the year. Please support them, as well. Here are the photographers who contributed their work: Ellen Appel, J. David Levy, Bryan Estabrooks, Dirty Sugar Photography,  Chris Macke, Rozarii Lynch, Pierre-Etienne Bergeron, Gabriel Henningson, Taren Frazier, Kathy Whitman, Leah Brizard, Ron T. Ennis, Chris Miles, Moses Jones, Bill McClaren, Geoff Silver, Chisolm Photography, Nacho Guerrero and Ron Lindsay.

This calendar will make a great holiday gift!

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

NIcholas Nelson for "Abercombie & Fitch"?

Nicholas Nelson

Seven months ago we introduced readers to Minnesota native Nicholas Nelson and his sexy abs. He was performing at the Central City Opera at the time and we've been waiting for an excuse for a follow up post.

When we first saw these pictures, we thought they were from an Abercombie & Fitch catalogue. If there is any question left in anyone's mind that singers are taking better care of their bodies these days, these pictures should dispel those thoughts.

Fans of the young singer Nelson can see him at the Portland Opera in the double bill of Ravel's L'heure Espagnole and L'enfant et les sortilèges. He will be performing as the Armchair and the Tree. Performances will run from April 1-9. He also just finished singing the Mandarin in Turandot with the company.

From August 12-20 he will be performing Alidoro in Opera North's Cenerentola.


Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Tweet

Gabriel Bermudez shows off more skin

Garbriel Bermudez almost shirtless

In terms of hits, Gabriel Bermudez remains the runaway favorite singer on this site. He still generates 2-3 more hits than any other barihunk. Of course, baring it all on stage certainly helped his popularity. We receive a lot of requests asking for more of this gorgeous Spaniard and finally we found some more skin shots. The photo is from a performance of Turandot in Barcelona where he sang Ping.

You can watch the entire clip HERE. Unfortunately, the embedding code for this video is not enabled.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Tweet

Video of Nmon Ford's "Attila"

Hot off of YouTube, here is Nmon Ford's amazingly hot Attila from Macerata. If you'r impatient, the Ford shows up at about the 2:18 mark. You can check out our previous post with photos HERE.



Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Email us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Nmon Ford: The Hottest Hun Ever

Our post about Luca Dall'Amico led one of our readers to alert us to another very sexy performance at the Sferesterio Festival in Macerata, Italy. Barihunk Nmon Ford is singing the title role in another early Verdi opera, Attila. Ford was named by the German magazine Bild as the most beautiful baritone in the world and these pictures show why!

There is one remaining performance on August 10th.

Of course, Ford isn't the first singer to perform the role shirtless. Samuel Ramey was a noted interpreter of the role who sang Attila showing some skin. We'll be watching for video of Nmon Ford from this production, but in the meantime here is a clip of Ramey from 1987.

 

For comparison, here is Homero Pérez-Miranda, who has also been featured on this site.



Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Email us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Gabriel Bermudez sings "Dieux protecteurs" from Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride"

The posts of Gabriel Bermudez and Troy Cook taking "full monty" showers in a production of Poulenc's "Les mamelles de Tirésias" has created quite a bit of extra traffic to Barihunks. It also has generated a lot of email asking for more. We have some additional photos that we'll post in the future of both singers. In the meantime, here is an amazing video of Gabriel Bermudez singing one of the most beautiful arias in the baritone repertoire (and showing some skin!).

...and one last teaser of the hottest backside in opera.

Contact us at barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Former Buff Keith Miller's Buff Photos

Barihunk Keith Miller, who used to play football for the Colorado Buffaloes (aka Buffs), is starting to become a regular on the Metropolitan Opera's roster. To read about his road from the football field to the opera stage, read this NY Times article.

Hopefully, Miller will be cast in some barihunk roles, as he may have the hottest chest in opera.

*****************

YOU CAN CONTACT THIS SITE AT barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email

Daniel Okulitch Naked Again?

[Photo by Ellen Appel; Click to enlarge]
Super sexy Daniel Okulitch is back and to our great delight, showing lots of skin. We're not sure yet if he's as stripped down as he was in The Fly, but he's in a much better opera this time, Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking." Of course, he may be in the buff again because the website has the following disclaimer: "Contains nudity and adult situations."

Dead Man Walking, which has become one of the most popular contemporary opera, is being performed by that haven of male pulchritude, the Ft. Worth Opera. Unfortunately, there are only two performances, May 2 and 10. For more information visit www.fwopera.org.

Okulitch joins a long list of barihunks who have sung the lead role of Joseph De Rocher, including John Packard, Mel Ulrich, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Marcus DeLoach.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

Subscribe to Barihunks by Email
___________________________________________________

Christopher Maltman's See-Through Pants

Thankfully, this video of Christopher Maltman singing Tobias Picker's "Thérèse Raquin" leaves very little to the imagination.

barihunk