Barihunk Jonathan Estabrooks is back with his second season of his vlog "A Singer's Life." We love the new season already since the first episode is called "Barihunks in Blacksburg." We love how fellow barihunk Philip Kalmanovitch corrects the vlogger when he gives the wrong url for Barihunks. Make sure to subscribe to the show on YouTube so you never miss an episode.
Estabrooks can next be seen as Silvio in Pagliacci with Opera Lyra in Ottawa opposite tenor Richard Leech and soprano Yannick-Muriel Noah. Performances run from September 10th through the 17th. Click HERE for tickets.
Kalmanovitch can next be seen as Antonio in Mozart's "Le nozze di Figaro" at the Opéra de Montréal from September 17-24 with fellow barihunk Phillip Addis as Count Almaviva. Click HERE for additional performance information and tickets.
Christoph Zadra as Agamemnon (Center & Right) in Vienna
There are certain operas that give us particular delight, as they are both musically rich and filled with roles for barihunks. Don Giovanni, The Pearl Fishers, Billy Budd, Carmen and The Rape of Lucretia come immediately to mind. When looking through our stats of our most popular posts, it dawned on us that singers who performed in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride were some of our most popular singers. Among those are Rod Gilfry, Stephane Degout, Nathan Gunn and our all-time most popular barihunk Gabriel Bermudez.
We couldn't resist posting Christoph Zadra, who is pictured above. He is 34-year-old Viennese actor who works primarily in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. He was Agamemnon in the Vienna production of Iphigénie en Tauride with Stephane Degout and showed up in a number of the publicity shots (apparently for good reason).
Stephane Degout as Oreste in Vienna
Iphigénie en Tauride premiered in Paris in 1779 and was part of his reform movement that forever changed opera. Like Beethoven's Fidelio it is filled with a message of humanity and it became Gluck's greatest success during his lifetime. It's great to see it returning to the repertory of opera houses throughout the world, as it's an amazing piece of theater and filled with some of the most beautiful music ever written. The libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard and is based on Euripides great story. Like any great story, it is filled with emotion and conflict which creates moral dilemmas and turmoil for the characters.
Here is an extended scene with Rod Gilfry and tenor Deon van der Walt, which ends in the great baritone aria "Dieux protecteurs de ces affreux." You can watch the entire performance on YouTube at the site of carrangel2:
The story of the opera is pretty straightforward: Iphigenia has been saved from being sacrificed by her father. She now lives on the island of the Taurians and has the task of killing any foreigner that comes to the island seeking refuge. Her dreams are plagued by memories of the bloody destruction of her family. She does not know that her brother Orestes was able to escape the massacre. Years later she sees him and his friend Pylades who have been taken prisoner by the Taurians. But brother and sister fail to recognise each other. However, the unknown prisoner reminds Iphigenia of Orestes, so she decides to save him. Orestes, though, prefers to face death instead of Pylades. During the sacrifice, brother and sister recognise each other. Just as Thoas, the king of the Scythians, is about to kill Orestes, Pylades suddenly appears and murders the king. The people sing in praise of the coming peace and the end of the wars on Tauris.
Zadra & Degout in Vienna; Bermudez in Zurich
Clearly, readers of this site love Gabriel Bermudez in this role, as you've made him our most popular singer. Unfortunately, his YouTube site does not allow embedding, so we can't post the video of his singing "Dieux protecteurs de ces affreux," but you can watch it by clicking HERE.
Lately, the great tenor Placido Domingo has been taking up baritone roles, including Orestes in Iphigénie en Tauride. His performance at The Met was a huge success and now he's taken it to the Washington National Opera in Washington D.C., where we've learned that another one of our Über-popular singers, Randal Turner, is covering for the 70-year-old conductor/singer/impresario. Certainly, Turner would be about as perfect for this role as any singer around today. For those of you who still prefer a baritone in the role, we'll make sure to let readers know if Turner is scheduled to perform. Performances run from May 6-28 with a cast that includes the great soprano Patricia Racette as Iphigenie and barihunk Simone Alberghini as Thoas. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.
Here is a funny clip from Nathan Gunn, who appeared on the December 18, 2010 broadcast of the "Prairie Home Companion." Gunn lampoons both tenors and sopranos.
Martin Achrainer is one of the most creative and compelling baritones on stage today. He's part of the ensemble at the Landestheater Linz, where he caught the eye of Philip Glass who cast him in Kepler, which we covered on this site. He is capable of mastering everything from song and dance numbers in Broadway musicals, to Mozart to contemporary music. Not surprisingly, he has become a fan favorite in Linz. Achrainer has become a younger, European version of Nathan Gunn, as he frequently performs in roles that shows of his physique.
Achrainer is once again tackling a wide array of roles this season, portraying Konrad in Meistersinger, Cornelius in Hello, Dolly!, Dandini in La Cenerentola and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly.
There are two wonderful videos below. The first is a short piece on his portrayal of Orphee in the Philip Glass opera. The latter is a wonderful biographical piece on the singer (in German). Even if you don't speak German, you can't miss the incredible charm that emanates from this 32-year-old singer.
We ran a teaser back in March about Zachary Gordin's debut as Germont père in La Traviata with West Bay Opera. Fortunately, for anyone who wasn't able to be in California to see this bodybuilder/barihunk perform, we have video from the singer's YouTube site.
We also thought that it was important to run a few pictures of the former countertenor out of costume, since he's much hunkier before the makeup artists added 25 years to his muscular frame. It's also a good thing that the costume department didn't outfit him in something a little sexier, or we may have had the first Traviata where Violetta runs off to Paris with her lover's father.
The stunningly beautiful Vittorio Prato can also sing beautifully. Here he is performing Massimo's aria from Handel's "Ezio" with the Festival Radio France.
Composer Philip Glass' latest opera is the story of Johannes Kepler (1571—1630), a founding father of modern science who discovered the laws of planetary motion.
His new score is described as "spacious, elemental, and imbued with wonder" on Glass' website. The hypnotic score becomes the sound of the cosmos as we witness Kepler struggling to reconcile scientific discovery with the divine.
Celebrated conductor Dennis Russell Davies and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz support a stellar cast and 42-member chorus drawn from the Upper Austrian State Theatre, Linz. This means that our main character is being performed by barihunk Martin Achrainer, a regular on this site. The opera will premier on November 20th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then move on to Linz Landestheater on November 27th. Click on the BAM link to the left to hear Philip Glass discuss the opera.
Here is a profile of Martin Achrainer (in German) talking about the role, as well as a preview of the opera:
