Baritone John Moore added to Carnegie Hall program

Baritone John Moore

Barihunk John Moore has been added to this season's Carnegie Hall lineup. He'll be joining the Met Chamber Ensemble's concert on Sunday, December 13 at 5:00 p.m. in Zankel Hall featuring conductor James Levine.

Moore will perform Poulenc's Le Bal masque (A Masked Ball), in a program that also includes Pierre Boulez's Dérive 1 and Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Tickets are available online.

Poulenc's Le Bal masque was commissioned by the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Noailles for a 1932 concert at the Théâtre de Hyères. The text is taken from Max Jacob's 1921 anthology Laboratoire central. The score calls for a solo baritone, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, piano, violin, cello, and percussion with the melodies passed from instrument to instrument, which adds Poulenc's trademark musical wit to the text. 

On December 16th, he'll be Philadelphia performing Bach's Ich habe genug, BWV 82 at St. Mark's Church with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

Upcoming stage performances for Moore include his debut with the Seattle Opera in February 2016 as Count Almavivia in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro (with fellow barihunk Aubrey Allicock as Figaro), his debut with the Bayerische Staatsoper in July 2016 as Adario in Rameau's Les indes galantes as well as Tadeusz in Weinberg's The Passenger with Florida Grand Opera, Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, and Figaro in Opera Omaha's production of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia.

You can listen to John Moore's Figaro HERE.

Time is running out to order your 2016 Barihunks Charity Calendar, featuring 18 of the sexiest men in opera. ORDER TODAY by clicking below (you won't regret it!)

 

Brent Michael Smith part of Michigan Opera Theatre's first training program

Brent Michael Smith

Bass-barihunk Brent Michael Smith will be part of the inaugural group of singers at the newly formed Michigan Opera Theatre Studio. He'll be singing Colline in Puccini's La bohème at the Michigan Opera Theatre on Oct 17, 21, 24 and 25. Tickets are available online.

He'll be joined in the program by soprano Angela Theis, mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis, tenor Joseph Michael Brent, baritone Jeff Byrnes and coach/accompanist Gordon Craig Schermer.

 Brent Michael Smith sings Mozart's "O Isis und Osiris" from The Magic Flute:

Other roles during his time in the training program include the Second SS Officer in Mieczyslaw Weinberg's The Passenger from Nov. 14-22.Grandpa Moss in Aaron Copland's The Tender Land from March 12- 20. The Doctor in Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth from ​April 16-24 and The Speaker
in Mozart's The Magic Flute​ from May 14-22.

Smith is a first-place winner of both the Grand Rapids Opera Competition and the National Association of Teachers of Singing Competition: Great Lakes Region. 

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Morgan Smith's many upcoming debuts (mostly in Texas!)

Morgan Smith

Perhaps one of the most anticipated American premieres this year is that of exiled Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Holocaust opera The Passenger. We covered the opera two years ago when it was at the English National Opera with barihunk Leigh Melrose as Tadeusz. A year earlier the piece was done in Bregenz with Artur Rucinski in the baritone role.

In January 2014, the opera is coming to the Houston Grand Opera with barihunk Morgan Smith as Tadeusz, in a cast that also includes rising tenor sensation Joseph Kaiser, two of our favorite sopranos Kelly Kaduce and Melody Moore, as well as mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt. David Pountney’s production and Johan Engels’s two-level set, which received critical acclaim at ENO and in Bregenz, will be brought to Houston.

Leigh Melrose in The Passenger

The libretto is based on the eponymous novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz and is set in the late 1950s. It depicts a German couple, Liese and Walter, on board an ocean liner where former SS officer Liese thinks she recognizes an Auschwitz prisoner among their fellow passengers. Although Weinberg completed his score in 1968, the opera was not performed until 2006 and not fully staged until the 2010 Bregenz Festival.

The Houston Grand Opera will present a number of activities related to the opera. A series of three free concerts begins on November 10 with the world premiere of a new work by HGO Studio alumnus and composer David Hanlon, commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht and based on the story of his grandfather, one of the thousands of Jewish people arrested on that infamous night and sent to Dachau. On December 9, they will host a concert exploring the music, art, poetry, and philosophy that emerged from Terezín, a concentration camp located in the Czech Republic. The third and final performance on February 22 features music of memory and hope with world premieres of works by Lawrence Siegel and Paul English based on text and inspiration from Holocaust survivor Naomi Warren.

Morgan Smith

Morgan has a number of new roles besides Tadeusz that he is adding to his repertoire next season. In Novemeber 2013, he takes on Captain Brandt in Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra at the Florida Grand Opera. In March 2014, he debuts the role of Fritz in Erich Korngold's Die Tode Stadt at the beautiful Winspear Opera House in Dallas. When he wraps up, he heads down Interstate 30 to the Fort Worth Opera where he performs Lt. Audebert in Kevin Puts' Silent Night in a cast full of his fellow barihunks.

If you've not had the chance to see Morgan Smith live, we highly recommend adding one of these performances to your opera travel calendar. He is one of the most compelling young artists to hit the scene in years.

Leigh Melrose in Holocaust Opera

Leigh Melrose

British barihunk Leigh Melrose has never received the attention that he deserves on this site. We featured a video of him singing a selection from Britten's "Billy Budd" at the end of a feature on Alexander Tsymbalyuk. He certainly can't be ignored anymore, as Melrose has landed a key role at English National Opera in Mieczysław Weinberg’s 1968 opera The Passenger. 

The opera was banned in the Soviet Union and was first premiered last year at the Bregenz Festival. Weinberg, a Soviet composer of Jewish-Polish heritage who died in 1996, never saw a performance of this lost masterpiece in his lifetime. 


The opera revolves around an encounter between two women – one a former Auschwitz guard and the other a former prisoner. Melrose plays Tadeusz, a camp inmate and violinist who defies the Commandant byordered by performing some meloncholy music by Bach rather than a frolicking waltz. Needless to say, things don't end well for Tadeusz.



We continue to find the performances at ENO as some of the most innovative and interesting in all of opera right now. We loved Nic Muhly's "Two Boys" and look forward to seeing The Passenger. The opera runs from September 19-October 25. Additional cast and performance information is available HERE. If you're looking for more traditional operatic fare, ENO will be performing the highly acclaimed Jonathan Miller production of Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love" at the same time.

You can read an entire feature on Leigh Melrose and The Passenger in the Islington Tribune by clicking HERE. 

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