Twitter submission: Tom Colwell

Tom Colwell

We getting introduced to an increasing number of barihunks, including our latest submission Tom Colwell. The British singer makes his role debut tonight as the Helmsman in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Longborough Festival Opera in the heart of the Cotswolds. Additional performances are on June 16th, 18th and 20th.

Colwell started singing as a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral Choir School in London, performing on tours throughout France, Spain and Japan. He has been a soloist on numerous recordings and sang the title theme to the Channel 4 drama The Big Battalions.

He studied at Junior Royal Academy in London and the Royal Northern College of Music, in Manchester. During his time in Manchester, he performed in Verdi’s Falstaf  and Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades.

He has added a number of new roles to his repertory in the last season, including Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen at Opera’r Ddraig, Capulet in Gounod's Romeo and Juliet at Riverside Opera, Marcello in Puccini's La Boheme with Opera up Close at the Ravenna International Festival, and Dr Bartolo in Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

In August, he will be singing the role of the Inn Keeper in the premiere of Louis Mander's Oh whistle and I will come to you my lad, a ghost story opera set in Sussex. This will be performed as part of the Tete-a-Tete opera festival.

Colwell is also the co-founder and artistic director of Island Opera, a classical vocal ensemble providing entertainment across South Wales and the U.K.

Celebrating 150 years of Tristan und Isolde

René Pape as King Mark and Ryan McKinny as Kurnewal

Today we celebrate the 150th anniversary of Richard Wagner's masterpiece Tristan und Isolde. The opera premiered on June 10, 1865  at the Königliches Hof- und Nationaltheater in Munich.  

We were planning on doing a more comprehensive post, but due to time restraints, recommend that you listen to today's feature on WQXR. 

One of our favorite performances in recent years was Ryan McKinny role debut as Kurwenal in Christof Loy’s production at the Houston Grand Opera in the 2012-13 season featuring Ben Heppner and Nina Stemme as the lovers.
 
A couple performances featuring barihunks that we're looking forward to include René Pape singing König Marke in Munich from July 8-12, Kay Stiefermann as Ein Steuermann in Bayreuth from July 25-Aug 23 and Tommi Hakala as Kurnewal in Helsinki from May 14-28, 2016.

Introducing German Barihunk Raimund Nolte

Raimund Nolte in Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero

A reader recently spotted Raimund Nolte at the Wiener Festwochen performing Zebul in Händel's Jephtha.

After originally studying mathematics and viola in Cologne, he graduated from the Musikhochschule in Mainz. He made his professsional debut with the German Rhine Opera and was asked to join the Komische Oper in Berlin after being heard by director Harry Kupfer. He went on to perform in Halle from 2005 - 2009, where he specialized in Händel, but also performed in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, Mozart's Don Giovanni and Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero.

Raimund Nolte sings Händel's "Cuopre tal volta il cielo":

He appears on numerous CDs, including recordings of Händel's Italian solo cantatas for bass, Gluck's Iphigenia in Aulis, Händel's Admeto, Messiah, Bach's Mass in B minor, Bernstein's Candide and Schubert's Lazarus.

He can next be seen making his debut at the Bayreuth Festival as Melot in Tristan und Isolde conducted by Christian Thielemann. Tristan und Isolde stars Stephen Gould as Tristan, Anja Kampe as Isolde and Christa Mayer as Brangäne and opens on July 25th. Tickets and additional performance information is available online.

Ryan Kinny debuts Kurnewal in Houston Tonight

Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny is making his much anticipated debut in the role of Kurnewal tonight with the Houston Grand Opera. The all-star cast in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is headed by Nina Stemme and Ben Heppner in the title roles. Performance will run through May 5 and tickets are available online. 

The former Houston Grand Opera Studio artist and Metropolitan Opera Auditions finalist, has become a regular with the company. He has appeared as Collatinus in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (2012), the Royal Herald in Wagner's Lohengrin (2009), Theseus in Britten's A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2009), Don Pedro in Mozart's Beatrice and Benedict (2008), The Refuge by Christopher Theofanidis (2008, 2007), Mr. Flint in Britten's Billy Budd (2008), Samuel in Verdi's A Masked Ball (2007), Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni (2006), and Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan

Last season, Ryan McKinny made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Lieutenant Ratcliffe in Britten's Billy Budd, sang his first Jochanaan in Salome at New Orleans Opera (remember that sexy picture?), and sang Hercules in Alceste with Leipzig Opera.

In 2010, he was named the first recipient of the Birgit Nilsson Prize for singing Wagner at Plácido Domingo’s Operalia Competition. He also represented the United States in the 2007 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, where he was a finalist in the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize.

Men in Shorts

Ryan McKinny (lying down) with Agneta Eichenholz and Marko Spehar (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

We get all kinds of mail, but the "barihunk in his skivvies" is a regular item in our inbox. There seems to be a lot of it lately, especially coming from the European houses.  The picture above is from the world premiere of Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini’s Der Sandmann at Theater Basel in a Christof Loy production. The opera is based on an E.T.A. Hoffmann story and there are still eight performances remaining. Visit the Theater Basel website for additional information.

On Janauary 29, 2013, McKinny opens as Melot in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.

James McOran-Campbell in Ghost Patrol (Photo: Jane Hobson)

James McOran-Campbell is currently touring in a Scottish Opera/Music Theatre Wales joint commission of the world premiere of Stuart MacRae's Ghost Patrol, which has scheduled performances in Glasgow, the Edinburgh Festival, the Linbury Studio, ROH and a national tour. They are currently performing in Aberystwyth and are headed to Cardiff, Manchester and finally Mold on November 11. Check out the McOran-Campbell's website for additional information.

Phillip Addis as Demetrius and Ellie Dehn as Helena (Photo Silvia Lelli, Rome Opera)

This summer, Canadian barihunk Phillip Addis appeared as Demetrius in the Rome Opera production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. We're certainly used to seeing some skin in this opera, but it's usually from Puck. In this production, Demetrius and Lysander were also asked to bare some skin and it drew a comment in a review from Seen & Heard International:

Still, there were some fun touches in the staging too. Having the boys strip down to their underpants for the failed mock fight was a fun touch, but to make it work rightly, Mr Curran would have needed more say in the casting. While Demetrius (Phillip Addis) looked as though he was comfortable as a model for underpants, Lysander (Shawn Mathey) did not.

John Allen Nelson

Finally, we have American John Allen Nelson, who is new to this site.

Nelson was a participant in Opera Colorado's young artist program in 2011-2012, where he performed Father in Hansel and Gretel, Zuniga in Carmen, Old Gypsy in Il Trovatore, and Count Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro. He spent the summer at the Des Moines Metro Opera where he covered the title role in Don Giovanni.     

This season he can be seen singing the role of The Mandarin in Minnesota Opera's production of Turandot.

Randal Turner makes network TV debut; Donizetti up next

Which Tristan would Isolde fall for?: Randal Turner (L) or Joseph Albert-Ludwig (R)

Barihunk Randal Turner made his network television debut this week in the premiere episode of "Elementary" on CBS. The show is a modern take on Sherlock Holmes with Jonny Lee Miller as the famed detective and Lucy Liu as his sidekick Watson. In the episode in which Turner appears, Holmes and Watson attend the opera where soprano Melissa Zapin and Turner are performing Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." The next episode airs on October 4th on CBS.

 The CBS trailer of "Elementary":

Although Turner would look like an amazing Tristan, it's unlikely that he'll ever be seen in the role, which is written for a tenor. In fact, he'd look like a great Lohengrin or Siegmund, making us wonder if Wagner should have written those roles for baritone (who would look more the part). For the record, Turner does have one Wagner opera under his belt, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which he performed in Darmstadt, Germany. 

Turner can next be seen on October 13th at the Esterházy Palace in Eisenstadt, Austria where he'll be performing "The salon cantatas of the Bel Canto” with I Virtuosi ambulanti. Tickets are available online. You can hear Turner sing Donizetti's Canto XXXIII from a previous performance with I Virtuosi ambulanti on his website.

Opera News features Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny in Opera News (© James Hickey 2012)

Ryan McKinny seems an ideal fit for the Wagner bass-baritone roles he is pursuing — Amfortas, the Dutchman. In fact, he has spent a long time trying to figure out what his voice is, and what it isn't. "When you enter competitions in your early twenties," he says, "if you are a lyric soprano or Rossini tenor, I think you kind of understand what you're supposed to be doing. With lower male voices or bigger soprano voices, it's not always clear. You're not always ready to sing what you're supposed to sing."

[Read the entire feature in Opera News]

Make sure to catch McKinny's upcoming performances in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. He'll be performing Melot with the Canadian Opera Company from January 29 to February 23, 2013 and then Kurnewal with the Houston Grand Opera from April 18 to May 5. The Isolde in Houston will be Nina Stemme, who is arguably the reigning Wagnerian soprano in the world today.

 Ryan McKinny sings "Die Frist ist um"  from the Flying Dutchman: