John Chest to debut as Billy Budd in Berlin

John Chest as Billy Budd

Anyone who has ever seen or heard barihunk John Chest, with his golden locks and golden voice, immediately thinks of him as the perfect Billy Budd. Fortunately, conductor Donald Runnicles had a chance to hear and see Chest while they were both in San Francisco. The two are being reunited at the Deutsche Oper Berlin for five performances of Benjamin Britten's masterpiece running from May 22th-June 6th. Tickets are available online.

John Chest is a recent graduate of the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he sang over eighty performances including Fiorello in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Schaunard in Puccini's La Bohème with Anja Harteros, Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Lovec in Dvorak's Rusalka, Petrucci in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia with Edita Gruberova, Bizet's Carmen with Jonas Kaufmann.

Chest is now part of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he has sung Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Il Conte Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Albert in Massenet's Werther.  In November, he'll return to the U.S. to perform Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème at the Washington National Opera with fellow barihunks Joshua Bloom as Colline and Steven LaBrie as Schaunard. 

More Sexy Photos from LA Opera's "A Streetcar Named Desire"

LA Opera Production of Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Stacey Tappan as Stella. Photo by Robert Milliard

Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny and Stacey Tappen

Renée Fleming and Ryan McKinny

As a follow-up to our previous post about the Los Angeles Opera's beautifully sung and sexy performance of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, here are some stunning photos from the production.

The opera featured bass-barithunk Ryan McKinny as the hotheaded Stanley Kowalski, soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche, Stacey Tappan as Stella, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch.

Sometimes words aren't needed, so enjoy the pictures.

San Diego Opera Saved; Barihunks in all 3 Operas

Alex Esposito is bringing his definitive Leporello to San Diego

Never underestimate the power of social media or the devotion of hard core opera lovers. On March 19, the San Diego Opera stunned the world when it voted to close the company at the end of the 2014 season. Social media exploded with employees, performers and orchestra members leading the charge. Questions were raised about the management of the company and the motives for closing.

Yesterday, Board President Carol Lazier, surrounded by fellow board members, opera staff, choristers and union members announced that the 2015 season will proceed after they raised over $2 million in crowd-funding campaigns. Lazier donated an additional $1 million to attain a goad requested by the Board to proceed with the new season.

Morgan Smith and Franco Pomponi

That season will include barihunks in each of their productions, which had already been planned under the old regime.  One opera was dropped due to the cost to produce it, which was Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The singers who were scheduled to perform in the opera have been invited to sing in one of two gala concerts, a recital, or come back and sing for the opera in a future season.

The scheduled operas include Puccini's La bohème with Morgan Smith as Marcello,  Mozart's Don Giovanni with  Ildebrando D’Arcangelo in the title role and Alex Esposito as Leporello, and the San Diego premiere of John Adams’ Nixon in China with Franco Pomponi.

You can still donate to the San Diego Opera fundraising campaign online or purchase tickets for the new season.

Rare Hunkentenor-Bass/Barihunk concert in East Bay

Jonathan Blalock and Aaron Sørensen

One of the recipients of our proceeds from the Barihunks calendar was the team of hunkentenor Jonathan Blalock and Bass-Barihunk Aaron Sørensen, who came up with the novel idea for a concert with this rarely seen vocal combination.

The duo will perform music by George Gershwin, Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Glen Roven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioacchino Rossini. The performance will be at Duende on Wed., May 21 at 7 PM  in the heart of Oakland's burgeoning arts district, The Uptown. Duende has become a popular destination for aficionados of alternative jazz and they've been eager to expand their musical offerings to include classical music. This will debut what we all hope is a regular feature on their calendar. A stones throw away from Duende is the restored Fox Theater, which features some of the biggest names in the music industry.  Tickets for the Blalock/Sørensen recital are available online.

This recital will also be the West Coast debut for two of the most talked about young artists in opera. Jonathan Blalock received rave notices from the New York Times and Alex Ross in the New Yorker for his riveting performance in Gregory Spears' Paul's Case, which featured barihunk Keith Phares. Aaron Sørensen is the bass voice that the opera world continuously clamors for and he recently appeared as the French General in Fort Worth Opera's production of Kevin Puts' Silent Night.

Efrain Solis in an ad for West Edge Opera

Blalock will be returning to the East Bay this summer in West Edge Opera's production of Philip Glass's Hydrogen Jukebox, featuring barihunk Efrain Solis and bass-barihunk Kenneth Kellogg. You can watch a preview of their exciting and innovative upcoming season above and get more information on their website. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you'll want to add their summer festival to calendar.

Watch Henk Neven in complete Dido & Aeneas

Henk Neven & Vivica Geneaux in Dido & Aeneas at Rouen

You can watch an entire performance of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas from Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie with an all-star cast featuring barihunk Henk Neven as Aeneas, Vivica Genaux as Dido, Ana Quintans as Belinda and Marc Mauillon as the magician. The entire production was magically staged, directed and choreographed by the team of Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek. You won't want want to miss the opportunity to watch this!

Dido & Aeneas de Purcell à l'Opéra de Rouen Haute Normandie

If you want to see the performance live, it will be reprised at Versailles with two performances daily on June 14 and 15. You can book online. From May 23-25, Versailles is also presenting the barihunk-laden performance of Lully's Persée that we recently featured starring Olivier Laquerre, Vasil Garanliev, Stephen Hegedus and Curtis Sullivan.

Barihunks Alternate Soldier Songs in D.C. and Holland Festival

Composer David T. Little's Soldier Songs seems to be finding a foothold in the contemporary repertory, as it is being reprised in Washington D.C. this weekend with barihunk David Adam Moore.

Soldier Songs is an evening-length multimedia event that combines elements of theater, opera, rock-infused-concert music, and animation to explore the perceptions versus the realities of the Soldier, the exploration of loss and exploitation of innocence, and the difficulty of expressing the truth of war. The performance is further enhanced with video and film from Bill Morrison.

The libretto, created by the composer, was adapted from recorded interviews with veterans of five wars.  Soldier Songs traces the shift in perception of war from the age of 6 to the age of 66. The story follows the abstract character through the three phases of life:  Youth (playing war games) Warrior (time served in the military) and Elder (aged, wise, reflective).

There is one remaining performance at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on Sunday, May 18 and tickets are available online. The production then travels to the Holland Festival with Christopher Burchett as the soldier for a double-bill with Nico Muhly's Spiral Mass. Tickets are available online.

Bevy of Barihunks in Broadcasts from Bavaria

Michael Nagy and Günther Groissböck

The Bavarian State Opera is continuing the popular live streaming of their performances which they debuted last year. This year's selection features some of our favorite barihunks in their free broadcasts which are available at STAATSOPER.TV.

Previous broadcasts have included Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, Verdi's La forza del destino and Mozart's La clemenza di Tito.

Tareq Nazmi

On May 31st at 7 PM CET./1 PM EST they will present Bernd Alois Zimmermann's Die Soldaten with Michael Nagy as Stolzius and Tareq Nazmi as Obrist.

30-year-old Bass-Barihunk Tareq Nazmi, who is new to this site, was born in Kuwait and grew up in Munich. He studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich with Edith Wiens and Christian Gerhaher. He is a first prize of both the Walter and Charlotte Hamel Foundation prize and the National Song Contest.

Since the 2012-23 season, Tareq Nazmi has been a permanent member of the Bavarian State Opera where he has performed Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni, the Speaker in Mozart's Magic Flute, Colline in Puccini's La bohème, Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen and Publio in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito.

Goran Jurić

On June 28th at 6 PM CET./Noon EST they will present a new production of Rossini's Guillaume Tell (William Tell) with Günther Groissböck as Gesler. Groissböck has been extremely popular on our site, especially the pictures of him in the "Brokeback Onegin," as it's been dubbed by opera bloggers. The cast also includes Goran Jurić as Walter Furst.

31-year-old Croatian bass-barihunk Goran Jurić is also new to the site. He has been a member of the Bavarian State Opera ensemble since the 2011-12 season. He received his Master's degree in Opera Studies at the Academy of Music at the University of Zagreb, where is completing his second Master's degree in Phonetics and Italian Language and Literature.

At the Bavarian State Opera he has performed Colline in Puccini's La bohème, Don Fernando in Beethoven's Fidelio, Biterolf in Wagner's Tannhäuser, Il Re in Verdi's Aida, Capellio in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Banco in Verdi's Macbeth, Il Frate in Verdi's Don Carlos and Timur in Puccini's Turandot. He also performs regularly with the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb.

On July 27th at 6 PM CET./Noon EST the company will present Claudio Monteverdi L'Orfeo with the amazing Christian Gerhaher and the stunningly talented Anna Bonitatibus.