Barihunk Trio in New England premiere of Fellow Travelers; Coming to Arizona and Madison

Jesse Darden as Timothy Laughlin and Jesse Blumberg as Hawkins Fuller (Photo by Liza Voll)

The Boston Lyric Opera is presenting the New England premiere of Gregory Spears' Fellow Travelers from November 13-17. The cast will included the barihunk trio of Jesse Blumberg as Hawkins Fuller, David McFerrin as Senator Joe McCarthy and Simon Dyer in multiple roles. 

The remainder of the cast includes Jesse Darden as Timothy McLaughlin, Chelsea Basler as Mary Johnson, James Maddalena as Senator Charles Potter, Vincent Turregano as Tommy McIntyre, Brianna Robinson as Lucy and Michelle Trainor as Miss Lightfoot. Tickets are available online. 

Simon Dyer and David McFerrin

Fellow Travelers, which is set in Washington D.C. against the backdrop of the McCarthy-era "lavender scare," tells the story of Timothy “Skippy” Laughlin, an aspiring young journalist, and Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a handsome, profligate State Department official. A chance encounter with Hawk leads to Tim's first job in DC, and his first love affair. As his involvement deepens, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his religious beliefs, and his love for Fuller – an entanglement that will end in a stunning act of betrayal. The libretto is based on the novel by American novelist, essayist and critic Thomas Mallon.

Joseph Lattanzi as Hawkins Fuller and Jonas Hacker as "Skippy" McLaughlin

The opera is also being performed on the other side of the continent at the Arizona Opera with Joseph Lattanzi reprising the role of Hawkins Fuller, which he created at the Cincinnati Opera in 2016. The cast includes Marcus DeLoach as Senator Joe McCarthy, Thomas Cannon as Senator Charles Potter, Jonas Hacker as Timothy McLaughlin, Katherine Beck as Mary Johnson, Cadie Jordan as Lucy and Kaitlyn Johnson as Miss Lightfoot. Tickets are available online. 

The opera will also be performed next year at the Madison Opera with Ben Edquist as Hawkins Fuller, Sid Outlaw as Tommy McIntyre and Andy Acosta as Hawkins Fuller. 

 

Joseph Lattanzi in free concert and world premiere

Joseph Lattanzi (Photos from artist website)

Barihunk Joseph Lattanzi will be one of the featured stars of Cincinnati Opera's free Opera in the Park concert on June 9th. He'll be joined at Washington Park by his fellow cast members from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which is being performed on June 13 and 15. They include sopranos Janai Brugger and Susanna Phillips, mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb and tenor Martin Bakari. Also performing will be Piotr Buszewski, Liv Redpath, Thomas Dreeze and hunkentenor Aaron Blake.

No tickets are required for the event, but guests are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs, Concessions and food trucks will be on site.

In addition to The Marriage of Figaro, Lattanzi will join the company from July 22-27 for the world premiere of Scott Davenport Richards and David Cote's opera Blind Injustice, which explores the true stories of these six people who were tried, convicted, imprisoned, then ultimately freed by the Ohio Innocence Project. Joining him in the cast are fellow barihunks Miles Wilson-Toliver and Morgan Smith.

Casts and additional information on the Cincinnati Opera season can be found online. 

Later this season, Lattanzi will reprise the role of Hawkins Fuller in Gregory Spears' Fellow Travelers at the Arizona Opera and then perform Dandini in Rossini's L Cenerentola at the Virginia Opera.

Hadleigh Adams to star in Fellow Travelers at Minnesota Opera

Hadleigh Adams

New Zealand-born barihunk Hadleigh will take on the role of Hawkins Fuller in Gregory Spears' Fellow Travelers at the Minnesota Opera opposite hunkentenor Andres Acosta.

Fellow Travelers, which was written in collaboration with librettist Greg Pierce and director Kevin Newbury, was developed in a 2013 Opera Fusion workshop. Barihunk Joseph Lattanzi sang the world premiere in Cincinnati in 2016 and reprised the role in Chicago.  

The opera is set in Washington D.C. against the backdrop of the McCarthy-era "lavender scare" and tells the story of Timothy “Skippy” Laughlin, an aspiring young journalist, and Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a handsome, profligate State Department official. A chance encounter with Hawk leads to Tim's first job in the Nation's capital, and his first love affair. As his involvement deepens, Skippy struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his religious beliefs, and his love for Fuller – an entanglement that will end in a stunning act of betrayal. The libretto is based on the novel by American novelist, essayist and critic Thomas Mallon.

Performances will run from June 16-26 and tickets and additional cast information is available online. The gay-themed opera will overlap with Twin Cities Pride, which takes place June 23-24.

Later this summer, Hadleigh Adams can be seen at West Edge Opera as Vicomte de Valmont in Francesconi's Quartett. He then heads to the mainstage of the San Francisco Opera for Angelotti in Puccini's Tosca.

Barihunks featured in simultaneous productions of Florencia en el Amazonas

Nmon Ford and Steven LaBrie

Two production of Daniel Catán's exotic opera Florencia en el Amazonas are happening almost simultaneously in two very different parts of the United States. Both productions will feature barihunks, with the Madison Opera featuring Nmon Ford and Florida Grand Opera starring Steven LaBrie as Riolobo.

Florida Grand Opera will present five performances between April 28-May 5. Tickets and additional cast information is available online. The Madison Opera will present two performances on April 27 and 29, with tickets and additional cast information available online.

The role of Riolobo has become a popular barihunk vehicle, with such notables as Nathan Gunn, Gabriel Preisser, Shannon De Vine, Luis Alejandro Orozco, Norman Garrett, José Carbó, Joseph Lattanzi and Keith Miller all taking on the role of the ship's mate, who is the focus of the magical realism of the piece. 

Andrew Garland sings Riolobo's Invocation from Florencia:

The two-act opera Florencia en al Amazonas is set on the steamboat El Dorado in 1910, where the famous opera singer Florencia is traveling down the Amazon to perform in Manaus. Florencia desires to encounter her lost love, a butterfly hunter who entered the jungle and never returned. The dramas aboard the steamboat weave love, conflict, loss, a violent storm, and ultimately a cholera epidemic that keeps the passengers quarantined and Florencia’s dream apparently dashed.

In 1996, Florencia en al Amazonas was the first Spanish-language opera to be commissioned by a major American opera house. It premiered at the Houston Grand Opera, and was subsequently performed at the Los Angeles Opera and the Seattle Opera. Daniel Catán died in 2011 at age 62, shortly after the premiere of his last opera, Il Postino, based on the popular Italian film. At the time of his death, he was at work on a new piece, Meet John Doe, inspired by Frank Capra’s classic film of the same title.

What if Papageno used Tinder?; Joseph Lattanzi reprises Fellow Travelers

Nathan Gunn (left) and Aaron Blake/Joseph Lattanzi (right)

One of the board members of the PROTOTYPE Festival in New York put together this video of Nathan Gunn, who was singing Papageno at the Met. It shows what might of happened had he used the dating app Tinder to find his Papagena. 

Nathan Gunn has a number of recitals on his 2018 calendar, including his cabaret show with his wife Julie Gunn. You can catch performances on January 18th in Thomasville, Georgia; at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, CA on January 22nd; and, at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Beverly Hills on March 15th. The concert includes works by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe, Billy Joel and Leonard Bernstein.

On January 12, 13 and 14, PROTOTYPE will present Gregory Spear's opera Fellow Travelers at the Lynch Theater at John Jay College, with barihunk Joseph Lattanzi and hunkentenor Aaron Blake in the lead roles. Tickets are available online. 

Fellow Travelers, which was written in collaboration with librettist Greg Pierce and director Kevin Newbury, was developed in a 2013 Opera Fusion workshop. Lattanzi sang both the workshops for the opera, as well as the world premiere at the Cincinnati Opera and at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Celebrating the 90th birthday of composer Dominick Argento

Nathan Gunn in The Aspern Papers; Carolyn Sproule & Joseph Lattanzi in Postcard from Morocco

Dominick Argento was born on October 27, 1927 and has become one of the leading American composers of modern times.

His best known pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco, Miss Havisham's Fire, The Masque of Angels, and The Aspern Papers. He also is known for the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1975. Many well known baritones have performed his operas, including Ryan MacPherson and Joseph Latanzi in Postcard from Morocco, and Nathan Gunn in The Aspern Papers. Two of his early operas, written while he was a student—Sicilian Limes and Colonel Jonathan the Saint—have been withdrawn by the composer.

Argento moved to Minneapolis in 1958 with his new wife, soprano Carolyn Bailey, to begin teaching theory and composition at the University of Minnesota. Within a few years he received commissions from virtually every major performing group in the area. His wife died on February 2, 2006.

 Christòpheren Nomura sings selections from The Andrée Expedition:

Argento became involved in writing music for productions at the then-new Guthrie Theater. In 1963, he co-founded the Center Opera Company, which later became the Minnesota Opera. He composed the short opera The Masque of Angels for the occasion as the first Performing Arts commission of the Walker Art Center. This work—with its complex harmonic language and an emphasis on expansive choral writing that prefigures his later role as a prominent choral composer—firmly established his local prominence, as well as providing a role for his wife.

In 1971 his surrealist opera, Postcard from Morocco, opened at Center Opera and received a glowing review in the New York Times. He eventually received commissions from New York City Opera, the newly formed Minnesota Opera, Washington Opera, and the Baltimore and St. Louis symphonies, among others. He also developed close professional relationships with several prominent singers, notably Frederica von Stade, Janet Baker, and baritone Håkan Hagegård, tailoring some of his best-known song cycles to their talents.

In 1984, the Minnesota Opera commissioned Casanova's Homecoming, with text by the composer, which went on to a well-received run at New York City Opera. At the insistence of Beverly Sills, then musical director of the company, the opera was the first in New York City to be performed in English and accompanied with English supertitles. The opera won the 1986 National Institute for Music Theatre Award.

In 1987, Argento composed The Aspern Papers as a vehicle for Frederica von Stade, with his own libretto adapted from the 1888 novella by Henry James. His next opera, and arguably largest work to date, The Dream of Valentino, premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1993.

Malte Roesner in Barihunks Calendar and 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!

Joseph Lattanzi to reprise lead role in Fellow Travelers

Joseph Lattanzi and Aaron Blake in Fellow Travelers

The Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced that barihunk Joseph Lattanzi will reprise the role of Hawkins Fuller in Gregory Spears' opera Fellow Travelers.

Fellow Travelers, which was written in collaboration with librettist Greg Pierce and director Kevin Newbury, was developed in a 2013 Opera Fusion workshop. Lattanzi sang both the workshops for the opera, as well as the world premiere at the Cincinnati Opera last year. Newbury will also direct the Chicago performances.

Joseph Lattanzi sings "Our very own home" from Fellow Travelers:

The cast will include tenor Jonas Hacker as Timothy Laughlin, who falls in love with Hawkins Fuller during the height of the McCarthy era in 1950s Washington D.C. Devon Guthrie will sing the role of Mary Johnson, Hawkins’s assistant and Timothy’s confidante.

This chamber work will be presented in four performances at the Athenaeum Theatre between March 17-25, 2018

You can catch Lattanzi as Sonora in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West at Virginia Opera from November 10-December 3. Performances will be in Norfolk, Richmond and Fairfax. 

Joseph Lattanzi in live stream of The Copper Queen

Joseph Lattanzi

The Arizona Opera will be live streaming today's sold out performance of composer Clint Borzoni's The Copper Queen, which won the company's Arizona Sparks competition for new works in a runaway. The piece was also featured on the front page of the Arizona Republic's arts section last weekend.

The opera's libretto, written by director John de los Santos and based on a true story, revolves around the ghost of a prostitute haunting a historic hotel in Bisbee, Arizona.

The performance will feature barihunk Joseph Lattanzi as Peter Ackerman, who is fresh of a heralded performance as Hawkins Fuller in Gregory Spears’ gay themed opera Fellow Travelers at Cincinnati Opera. This season at Arizona Opera, Lattanzi will also perform the Gamekeeper in Dvořák's Rusalka, Yamadori in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola.

Clint Borzoni's "Stufen" with barihunk Marco Vassalli:

The opera also features Lacy Sauter as the prostitute Julia Lowell, Alyssa Martin as Addison Moore, barihunk turned hunkentenor Chris Carr as Teddy Billings, Loren Battieste as Sugar Dog and Zachary Owen as Mr Floyd and Daddy Lowell.  You can hear Alyssa Martin sing "Waiting for a Whisper" from the opera on Soundcloud, as well as Sarah Tucker sing "Still Pretty."

The live stream will begin at 3 PM PST/6 PM EST at the company's Facebook page. 

Preview of Gregory Spears' new opera with Joseph Lattanzi

Jospeh Lattanzi in his Barihunk t-shirt at the Seattle Opera (left) and at a Merola Opera performance (right)

Gregory Spears' new opera, Fellow Travelers, will receive a piano-vocal showcase at National Sawdust in Brooklyn on March 20th at 4 PM. This is the composer's first full-length opera, which follows Paul's Case and O Columbia. Paul's Case was a huge success at the 2014 Prototype Festival and subsequently at the Pittsburgh Opera. The opera was originally developed by American Opera Projects. O Columbia was presented last year by the Houston Grand Opera and featured barihunk Ben Edquist.

Fellow Travelers, which was written in collaboration with librettist Greg Pierce and director Kevin Newbury, was developed in a 2013 Opera Fusion workshop. It will feature former Barihunks calendar model Joseph Lattanzi, who will sing both the showcase and the world premiere.

Performances of Fellow Travelers will run at the Cincinnati Opera from June 17-July 10 at the Jarson-Kaplan Theater. In addition to Lattanzi, it will feature hunkentenor Aaron Blake, Mary Johnson, Alexandra Schoeny and Talya Lieberman. Tickets and additional information is available online. 

 Joseph Lattanzi performs "Our Very Own Home" from Fellow Travelers: 

Fellow Travelers, set in Washington against the backdrop of the McCarthy-era "lavender scare," tells the story of Timothy “Skippy” Laughlin, an aspiring young journalist, and Hawkins “Hawk” Fuller, a handsome, profligate State Department official. A chance encounter with Hawk leads to Tim's first job in DC, and his first love affair. As his involvement deepens, Tim struggles to reconcile his political convictions, his religious beliefs, and his love for Fuller – an entanglement that will end in a stunning act of betrayal. The libretto is based on the novel by American novelist, essayist and critic Thomas Mallon.

On February 27th, Lattanzi will sing the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Arizona Opera with fellow barihunk Ryan Kuster as Masetto and the talented Matthew Burns as his sidekick Leporello. Barihunk Morgan Smith will sing the other performances of Don Giovanni. Additional cast and ticket information is available online.

Ryan Taylor takes over Minnesota Opera; Leaves great legacy in Arizona

Ryan Taylor now and in his singing days

Former baritone Ryan Taylor is taking over the Minnesota Opera, after he successfully revived the Arizona Opera. Taylor certainly would have been a candidate for barihunks during his singing days, but he was winding down his career as we were revving up the site. Taylor takes over on May 1 and you can read more on the Star Tribune website. We recently posted about another barihunk, Jason Hardy, who took over the reigns of OperaDelaware.

His current programming at Arizona Opera includes Bizet's Carmen in February with the barihunk trio of Ryan Kuster as Escamillo, Joseph Lattanzi as Morales and Calvin Griffin as Zuniga (and the sensational Daniella Mack as Carmen). That will be followed later in the month by Mozart's Don Giovanni with barihunks Morgan Smith and Joseph Lattanzi rotating the title role and Ryan Kuster singing Masetto.

Another of his great legacies will be Arizona Spark, which workshops new compositions. Our personal favorite is Clint Borzoni's Copper Queen, with a libretto by John De Los Santos. The opera tells the story of Julia Lowell, the ghost that haunts a famed hotel in Bisbee, Arizona, once prominent as a mining town for both copper and “Bisbee-blue” turquoise. You can hear sound clips HERE. The Minnesota Opera also has a long tradition of presenting new works, including composer Kevin Puts' Silent Night, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Borzoni will be presenting two new works in San Francisco next week for String Quartet and Baritone with barihunk Marco Vassalli. Tickets are available online.

Seattle Opera keeps barihunk tradition alive in new era

German bass-barihunk Andreas Bauer

The Speight Jenkins era at the Seattle Opera is officially over, as incoming General Director Aidan Lang has announced his first full season, which will be presented in 2015-16. The good news is that the company's long-standing commitment to barihunks is in tact with some of the world's sexiest baritones and basses in all of their casts!

The six season opera will include a new production, a world premiere, and two of the repertory's greatest operas that have never been seen before in Seattle, Verdi's Nabucco and Donizetti's Maria Stuarda. Lang is also maintaining Seattle Opera's great Wagnerian tradition by presenting The Flying Dutchman with barihunk Greer Grimsley. He'll be alternating the role with Alfred Walker.

Nabucco will feature the Seattle debuts of barihunks Andreas Bauer and Christian Van Horn alternating the role of the High Priest Zaccaria, in a cast that also includes Gordon Hawkins in the title role and Mary Elizabeth Williams in the fiendishly difficult role of his daughter Abigaille.

Morgan Smith (left) and John Moore (right)

The company is also presenting the world premiere of Jack Perla's An American Dream, which resulted from the company's story telling initiative, the Belonging(s) Project. The World War II based libretto tells the story of strangers bound together after a Japanese American family is forcibly removed from where they live on an island in Puget Sound, and the new residents slowly piece together the history of their home. Barihunk Morgan Smith will sing the role of Jim, an American soldier married to Eva, a German Jew who has fled the Nazis and moved to the Pacific Northwest.

Morgan Smith will also alternate the role of Count Almaviva in a new production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro with fellow barihunk John Moore. The cast also includes barihunk Aubrey Allicock as Figaro, a role he will rotate with Shenyang.

Sarah Larsen with  Michael Todd Simpson, Steven LaBrie, Joseph Lattanzi, and Colin Ramsey in the Seattle Opera's The Consul modeling Barihunk tee shirts (Photo by Elise Bakketun)

Other barihunks appearing with the company are Michael Todd Simpson as Cecil in Maria Stuarda and Keith Phares and  Brett Polegato rotating the role of Zurga in Bizet's The Pearl Fishers. The production will also include the Seattle Opera debut of Jonathan Lemalu as Nourabad. The female leads in the Donizetti will be Christine Rice and Joyce El-Khoury as the doomed queen, while Mary Elizabeth Williams and Keri Alkema sing Queen Elizabeth I, her hated rival.

Tickets and additional cast information are available online. 

Barihunks "Best of 2014"

It's time for our annual year-end wrap up with our "Best of 2014" feature where we highlight our favorite posts. Many of these were actually chosen by our readers, as we closely followed how much traffic each of our posts were receiving.

(L-R top row) Björn Bürger, Malte Roesner, Michael Mofidian (L-R, bottom row) Ivan Oreščanin, Mattia Olivieri and Davide Luciano

BEST NEWCOMERS: There were six singers who we introduced to readers this year that generated amazing traffic to our site. In fact, they were so popular that we decided to lead off our annual tribute with them. German Björn Bürger, German-American Malte Roesner, Scotsman Michael Mofidian, Serbian Ivan Oreščanin, and Italians Mattia Olivieri and Davide Luciano. You can click on their names to read the original posts. This is what the future of opera looks like and sounds like, which seems encouraging.

Previously unpublished photos of Italian barihunk Ernesto Petti

Jens Søndergaard and Saïd Pressley

BEST READER SUBMISSION: Our best posts continue to come from our readers and this year was no exception. Few singers generated more interest than Ernesto Petti on both our blog and in our calendar, where he appears as part of our August feature. Since we couldn't run all of his photos in our calendar, we've added some new photos above.

Honorable mention has to go to Jens Søndergaard and Saïd Pressley, both of whom proved immensely popular with our readers.

Bottom Row - Austin Siebert, George Arvidson, Clay Thompson, Nate Mattingly, Mason Jarboe, Michael Miller

Top Row - Keith Browning, Trevor Martin, Michael Hewitt, Damian Faul

 

(L-R) Sarah Larsen, Michael Todd Simpson, Steven LaBrie, Joseph Lattanzi & Colin Ramsey

BEST GROUP PHOTOS: We love it when we see our tee shirts being modeled by the hottest barihunks in opera, so imagine our glee when we were sent a photo featuring TEN stunning men all gathered together at the Seagle Music Colony in upstate New York. Michael Hewitt ended up being featured in our Viva, Italia! Barihunks Calendar, as well. It turns out that the family names on his mother's side are DiPane and Mazzola.

On the other side of the continent at the Seattle Opera, our tee shirts ended up on four of the cast members in their production of Menotti's The Consul. The opera starred four barihunks, including Michael Todd Simpson as John Sorel, Steven LaBrie as the Police Agent, Joseph Lattanzi as Assan and Colin Ramsey as Mr. Kofner. The four singers showed off their Barihunk tee shirts on the set with soprano Sarah Larsen, who played the secretary. Joseph Lattanzi also appeared in our 2012 calendar.

Bevan Bühler

BEST TWITTER DISCOVERY: Canadian barihunk Bevan Bühler posted the following on Twitter: "My life goal is to be listed on barihunks." Of course, we obliged and he instantly became one of our most viewed posts of the year. The former model and emerging singer clearly caught the eye of many of our readers.

HOTTEST PHOTO: As one might imagine, we get sent a lot of photos and press materials from opera companies and publicists. Most of them are pretty useless and clearly were not sent with our mission in mind. So when an email arrived from the Los Angeles Opera touting their upcoming production of Andrè Previn's Streetcar Named Desire, we were pretty sure that it would be filled with glossy pictures of soprano Renee Fleming. Much to our delight, it included these AMAZING photos of Ryan McKinny, whose voice and body just get more amazing with each passing year. He has become the quintessential barihunk in our view.

Agrippina cast (L-R) Hadleigh Adams, Peabody Southwell, Nathan Medley, Jamie-Rose Guarrine, Jennifer Rivera, Zachary Wilder and Douglas Williams

HOTTEST OPERA CAST: Who would've thought that the sexiest cast in opera this year would be found at Opera Omaha for their production of Handel's Agrippina. The opera featured former model and rising superstar Hadleigh Adams as the emperor Claudio. In the role of Pallante, one of two men that Agrippina pledges to marry, was Doug Williams a rising superstar in the baroque music world, who could easily grace the cover of GQ.

Stéphane Degout and Franco Pomponi

HOTTEST NUDE SCENE: For a dramatically sensible use of nudity, nothing could surpass Stéphane Degout and Franco Pomponi alternating the role of Hamlet in director Olivier Py's production of the Ambroise Thomas opera at La Monnaie in Brussels. Degout also performed the role at Theater an der Wien.

Paul Robeson as photographed by Nickolas Murray

HOTTEST HISTORICAL NUDE: We received a lot of appreciative email from readers who didn't know about the legendary Paul Robeson's nude modeling past. Robeson did some nude modeling for photographer Nickolas Murray, who later went to photograph President Eisenhower, painter Freda Kahlo, actresses Colleen Moore and Greta Garbo, and the Lucky Strike girls. Robeson also posed nude for Italian-American sculptor Antonio Salemme. Born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1898, Robeson made his singing recital and his film debut in 1925. His resonant bass was a major highlight in the London production of "Show Boat" particularly with his powerful rendition of "Ol' Man River." Paul Robeson may have been the original barihunk!

(L-R) Doug Carpenter, Michael Scarcelle & (Jacques) L'Oiseleur Longchamps

BEST CALENDAR MODELS: Perhaps the smartest thing that we did this year was to give our Barihunks Charity Calendar money directly to singers who participated, rather than to organizations. The level of appreciation was enormous and we heard about how the funds paid for lessons, coachings, music, rent and travel to competitions.  

Doug Carpenter walked away with our top prize of $500 for submitting the picture that best exemplified this year's theme "Sexy and Italian." One of our judges was so conflicted about having to choose a winner that she offered up an additional $500 to be split between the runner-ups,  Michael Scarcelle & (Jacques) L'Oiseleur Longchamps. Everyone was a winner.

Dan Kempson

BEST GRAMMY AWARD NOMINEE: Barihunk Dan Kempson received a well-deserved GRAMMY Award nomination for his portrayal of the critical role of Orestes on Darius Milhaud's trilogy L'Orestie d'Eschyle on the Naxos label. The performance, which is up for Best Opera Recording, also features Sidney Outlaw as Apollo, as well as the University of Michigan Choirs and Symphony Orchestra, which amounted to some 350 musicians.

Philippe Sly

BEST NEW CD:  The ridiculously talented Philippe Sly released "In Love’s Minstrels" with accompanist Michael McMahon. They perform English music from the late 19th and early 20th century by Healey Willan, John Ireland, Roger Quilter, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. The CD is available at Amazon, as well as on Spotify.

Pietro di Biano and Matija Meić

BEST COMPETITION WINNERS: 2014 was yet another year where barihunks dominated international singing competitions (so, to all of you naysayers, YES, THEY CAN SING, TOO!). Few performances were more exciting than Barihunks Calendar model Pietro di Bianco winning the prestigious Paris Opera Competition or Matija Meić taking two prizes at the Mirjam Helin Competition, with both becoming overnight sensations.

Cyril Rovery

BEST MEN'S FITNESS MODEL: The European edition of the August 2014 edition of Men's Health magazine featured French barihunk Cyril Rovery in a feature called "Baryton Man." Rovery studied at the Marseilles Conservatoire graduating in 2000. In 1999, he won 1st Prize at the Symphonies d’Automne International Competition in Mâcon and in 2002 he won the Siena International Competition for Singers. He's been a regular at Marseille singing Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca, the Duke of Verona in Roméo et Juliette and Monterone in Verdi's Rigoletto.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer poses for Karl Lagerfeld

BEST PROFESSIONAL MODEL SHOOT: When fashion legend Karl Lagerfeld attended a performance of Robert Carsen's production of Rameau’s Platée at the Opéra Comique, he must have been as impressed as us with barihunk Edwin Crossley-Mercer. Crossley-Mercer's Jupiter was styled as a Karl Lagerfeld lookalike with white ponytail and dark glasses and the designer greeted the singer backstage and offered to do a photo shoot of the barihunk, shooting him in a variety of couture.

BEST PHOTO IN DRAG: Barihunk Daniel Okulitch, who has appeared in various states of dress and undress in his career, finally appeared in a dress when he donned this stunning getup as Jove in Francesco Cavalli's La Calisto at the Cincinnati Opera. Okulitch's drag wasn't some German regie concept that was imported to Cincinnati, but an actual part of the plot. Jove, the ruler of the gods, hatches a plan to wend his way into the heart and bedroom of Calisto by donning a Diana-like disguise. But when Jove’s wife Juno, sung by Alexandra Deshorties, catches wind of the scheme, her fury knows no bounds. As many singers know, Cincinnati has one of the best make-up artists on their staff, so Okulitch was in good hands.

BEST MAGAZINE FEATURE: Baritones became the new cover boys this year, as Aubrey Allicock appeared in OUT Magazine, Simon Keenlyside on the cover of Opera News, Ildar Abdrazakov in VANITY FAIR, Morgan Smith in Opera News, and Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek in Bleep magazine. But our favorite feature was the Opera News' Sound Bites article on John Brancy.  The New Jersey native had an exciting year, with major debuts at Oper Frankfurt in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West and the Kennedy Center for a recital dedicated to the 100th anniversary of WWI. This enormously talented and innovative artist is clearly destined for stardom and it was nice to see Opera News take notice.

Emmanuel Franco

BEST SINGER/DANCER: Mexican-American barihunk Emmanuel Franco caught our attention as one of the three baritones competing in the finals of the 50th International Vocal Competition in 's-Hertogenbosch, Holland. The 30-year-old singer has performed throughout Mexico, the United States and Europe, but he also has a true passion for dancing. While a student at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he founded a zumba class in a nearby gym. After  graduation, he was certified as zumba instructor before moving to The Netherlands, where he has become a popular instructor (who even sings occasionally during class).

Giorgio Caoduro

BEST ROLE DEBUT: Giorgio Caoduro's role debut as Rigoletto couldn't have come at a better time for Opera Australia. They had just weathered a rough couple of weeks dealing with the Tamar Iveri scandal, a soprano who had referred to gay people as "fecal matter" on her Facebook site. Caoduro's performance at the Joan Sutherland Theatre was a major revelation that allowed people to put the scandal on the back burner. Caoduro had previously performed in the opera as Marullo opposite Placido Domingo's Rigoletto in the movie version. The Opera Australia cast also included two other barihunks, Sam Dundas as Ceprano and Luke Gabbedy as Marullo.

A protester at The Death of Klinghoffer (left) and Aubrey Allicock

BIGGEST SCANDAL: The most talked about action in opera this year happened off the main stage, as John Adams' The Death of Klinghoffer at the Met turned out protesters who claimed the opera was anti-Semitic and glorified terrorism. Making his Met debut in that production was upcoming barihunk Aubrey Allicock as the terrorist Mahmoud. He shares critical moments in the opera with fellow barihunk Paulo Szot, who sang the role of the Captain. Regardless of how you felt about the piece, it was great to see a worldwide discussion about an opera. 

Had it not been for The Death of Klinghoffer, we would have listed the BARITONE BLACKOUT at the OPERALIA competition in Los Angeles as our biggest scandal. Despite 11 of the 40 competitors being baritones in the competition, not a single baritone made it to the final round. Many felt that a top prize winner should have come from the talented field of low voices that included Igor Bakan, Aleksey Bogdanov, Alexandre Duhamel, Dan Kempson, Alexey Lavrov, Alex Lawrence, Shea Owens, Damien Pass, Pavel Shmulevich, Anatoli Sivko and Ivan Thirion.

(L-R) Philippe Sly, Elliot Madore & Gordon Bintner

BEST TENOR BLACKOUT: We couldn't feel too bad about the Barihunk Blackout at Operalia because 1,360 miles north of Los Angeles in Edmonton, Alberta, their Symphony was presenting a "No Tenors Allowed" concert. The program featured Canadian barihunks Gordon Bintner, Elliot Madore, and Philippe Sly, who joined forces with conductor Bill Eddins for a program of from music from Bizet's Carmen, Verdi's Macbeth, Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Wagner's Tannhäuser.

Charles Castronovo (left) and Erwin Schrott (right)

BEST BARIHUNK/HUNKENTENOR BATTLE: We all know that there is tremendous competition between baritones and tenors, but it reached new heights when barihunk Erwin Schrott went after hunkentenor Charles Castronovo's soul. The social media regular wrote on Twitter, "Dear Faust @CharlieTenor, meet me @ Laeiszhalle, Hamburg tonite 7:00 PM. Don't forget: bring soul! Tschüs! Méphy x"

Castronovo was singing Faust opposite Schrott's Méphistophélès in Gounod's opera in Baden-Baden, and the duo were joined by fellow barihunk Jacque Imbrailo, who was Valentin.

BEST PERSONAL STORY: Speaking of souls, it's rare for an artist to bare his or her soul in an interview, but that's just what Hadleigh Adams did in an interview with San Francisco's leading LGBT paper, the Bay Area Reporter. He minced no words in talking about what it was like to be effeminate, not to fit in with the other boys, having a friend commit suicide and facing challenges with family. We also had the privilege of hearing him turn this very personal story into an evening of song, which we think would be a hit on the recital circuit. Adams just wrapped up his second year at the prestigious San Francisco Opera Center Adler Fellows‎ and is surely destined for a great career in opera. It's one thing to grow as an artist, but Hadleigh Adams has shown us how amazing it is to watch someone grow as a human being.

Duncan Rock

BEST ANNOUNCEMENT: In our opera travels, we frequently get asked why certain European singers haven't appeared in the U.S. Topping that list is Duncan Rock (now that Edwin Crossley-Mercer has sung in America). So imagine the excitement surrounding the highly-anticipated U.S. stage debut of British Barihunk sensation Duncan Rock, which will occur not far from another rock, Plymouth Rock. The Boston Lyric Opera has snagged the charismatic fan favorite to portray the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni next season. Performances will run from May 1-10, 2015. His gender bending performance in Don Giovanni: The Opera at London's famous nightclub Heaven was a huge sensation.

Kelly Markgraf and Sasha Cooke

Dan Kempson

BEST NEW OPERA: The world premiere of Laura Kaminsky's opera "As One," which explores the revelatory and redemptive journey of a transgender individual, opened on September 4th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the real-life married couple of mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and barihunk Kelly Markgraf. The opera was a critical success and will be reprised at Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University in April 2015 with Markgraf and again at West Edge Opera in July/August 2015 with Dan Kempson. who will be joined by the Friction String Quartet at the Oakland Metro Opera House.

Kaminsky was inspired to write the opera after reading an article in the New York Times in 2008 about a New Jersey marriage in which one of the parties transitioned from male to female, transforming the couple from heterosexual to homosexual.

Finally, we have to close with our favorite email of the year, which came from a reader in Michigan back in May. "Dear Barihunks, I was pleasantly surprised when I came upon your website. It is surprisingly intelligent and well-written. I have learned about singers that were heretofore unknown to me and you have exposed me to much new music. I've also learned about opera competitions and smaller companies that I would not have read about elsewhere. For this I am eternally grateful, but frankly, I'd much prefer more pictures and less text."

Lastly, if you enjoyed Barihunks this year and if you like supporting young artists, please order your Charity Calendar today, so that we can keep up our tradition if assisting the hottest young talent in opera. Our calendar features 19 of the most amazing singers, who also happen to be easy on the eyes. Order NOW by clicking below. Thank you for your support.

Silent Night to make European debut at Wexford; Canadian debut in Montreal; Continues in U.S. in Cincinnati

Ian Beadle (right)

Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night is getting its long-awaited European debut at the Wexford Opera Festival from October 24-November 2. The cast is a mix of Europeans and Americans, with two singers who have been featured on this site, Matthew Worth as Lieutenant Audebart and Quirijn de Lang as the lovable Poncel. There are also a few singers in the cast new to this site. 

Ian Beadle, a graduate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, performs William Dale on the Scottish side of the war. He recently finished a year in the English National Opera’s Opera Works program and performed as part of The Big Barber Bash at the London Coliseum.

His operatic roles have includes Belcore in Donizetti's Elisir d’amore at the Wexford Festival Opera, the Imperial Commissioner in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Opera Holland Park, Crébillon in Puccini's La Rondine at Go Opera, Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni with Sinfonia D’amici, Guccio in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi at Opera Holland Park and Morales in Bizet's Carmen with Co-Opera Co.

Jamie Rock

Irish baritone Jamie Rock sings the role of Gueusselin on the French side of the war. He has performed the roles of Figaro in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Sid in Britten's Albert Herring, Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Schaunard in Puccini's La Boheme, Dancaire in Bizet's Carmen, Tarquinius in Britten's Rape of Lucretia and General Belliard in the world premiere of the original version of Prokofiev's epic masterpiece War and Peace. He has performed with the Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Opera Ireland, Opera North, Grange Park Opera, Opera de Bauge and British Youth Opera.

He is also a member of the vocal ensemble Quartet. The group, under the patronage of Malcolm Martineau, is made up of graduates from the Alexander Gibson Opera School who draw on years of conservatoire training to explore a range of music and look for new ways of presenting the vocal repertoire.

Jamie began his studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama . He is an alumnus of the OTC Young Artist Programme (Dublin), Wexford Festival Opera Young Artist Programme, Leeds Lieder+ Young Artists, Oxford Lieder Young Artists and Josephine Baker Trust. 

Tickets are available online.

Daniel Okulitch (left) and Joseph Lattanzi (right)

Silent Night, which has been performed to great acclaim in Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Fort Worth, now heads to the Cincinnati Opera and north of the border for its Canadian debut.

The Cincinnati cast includes many singers familiar to the piece, including the powerful voice of Craig Irvin as Lt. Horstmayer, Gabriel Preisser as Lt. Gordon and Andrew Wilkowske as Ponchel. New to the cast are Joseph Lattanzi as Gueusselin and Phillip Addis as Lt. Audebert. There are only two performances of the opera on July 10 and July 12. Tickets are available online.

Addis also will be performing Lt. Audebert in the Canadian premiere from May 16-23 at the Opéra de Montréal. The cast includes a barihunk favorite in the Lieutenant Horstmayer of Canadian Daniel Okulitch. Tickets go on sale in August 2014, so mark your calendars.

Gueusselin

Gueusselin and Phil

Barihunk trio in Opera Parallèle Double-Bill

Gabriel Preisser, Hadleigh Adams and Daniel Cilli at a dress rehearsal

Regular readers of this site know that we have a particular fondness for Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias. Apparently, our readers do, as well, as the production from Barcelona remains one of our most visited posts (barihunk Gabriel Bermudez appearing in the buff may account for some of that traffic!).

San Francisco's innovative young opera company Opera Parallèle has assembled three popular and talented barihunks for their double-bill of Weill's Mahagonny Songspiel and Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tirésias for their three performances at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from April 25 - 27 under conductor Nicole Paiement. Gabriel Preisser performs Bobby in Mahagonny and Le mari in the Poulenc, Daniel Cilli is Billy and Le directeur/Presto, and San Francisco Opera Adler Fellow Hadleigh Adams sings Le gendarme.

Gabriel Preisser and Hadleigh Adams (left); Hadleigh Adams and Daniel Cilli (right)

Director Brian Staufenbiel has seamlessly combined the two works, beginning with Mahogonny set in a future where water is in scarce supply and a theater troupe dragging an old boat (that the company found in the Santa Cruz Mountains) stops to perform Les Mamelles. The Poulenc opera is about a woman who becomes a man and changes the submissive role of women in her world, as her husband overpopulates the world by giving birth to thousands of babies.

The Poulenc, which includes members of the San Francisco Girls Chorus to great effect, will be presented in the re-orchestration for smaller orchestra for the first time in the United States.

Hadleigh Adams and Renee Rapier

Gabriel Preisser took the opera world by storm with his portrayal of Lt. Gordon in the world premiere of Kevin Putz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night with Minnesota Opera and Opera Philadelphia. He will reprise the role this summer with the Cincinnati Opera with tenor Thomas Glenn, who is Charlie/Lacouf/Le Journaliste/Le fils in the Weill/Poulenc double-bill. He'll also be joined by fellow barihunks Joseph Lattanzi, Philip Addis, Craig Irvin and Andrew Wilkowske. Performances are on July 10 and 12 and tickets are available online.

Hadleigh Adams made his debut with the San Francisco Opera as Luther and Schlémil in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann and in several roles in the world premiere of Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdalene. He'll appear with the company again this season as the Jailer in Puccini's Tosca.

Daniel Cilli heads to the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre this summer to sing Javert in Les Misérables. During the 2012-13 season, he performed the title role Carlo Gesualdo in the premiere of  Dante DeSilva's Gesualdo: Prince of Madness with Opera Parallèle.

For those unfamiliar with Opera Parallèle, it's a company that you should keep an eye on, as they are doing some of the most innovative and interesting opera on the West Coast. They've produced Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti in a double-bill with Samuel Barber’s A Hand of Bridge, the world premiere of Jacques Desjardins’ re-orchestration of John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby, the San Francisco Bay Area premiere of Philip Glass’ Orphée, the first West Coast performances of John Rea’s chamber version of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, the world premiere of Lou Harrison’s opera Young Caesar with a nude scene featuring barihunk Eugene Brancoveanu, Virgil Thomson's Four Saints in Three Acts and the world premiere of Luciano Chessa’s A Heavenly Act.