Ryan McKinny's ripped Stanley Kowalski at L.A. Opera

Ryan McKinny as Stanley Kowalski (Photo: Robert Millard for LA Opera)

The Los Angeles Opera has been marketing their upcoming performance of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire around mega-star Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois. Fleming, who is a major exponent of American opera, and for whom the role was written when the opera premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 1998, certainly deserves to be the star attraction.

We, of course, were curious to see if the long tradition of casting a gym-toned barihunk as Stanley Kowalski was being upheld. The original Stanley was the Rod Gilfry in his vocal and physical prime. The role has subsequently been sung by a veritable Who's Who of barihunks, including Teddy Tahu Rhodes, David Adam Moore and Philip Cutlip. The L.A. Opera didn't disappoint, as they cast Ryan McKinny in the role, who like a bottle of 1982 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion just gets better and better with age.

Ryan McKinny as Stanley Kowalski and Stacey Tappen as Stella (Photo: Robert Millard for LA Opera)

McKinny became a household name in the world of opera after performing the Dutchman in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at the Glimmerglass Festival under the direction of Francesca Zambello. Not only was McKinny's Dutchman vocally stunning, but it was the sexiest portrayal of that role in operatic history. The photos on our site went viral and almost doubled the traffic to our site.

In addition to Fleming and McKinny, the all-star cast also includes  Stacey Tappan as Stella and Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch. Performances are on Sunday, May 18th at 5 PM and May 21 and 24 at 7:30 PM. Tickets for all three performances are available online.

You can read an interview with Ryan McKinny on the LA Opera blog. 

Guillaume Andrieux appearing in Eötvös opera

Guillaume Andrieux in Philip Glass' Les Enfants Terribles

French barihunk Guillaume Andrieux, who we introduced to readers in a performance of Benoît Mernier’s La Dispute, will perform Roger in Peter Eötvös' opera Le Balcon from May 20-24 at the Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet in Paris.

Le Balcon, Peter Eötvös' second opera, is based on Jean Genet’s play of the same name. He is best known in the United States for his opera Angels in America, which starred barihunk Thomas Meglioranza in New York and David Adam Moore in Fort Worth and Los Angeles.

Albane Carrère & Guillaume Andrieux

The composer wrote of the piece, "With Genet, one can take it literally; a revolution rages in the streets, the Palais Royal is blown up, while the customers in the specially equipped salons of the brothel 'Le Balcon' are dressed with the properties and costumes of major social positions: They want to become a bishop, judge, general, even if for only half an hour. The girls help them, and Madame collects the money for this dubious pleasure. The piece is a wonderful, constantly sparkling role play, a theatre within the theatre...My music sometimes 'is also dressed' with 'French-style manners,' but most important to me was to let the marvelously frivolous, poetic language of Genet remain understandable. I therefore used many grotesque, comedy-like cabaret-music elements, and sometimes my music is close to the French chanson, with Fréhel, Jacques Brel, Yves Montand, Leo Ferré being my models."

In December, Andrieux can be seen as Raoul de Gardefeu in Offenbach's La Vie parisienne at Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg.

Lee Poulis & Kevin Thompson in Don Carlo concert

Kevin Thompson (left) and Lee Poulis (right)

There are few operas with more great music for low voices than Verdi's Don Carlo. On May 27th, you can see two barihunks perform Rodrigo and the Grand Inquisitor in a concert version at the Martha Cardona Theater in New York City.

Rodrigo will be sung by Lee Poulis, who gets to sing "Carlo ch'è sol il nostro amore," "Per me giunto è il di supreme" and "Io morrò, ma lieto in core." Kevin Thompson, as the Grand Inquisitor, gets to sing the great duet "Il grand inquisitor!" with King Phillip. 

Verdi’s original version of the opera premiered in Paris in 1867 as Don Carlos, and was sung in French. It was later translated into Italian as Don Carlo. The opera is often considered to be one of Verdi’s greatest operas, despite the fact that it has a darker tone and more complicated personalities than you’d find in many of his other operas.

Verdi’s Don Carlo is an epic story of love, jealousy, war, betrayal and death. Politics, love and family loyalties are tested in this epic battle of wills involving a tyrannical king, a despairing prince and an innocent young woman. When sung well, it's one of the most potent operas in the Italian repertory.

Tickets are $25 ($20 for singers, seniors, and students) and are available by calling (718) 490-4289.

Justin Hopkins and Doug Carpenter to sing in Stephen Schwartz gala

Justin Hopkins

Two barihunks are slated to appear at a New York City gala honoring composer Stephen Schwartz. 

Bass-barihunk Justin Hopkins, who just finished a critically-acclaimed run as Nourabad in the Pearl Fishers at the Fort Worth Opera and Doug Carpenter.

Schwartz, is the composer and lyricist of such Broadway hits as Wicked, Pippin, and Godspell, as well as Séance on a Wet Afternoon, developed by the American Opera Projects. Hopkins will perform "Children of the Wind" from Rags, composed by Charles Strouse with lyrics by Schwartz. Carpenter, who just finished a run as Lt. Joe Cable in South Pacific at the Paper Mill Theater,  will sing "Proud Lady" from Bakers Wife.

Doug Carpenter rehearsing South Pacific

Schwartz also contributed lyrics for a number of successful films, including Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Prince of Egypt and Enchanted. Schwartz has won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, three Grammy Awards, three Academy Awards and has been nominated for six Tony Awards.

The gala entitled "Opera Sings Broadway Sings Opera," features some of the biggest names in opera and Broadway, including Lauren Flanigan, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Betsy Wolf, Michael Marcotte, Michael McCorry Rose, Simone Osborne, Jessica Phillips, Bailey Grey and Tony Ponella.

The gala is on Monday, May 12th at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South with a 6:30 pm VIP cocktails and hors d'oeuvres reception,  7:30 pm cocktail hour and 8:00 pm performance. For tickets call 718-398-4024  or visit their online site.   

Doug Carpenter will be performing in Ed Dixon's new musical comedy Cloak and Dagger at the Signature Theatre in Washington DC from June 12-July 6.

Franco Pomponi's revealing Hamlet

Franco Pomponi & Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo

Readers may recall the post about Stéphane Degout's nude scene in the title role of Olivier Py’s production of Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at La Monnaie in Brussels. He rotated the role with fellow barihunk Franco Pomponi and we managed to find the photo above, but nothing as revealing as our Degout shots. The production also featured barihunks Jérôme Varnier as the ghost and Henk Neven as Horatio.

Director Olivier Py has never been shy about featuring male nudity, whether in operas like Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet or Alban Berg's Lulu, or theater productions like Die Sonne at Volksbühne Berlin. His Hamlet featuring Stéphane Degout in the buff created quite a buzz at both the Theater an der Wien and La Monnaie in Brussels. You can watch the entire opera below:



Pomponi opens today in John Adams' A Flowering Tree at the Théâtre du Chatelet in Paris, which runs through May 13. The piece is inspired by a southern Indian folk tale and describes the trials and tribulations of a young couple subjected to a series of rituals and trials designed to demonstrate the power of love. Tickets are available online.

Matthew Treviño returns to U.S. for La bohème

Matthew Treviño

Matthew Treviño will make his debut this weekend with the Florentine Opera in Milwaukee as Colline in Puccini's La bohème. The role is becoming a bit of a calling card for the Texas native, as he's performed it with Opera Carolina, Lyric Opera of Kansas City and the Fresno Grand Opera.

Treviño recently wrapped up a successful stint with the English National Opera where he performed  Hobson in Britten's Peter Grimes and Sparafucile in Verdi's Rigoletto.  

Performances of La bohème are on Friday, May 9 at 7:30 PM and Sunday, May 11 at 2:30 PM. Tickets are available online. 

Green Sneakers "Dream Team" reuniting in San Antonio

Cellist Kathryn Bates and Jesse Blumberg in Green Sneakers

One of our favorite collaborations in all of opera is coming to Opera Piccola of San Antonio. Barihunk Jesse Blumberg will be rejoining the acclaimed young director John de los Santos and the riveting Del Sol Quartet for a repeat of their powerful performance of Ricky Ian Gordon's Green Sneakers, which played for one night in San Francisco last year. We were at that performance and there wasn't a dry eye in the theater when the opera ended.

Opera Piccola will present two performances on May 10 and 12 in a double-bill with Gordon's Orpheus and Euridice. Tickets are available online.

Green Sneakers, which is broken into nineteen songs and runs about 80 minutes was written with Jesse Blumberg in mind. The piece is scored for baritone, string quartet, and empty chair, with a libretto by the composer. It premiered on July 15, 2008 in Vail, Colorado and has had a number of subsequent performances since, mostly with Blumberg.

Ricky Ian Gordon today wrote the mini-opera as a way of dealing with the loss of his lover Jeffrey Grossi to AIDS in 1996. In an interview with the Advocate Gordon said, "The world is so different now than it was when Jeffery died in 1996. Young people today missed seeing what it was really like at the height of the AIDS crisis so for them they think it’s OK because you just get to take a few pills all the time. Today, HIV is romanticized in a way because you get to be like that character in Rent, but young people need to know that there’s nothing romantic about it."

You can read the entire interview HERE. 

Director John de los Santos and composer Ricky Ian Gordon

Jesse Blumberg just wrapped up a successful run as Papageno in the famous Barrie Kosky/1927 production of Mozart's Magic Flute at the Minnesota Opera. Blumberg can next be heard performing Schubert's Winterreise at the Kerrytown Concert House on May 17th and Aeneas in Purcell's Dido & Aeneas at the Connecticut Early Music Festival on June 7 and 8.

De los Santos has just brought Bizet's Pearl Fishers to life at the Fort Worth Opera Festival, which has a final performance tonight. From July 16-19, the wunderkind director will work his magic with Rossini's L’Italiana in Algeri at the Seagle Music Colony.

Ricky Ian Gordon has been one of the busiest composers in the world, with premieres of his new operas A Coffin in Egypt and "27." A Coffin in Egypt can next be seen at Opera Philadelphia from June 6-15 and "27" will premiere on June 14 at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis.