Douglas Williams in Baroque-back opera

Sasha Waltz's Dido & Aeneas (left) & Douglas Williams

Choreographer Sasha Waltz is bringing her provocative and entertaining work back to opera when she takes on Monteverdi's Orfeo with the Dutch National Opera. Waltz had great success with Purcell's Dido & Aeneas in 2005 and 2011 with her brilliant combination of dancers and opera singers.

Orfeo promises to have a lot of singing and dancing and the cast is lead by one of the most popular barihunks on our site, Douglas Williams. Williams has made a specialty of baroque music, singing   Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane, Purcell's Apollo e Dafne, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and  Purcell’s King Arthur.

We can't imagine a singer better suited to a Sasha Waltz production. Performances are on September 3, 5 and 6 and tickets are available online.

Trio of Barihunks in new Glyndebourne Don Giovanni

Elliot Mador, Brandon Cedel and Edwin Crossley-Mercer

If you followed any of the press around Tara Eraught's treatment by British reviewers concerning her appearance as the Octavian in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne, you can rest assured that no such criticism will be hurled at director Jonathan Kent’s updated production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The company has assembled an ensemble of great singers who also look like they were cast for a Baz Luhrmann blockbuster Hollywood film.

Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Elliot Madore (photo: Robert Workman)

In the title role is the rising Canadian star barihunk Elliot Madore, who is joined by Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Leporello and Brandon Cedel as Masetto. Madore returns to Glyndebourne after his successful 2012 Festival debut in Ravel's L’heure espagnole. Madore joins a distinguished roster of Don's that dates back to the legendary performances of John Brownlee in the 1930s and includes Giuseppe Valdengo, Kim Borg, Enest Blanc, Ruggero Raimondi, Benjamin Luxon, Brent Ellis, Sir Thomas Allen, Richard Stilwell, Olaf Bar and Gerald Finley.

The current cast also includes the sensational young British tenor Ben Johnson as Don Ottavio,  Canadian soprano Layla Claire reprising her 2012 appearance as Donna Anna, Italian soprano Serena Farnocchia as Donna Elvira, Lenka Máčiková as Zerlina and Andrés Orozco-Estrada making his Glyndebourne debut conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lenka Máčiková, Elliot Madore and Brandon Cedel

If you can't make the performance, you can watch their 2010 production featuring Gerald Finley as Don Giovanni, Luca Pisaroni as Leporello and Guido Loconsolo as Masetto on July 6th. Later today, you can watch the aforementioned production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier live from Glyndebourne, starring Kate Royal, Teodora Gheorghiu and Tara Erraught, and conducted by Robin Ticciati. The broadcast begins on Sunday June 8 at 4.30pm GST/11:30am EST/8:30am PST. Click HERE to watch.

Barihunks debut opera at Ruislip's historic Great Barn

James McOran-Campbell and Nicolas Dwyer

Barihunks James McOran-Campbell and Nicolas Dwyer will be part of the first cast to ever perform a professional opera at the 12th century Great Barn at Manor Farm in the U.K. A touring company from Opera Vera will perform Mozart's Don Giovanni on June 28 and 29

The production comes from the Actor's Church at Covent Garden where it was performed to great acclaim in November 2013. McOran-Campbell will take on the title role and Dwyer will play Masetto. 

Manor Farm has been described as a mini-Glyndebourne and patrons are encouraged to pack a picnic and enjoy refreshments on the grounds before the opera. The bar will open an hour before the 7 PM performance.
The remainder of the cast includes Susan Jiwey, Stefanie Kemball-Read, Peter Brooke, Rebecca Dale, Alexander Anderson-Hall and Will Kwiatkowski, Further information about the production or to purchase tickets, visit the Compass Theatre online.  

Bay Area Reporter: "Hadleigh Adams sings out with pride"

Hadleigh Adams: Headshot and in Castor & Pollux

New Zealand barihunk Hadleigh Adams is profiled by Jason Victor Serinus in this week in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter:

Tall, rugged baritone Hadleigh Adams, 29, must be one of the straightest spined and proudest bearinged singers on the planet. Both his appearance and his lower-pitched, resonant voice make it hard to believe that during his youth in a small New Zealand farm town, two decades before he journeyed to San Francisco and was chosen for San Francisco Opera's prestigious Adler Fellow apprentice program, he was teased mercilessly for being gay.

"I acted very different," he explained during an hour-long chat in a cafe near the War Memorial Opera House. "I acted very effeminately. Not by choice; it's just how I was."

This didn't make life easy for him at an all-boys school.

"I wanted to fit in," he says. "I was two years ahead in my academic work because I was a smart kid. I played hockey and tennis, which were the gayer sports from a high-school boy point of view. I also did a lot of music, and I loved music. If you loved music, that meant you were gay.

"So it was horrible. I was teased a lot, and had very few friends. But I didn't really mind it or care, because while I loved my family and my country, which is the most beautiful place in the world, I always knew I was destined for more than a lot of my classmates. Not to say that more is better, or being on the stage or escaping is better, but I knew, from the age of 12 or 13, that I was destined for more in my life."

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE

Introducing two barihunks in Antheil double-bill

Theater Lübeck and Kong Seok Choi

Two young artists, who are both new to this site, will be featured in a double-bill of operas by George Antheil at the Theater Lübeck. Korean bass-barihunk Kong Seok Choi and German bass-barihunk Christian Henneberg will be featured in The Brothers and Venus in Africa, running from June 5-19. 

Kong Seok Choi studied singing at the Yonsei University, the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. He was a winner or finalist in numerous international vocal competitions, including the Richard Lewis Singing Competition, Blyth-Buesst Singing Competition London and the Giordano International Singing Competition.

He has performed as a Priest and as Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute in Seoul, King René in Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Bartolo and Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in London. He is a member of the Opernelitestudios des Theater Lübeck. He performs the role of the ex-soldier Ran in The Brothers and the Innkeeper in Venus in Africa.

Christian Henneberg

28-year-old Christian Henneberg studied at the Saxon State School of Music and with his father Matthias Henneberg. He performed with the children's choir of the Dresden State Opera where he also appeared as the young Gottfried in Wagner's Lohengrin. He also studied oboe and piano.

As a member of the choir of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, he has toured the Bodensee Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Handel Festival in Halle and to Brazil.

In 2010, he furthered his studies at the Folkwang University in Essen with the noted bass Jan-Hendrik Rootering. As an ensemble member at the Dortmund Opera he has performed the Prince in Kurt Schwertsik's Eisberg nach Sizilien, Figaro in Rossini's Barber of Seville and three roles in the German premiere of Marc-Anthony Turnage's Anna -Nicole. He performs the male lead of Charles in Venus in Africa.

The Brothers is one of three one-act operas that Antheil composed in 1954. The opera is the retelling of the story of Cain and Abel, set not long after World War II in a middle-class American kitchen. Venus in Africa, is one of Antheil's later operas. It's a comedy about the visit of two young lovers (Charles and Yvonne) to Tunisia where Charles asks an ancient statue of Venus to teach him about love.

Franco Pomponi in open-air Don Giovanni

Franco Pomponi and the Herod Atticus Theatre

Franco Pomponi, who recently created a rush in sales for opera glasses, when he appeared nude in Ambroise Thomas' Hamlet at La Monnaie in Brussels, is now taking on the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni in Greece.  The performances will be in the open-air Herod Atticus Theatre as part of the Athens Fesitval. The opera is being staged by the Greek National Opera.

The production is directed by Yannis Houvardas, an acclaimed Greek director and until recently director of the Greek National Theatre. Pomponi will alternate the role with Greek baritone Dionyssis Sourbis. Pomponi performs on June 11 and 13. Tickets are available online.

Pomponi is back in the United States on Novemeber 14 and 16 with the Kentucky Opera as Jack Rance in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West.

Thomas Oliemans in Amsterdam world premiere

Laika and Thomas Oliemans

Dutch barihunk Thomas Oliemans is starring in the world premiere of Martijn Padding's new opera Laika at the Dutch National Opera in a co-production with the Holland Festival 2014.

Martijn Padding and librettist P.F. Thomése poke fun at the superficiality of ratings-obsessed television programs. Oliemans stars as Robbert, a famous TV personality who is tired of his fame and popularity and his superficial life.

Behind the scenes at Laika with Martijn Padding & Thomas Oliemans: 

Robbert still lives with his domineering mother, who keeps the embalmed body of his father on display in the living room. He dreams of abandoning TV and aspires to a more peaceful life with personal privacy.  Since his early youth he has immersed himself in the cosmos. After meeting astronaut Yuri Gagarin and a Laika, the first living animal to be sent into space, Robbert decides to embark on his own journey into space.

Performances run from June 3-8 and tickets are available online.