Douglas Williams makes company debut with Opera Atelier

Doug Williams

Opera Atelier will open their new season on October 26 with barihunk Douglas Williams making his company debut in the title role of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. The opera will also feature two other singers who have appeared on our site, Olivier Laquerre as Antonio and Stephen Hegedus as Count Almaviva. The remainder of the cast includes Mireille Asselin as Susanna, Peggy Kriha Dye as Countess Almaviva, Mireille Lebel as Cherubino, Laura Pudwell as Marcellina, Gustav Andreassen as Bartolo), Christopher Enns as Basilio/Don Curzio,  and Grace Lee as Barbarina.

Opera Atelier’s production of The Marriage of Figaro will be sung in the famous English translation by American playwright Jeremy Sams.

Doug Williams sings "Non più andrai" from Marriage of Figaro:

Stephen Hegedus (photo: David Cooper) and Olivier Laquerre (photo: Bruce Zinger)

Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster. $15 Operatix tickets may be purchased by patrons aged 15-30 in person at the Elgin Theatre Box Office or online with the code OPERATIX. Performances run through November 4th.

Opera Atelier will host a special Operatix Evening on Friday, November 3rd, featuring a post-performance party with the artists for ticket-holders age 30 and under.

Derek Chester and Marco Vassalli from the 2018 Barihunks Photo Book

Our 2018 Barihunks Calendar, which includes 20 of opera's sexiest men is now available for purchase HERE. In response to reader demand, we've also added a Barihunks Photo Book this year, which includes additional photos that don't appear in the calendar. You can purchase that HERE. The New Year is approaching faster than you think!

 

Stephen Hegedus in sexy double-bill

Stephen Hegedus and Krisztina Szabó

How could this marketing campaign not catch our attention?

Bass-barihunk Stephen Hegedus is currently performing Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at Against the Grain in Toronto along with mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó performing Olivier Messiaen’s Harawi. They are joined by accompanist Topher Mokrzewski.

Director Joel Ivany has put together this double-bill of two very different sounding song cycles, tied together by Death/Desire. Die schöne Müllerin is comprised of twenty songs that move from cheerful optimism to despair and tragedy. Messiaen's Harawi features twelve songs centering around the death of two lovers, thus providing a vehicle from the composer's exploration of the theme of love-death central to the myth of Tristan and Isolde.

The show opened on June 2nd to great acclaim and seats are limited for the two remaining performances tonight and tomorrow.

Barihunk Quartet in Opera Atelier's Persée

Olivier Laquerre (Méduse) left, Vasil Garvanliev (Phinèe) center, and Curtis Sullivan (Cyclope) 2nd from right Photos on left and right by Bruce Zinger

 

Opera Atelier has revived their critically acclaimed production of Lully’s Persée with four barihunks in the cast: Olivier Laquerre as Méduse, Vasil Garvanliev as Phinèe, Stephen Hegedus as Protenor/Divinite Infernale and Curtis Sullivan as Cyclope.

The company first staged the production in 2000, which was the opera's first fully staged production since it inaugurated the Royal Opera House at Versailles in 1770 during the wedding celebrations of the future King Louis XVI to Marie Antoinette. Their 2004 revival of Persée was the subject of a documentary.

Stephen Hegedus (right)

The Royal Opera House has invited Opera Atelier to bring Persée back to Versailles for the first time  since the 1770 performances. It will be performed on May 23, 24, and 25 after the current run at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. There are performances tonight, as well as May 2 and 3.

You can also catch Stephen Hegedus performing Bach’s Magnificat and Bruckner’s Te Deum with l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec on May 28.

CBC's "The Sexiest Barihunks in Canada"

Mike Nyby (L) and Philip Kalmanovitch (R)

We've been featured and even interviewed on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and they've mentioned us a number of times. But they've stepped it up a notch with their "The Sexiest Barihunks in Canada" feature.

The post features four barihunks hot enough to melt the ice caps north of the Yukon: Etienne Dupuis, Phillipe Sly, Phillip Addis and Brett Polegato. The singers are asked about their sexiest features, sexiest roles, workout routine and what they'd sing to woo a lover. It is definitely worth checking out and we appreciate the ongoing love from the CBC, who we adore more than a Molson at a hockey game.

We're pretty sure that limiting it to four singers was more about who they could successfully contact than creating a comprehensive list. We're pretty certain that Canada has the highest per capita ratio of barihunks in the world. We've featured close to two dozen Canadians on this site, including three in last year's calendar: Philip Kalmanovitch, Jonathan Estabrooks and Aaron Agulay. Estabrooks will be reappearing in the 2013 calendar.

Daniel Okulitch in The Last Savage

Two Canadians barihunks are having huge international careers, Daniel Okulitch and John Relyea. Relyea is a regular at the Met and other major opera houses, while Okulitch is a fan favorite in opera houses across the globe. His performance in a loin cloth in  Menotti's "The Last Savage" at the Sante Fe Opera still has opera cognoscenti buzzing with delight.

Elliot Madore is on the verge of breaking into the upper tier of singers. He has a redesigned website and has caught the attention of opera general managers everywhere. We recently received emails from opera executives in three countries praising this gifted young artist.

Other Canadians who we've featured include Mike Nyby, Stephen Hegedus, Olivier Laquerre, Tyler Duncan, Riley McMitchell, Peter Barrett, Gordon Bintner, Philip Kalmanovitch, Benjamin Covey and Michael Adair (who co-opted "Barihunk" for his Twitter name).

 John Relyea sings "Scintille, diamant" from The Tales of Hoffmann":

Peter Bording Shower Scene; Introducing Stephen Hegedus

Peter Bording

We haven't featured the sexy Dutch barihunk Peter Bording in awhile. We received an email alerting us that he has a sexy shower scene in Essen's holiday classic "Die Fledermaus." You can watch the clip HERE. The opera opens Sunday, December 18th and runs through New Years Eve. Bording then moves on to the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck where he'll be performing Franz Lehár's "Die Lustige Witwe."

We also received a reader submission about Stephen Hegedus, who is new to this site. They saw him perform in Handel's Messiah with the Seattle Symphony on Friday night, a performance that he will reprise on Sunday night. The Seattle Times wrote of his performance, "The bass-baritone soloist, Stephen Hegedus, sang with commanding lyricism." On December 21 and 22, Hegedus will perform the Messiah with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Both performances are sold out.

A graduate of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, Stephen Hegedus’s  appearances in the 2010-2011 season included the title role of Le nozze di Figaro (Opera Hamilton), Albert in Massenet’s Werther (Opéra de Montréal) Zuniga in Carmen (Brott Festival) and the Marquis inLa Traviata (Vancouver Opera). On the concert stage he performed Handel’s Messiah with the Victoria Symphony and the Grand Philharmonic Choir, Bach’s Magnificat with the Orchestre Métropolitain du grand Montréal and Howard Blake’s The Bear with the Toronto Symphony.

Stephen Hegedus

 

He has performed with Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile, Pacific Opera Victoria, Les Violons du Roy, San Antonio Symphony, Houston Symphony, Edmonton Symphony, the André-Turp Musical Society The Aldeburgh Connection, the Lamèque International Baroque Festival, La Sinfonia de Lanaudière, the Aldeburgh Festival and the International Bach Festival in Toronto.  

In April 2009, he made his Carnegie Hall debut singing Bach’s Mass in B-minor with the Oratorio Society of New York and returned in 2010 singing Handel’s Messiah. Recently Stephen appeared as a finalist at Placido Domingo’s Operalia, The World Opera Competition, and was awarded 2nd Prize at the 32nd annual Lyndon Woodside Oratorio Solo Competition hosted by the Oratorio Society of New York. Other awards include The Janet Stubbs Fellowship and The William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award, both from the University of Toronto. He is a grant holder of the Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation for Young Canadian Opera Singers and of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Stephen Hegedus as Figaro

Stephen holds a Master’s of Music in Opera from the University of Toronto and has pursued further studies at the Banff Centre, the Britten-Pears Programme (Aldeburgh, England), The Canadian Vocal Arts Institute (Montreal), The International Vocal Arts Institute (Tel Aviv) and the Centre for Opera in Sulmona, Italy. Upcoming engagements include appearances with the Seattle Symphony, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Victoria Symphony and Pacific Opera Victoria.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

ORDER TODAY AND HELP OUT YOUNG ARTISTS

There are only two weeks left to order your 2012 Barihunks charity calendar. All proceeds will go to benefit the Portland Opera Studio and the Seagle Music Colony, two of the best young artist training programs in America. You can help out dozens of young artists by purchasing your calendar today. Click HERE and have your calendar before the new year.