Jérôme Varnier and Edwin Crossley-Mercer in updated William Tell

Edwin Crossley-Mercer (Photo: Herwig Prammer)

Rossini's opera Guillaume Tell (William Tell) has regrettably become best known for its overture, parts of which became the Lone Ranger theme, but it is also a highly entertaining opera with great music for all the key characters.

The Theater an der Wien just wrapped up an updated version of the opera with barihunks Jérôme Varnier as Melchtal and Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Walter Fürst.

Torsten Fischer’s production about the Swiss marksman who shot his people to freedom keeps the story relevant to today by making us think about the universal abuses of power. Melcthal stands on a massive steel floor that descends on the masses, while Walter Fürst dons the robe of the dictator portending an endless cycle of oppression. 

Jérôme Varnier (Photo: Herwig Prammer)

The run of Guillaume Tell wrapped up on October 27th, but the Theater an der Wien continues with Handel's Teseo and Weber's Euryanthe with Andrew Foster-Williams.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer can next be heard in Mozart's Requiem at the Opéra de Toulon on November 9th and then singing Schubert's Winterreise at the Nantes Festival on November 28th.

Jérôme Varnier will appear in Thomas' Hamlet at the Opéra Comique in Paris opening on December 17th.

Sexy, sexy pictures of Damian Pass and the Men of Agrippina

Damian Pass and the Men of Agrippina

Last week, we posted about the sexy production of Handel’s Agrippina from the Theater an der Wien featuring barihunk Damian Pass as Pallante and hunken-countertenor Jake Arditti as Nerone.

The production was live streamed on Sonostream, but is now available on YouTube or right here on Barihunks.

The new production from director Robert Carsen casts a satirical eye on Ancient Rome, with political and sexual machination as Agrippina schemes to place her son, Nerone (Nero), on the throne and the seductive Poppea juggles with three lovers.  Handel, who many musicologists presume was gay, would undoubtedly have LOVED this production.

Damian Pass strips down in Agrippina

In addition to enough supernumerary beefcake to fill an issue of Men's Fitness, the cast also includes the stunning Danielle de Niese as Poppea, Patricia Bardon in the title role, Fillippo Mineccia as Ottone, Mika Kares as Claudio, Tom Verney as Narciso and Christoph Seidl as Lesbo.

We figured that it was worthwhile to share some of the pictures from the production. 

Damian Pass, Patricia Bardon and the Men of Agrippina

In 1707-1708, Agrippina gave the young Handel his big chance to establish his reputation as an opera composer in Italy. The commission came from the famous Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, which was funded by the influential Grimani family. The Venetians were extremely demanding when it came to music, but Handel succeeded in creating a wise, gripping and entertaining opera on the basis of the humorous libretto about lust for power and sexual desires in Ancient Rome. The success was overwhelming.

Sexy Agrippina with Damian Pass to be live streamed from Vienna

Damian Pass as Pallante in Agrippina

If you love sexy men (and women), then add the live stream of Handel’s Agrippina from the Theater an der Wien to your list of "must see" performances.  The new production from director Robert Carsen casts a satirical eye on Ancient Rome, with political and sexual machination as Agrippina schemes to place her son, Nerone (Nero), on the throne and the seductive Poppea juggles with three lovers.

The cast includes barihunk Damian Pass as Pallante, hunken-countertenor Jake Arditti as Nerone, the stunning Danielle de Niese as Poppea, Patricia Bardon in the title role, Fillippo Mineccia as Ottone, Mika Kares as Claudio, Tom Verney as Narciso and Christoph Seidl as Lesbo. Thomas Hengelbrock conducts his Balthasar Neumann Ensemble.

Jake Arditti in Agrippina

The performance will live streamed on Sonostream.tv on March 29th at 7 PM CEST (2 PM EST, 11 AM PST). There is an additional performance remaining on March 31 and tickets are available online.

In 1707-1708, Agrippina gave the young Handel his big chance to establish his reputation as an opera composer in Italy. The commission came from the famous Teatro San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice, which was funded by the influential Grimani family. The Venetians were extremely demanding when it came to music, but Handel succeeded in creating a wise, gripping and entertaining opera on the basis of the humorous libretto about lust for power and sexual desires in Ancient Rome. The success was overwhelming.

A scene from Robert Carsen's Agrippina in Vienna

The story takes place in Rome, 54 A.D. where Agrippina is married to the Roman Emperor Claudio, who is currently away on a crusade. When the rumor surfaces that he has been killed in battle, she tries to make her son Nerone, the result of an earlier liaison with another man, emperor. It turns out, however, that Claudio is not dead, but was saved by Ottone, one of his generals. Out of gratitude, Claudio has made him his heir. Consequently, there are now two heirs. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that Claudio, Nerone and Ottone are all in love with the same woman: Poppea. Who will win the woman and the throne? Agrippina schemes, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. In the end, Ottone wins Poppea – for the time being – and Nerone is heir to the throne. But as we know from history and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea things are not going to remain this way for long.

Tobias Greenhalgh performing staged of Schubert's Winterreise

American barihunk Tobias Greenhalgh, who joined the ensemble the Young Ensemble of the Theater an der Wien last year, will be performing in the premiere of a newly staged version of Schubert's Winterreise.

Czech choreographer Martin Dvorak has conceived the 2-part song cycle for baritone, a dancer/actor and pianist, who will be Marcin Kabaghe. The initial performance will be on Saturday, October 17th, with three additional shows in the Czech Republic in December. On December 17 and 18, it will be performed at the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, with an additional performance scheduled in Prague on October 19.

The songs represent the voice of the poet as the lover, and form a distinct narrative and dramatic sequence. In the course of the cycle the poet, whose beloved now fancies someone else, leaves his beloved's house secretly at night, quits the town and follows the river and the steep ways to a village. Having longed for death, he is at last reconciled to his loneliness. The cold, darkness, and barren winter landscape mirror the feelings in his heart, and he encounters various people and things along the way which form the subject of the successive songs during his lonely journey. It is in fact an allegorical journey of the heart.

Tickets, which are only 10,00 EUR, are available online.

Greenhalgh is currently appearing as Littore in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea at Theater an der Wien with Jennifer Larmore as Ottavia, Christophe Dumaux as Ottone and the Valer Sabadus as Nerone.

He'll be back in the U.S. in January to sing Moralès in Bizet's Carmen with the Palm Beach Opera. Also in the cast are Rinat Shaham as Carmen, Zachary Nelson as Escamillo and Riccardo Massi as Don Josè. The production will be directed by the sensational young director John De Los Santos. Tickets are available online.

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Barihunk duo in French double-bill

Ben Connor (far left & right) with Gan-ya Ben-gur Akselrod and Julian Henao Gonzalez

The Theater an der Wien is presenting a double-bill of Ravel's L'heure espagnole with American barihunk Tobias Greenhalgh as Ramiro and Poulenc's Les mamelles de Tiresias with Australian barihunk as Ben Connor as Marì. Performances run through June 23.

Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc wrote their respective works with the hope that they would revive the genre of Italian opera buffa in the French language again. Although both operas failed initially at the Opéra Comique in Paris, both became staples of the standard repertory in the 20th century.

Tobias Greenhalgh in L'heure espagnole

Later this year at Theater an der Wien, Greenhalgh performs two roles in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea and Ned Keene in Britten's Peter Grimes. On June 25 and 27, Ben Connor performs the baritone solo in Orff's Carmina Burana at the Wiener Volksoper.

Barihunks confounding Susanna offstage in Vienna Marriage

Degout and Esposito

Two of our favorite singers in the world, Alex Esposito and Stéphane Degout, are appearing together in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro from April 11-22 at the Theater and der Wien. Degout is singing the Count, while Esposito takes on Figaro.

The two have been having fun on Facebook posting pictures of themselves "napping" at rehearsals. We're not quite sure how Susanna feels about her beloved Figaro ending up in bed with the Count, but it certainly adds an interesting (offstage) twist to the story.

Alex Esposito and Stéphane Degout

When the two barihunks wrap up their onstage and offstage fun in Vienna they will head their separate ways. Esposito will stick to Mozart taking on his signature role of Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Royal Opera House in London from June 12-25. Degout will head to the Paris Opera to sing Apollo in Gluck's Alceste (and Team Barihunks will be in the audience). That performance runs from June 16-July 15,

Andrè Schuen making major debuts in 2015

Andrè Schuen

 Andrè Schuen who lit up our pages with his shirtless pictures from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore from Graz is making some major debuts in 2015. But first he kicks off the New Year with a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic that includes Handel's Dixit Dominus, Zelenka's Te Deum and Bach's Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied.

On February 16th, he makes his debut as Figaro at the Theater an der Wien in Giovanni Paisiello's rarely performed version of Il Barbiere di Siviglia under early music specialist René Jacobs. The opera was adapted from Beaumarchais' play Le Barbier de Séville by librettist Giuseppe Petrosellini and premiered in Saint Petersburg in 1782. The plot of the Paisiello opera and the Rossini version closely resemble each other, with the main difference being Petrosellini's libretto putting greater emphasis on the love story and less on the comic aspects.

Performances run through February 27th and tickets are available online. On March 6, the work will be performed at the Bozar Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels.

Fans in the U.K. will finally have the chance to see Schuen live when he makes his Wigmore Hall debut on March 22nd. Joined by pianist Daniel Heide, he'll perform Schumann’s Liederkreis Op. 24, Frank Martin’s Jedermann and three Harfenspieler songs from Wolf’s Goethe-Lieder. Tickets are on sale now online.  

He currently has no U.S. engagements on his calendar.  

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Listen to Stéphane Degout from Edinburgh

Stéphane Degout

French barihunk Stéphane Degout and British pianist Simon Lepper teamed up at the Edinburgh Festival to perform a recital of Gallic songs and miniature operas. You can listen to the entire recital HERE for the next seven days. The program is as follows.

Schubert: Der Zwerg D771
Loewe: Edward 1
Schumann: Belsatzar Op 57
Lizst: Die drei Zigeuner
Weill: Die Ballade vom ertrunkenen Mädchen
Wolf: Der Feuerreiter
Debussy Images
Faure: Automne in B minor Op 18 No 3
Faure: L'Horizon Chimérique Op 118
Liszt: Three Petrarch Sonnets

Degout will be in recital in Brussels on September 12th at La Monnaie. He'll be performing the Mörike-Lieder of Wolf and lieder by Richard Strauss. Tickets are available online.

You can see him on stage again from October 16-29, when he takes on Oreste in the revival of Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide at the Theater an der Wien opposite the stunning  Iphigénie of Véronique Gens. Tickets and additional information are available online.

"Top Gunn" is still "Top Tarquinius"

Gunn heats up the stage in Vienna

We posted earlier this week about Nathan Gunn returning to his signature role of Tarquinius in Britten's "The Rape of Lucretia" at the Theater an der Wien.  We posted some pictures from Philadelphia and were wondering if he was still as sexy as ever for this role. From these pictures, it looks like he can keep this role in his repertory for years to come.

Top Gunn

We also learned that Gunn will be performing the title role in Billy Budd next season at the Metropolitan Opera. If he looks this good and continues to own the role vocally, it should be the hit of the season.

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Nathan Gunn Returns to Tarquinius

Nathan Gunn as Tarquinius in Philadelphia

The role of Tarquinius in in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia is usually cast with young barihunks, so it's impressive that the 40-year-old Nathan Gunn has been able to keep it in his repertory and still look great. He revisits the role from February 17-27 at the Theater an der Wien. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.

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Michael Nagy in Rarely Heard Mozart

Michael Nagy rehearsing La finta giardiniera

We feature a lot of Mozart on this site and it tends to be the "Big 4": Don Giovanni, Die Zauberflote, Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. Mozart buffs are always on the lookout for his lesser performed works. Well, they are in luck, as the suberb Mozart conductor Rene Jacobs will be leading a performance of "La finta giardiniera" at the Theater an der Wien running from November 12-22.

Jacobs has assembled and all-star team for the production that includes barihunk Michael Nagy, director David Alden, soprano Alexandrina Pendatchanska and the wonderful tenor Topi Lehtipuu.  Word has it that Nagy actually appears in the production wearing a skirt, which should be worth the price of admission. 

Nagy, Jacobs and the cast from Vienna will also perform the opera at Madrid's Teatro Real opening on December 4th. You can also click HERE to view our most viewed barihunk ever, Gabriel Bermudez, performing La finta giardiniera in 2006 in Madrid.


Nagy fans will be delighted to know that he is scheduled to sing Wolfram in the new production of Tannhäuser at Bayreuth this summer. Complete cast lists have not been posted on the Bayreuth site yet.

Nathan Gunn & Nicolas Teste coming to Vienna

Theater an der Wien will also be featuring two other barihunks this season. Nicolas Testé will perform Jupiter in Rameau's "Castor and Pollux" opening on January 20, 2011 followed by Nathan Gunn as Tarquinius in Britten's "Rape of Lucretia." If you've been planning a trip to France, this would be the time to go.

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