Barihunks galore at exciting new San Francisco Opera season

Nicolas Testé, Zachary Nelson and Greer Grimsley

There is a lot of buzz coming out of San Francisco, where the opera just announced their new season and they are embarking on a worldwide search for a new General Director to replace the legendary David Gockley. The frontrunner is rumored to be director Francesca Zambello, who regular readers know coined the phrase "Barihunk" and is revered by the operators of this site.

As for the newly announced 2015–16 season, it is loaded with barihunks! The big news is Greer Grimsley in the San Francisco premiere of David McVicar’s production of Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, co-starring hunkentenor Brandon Jovanovich and rising Wagnerian sensation Rachel Willis-Sørensen. Performances will run from November 18–December 6, 2015.

Tongues are atwitter about the US debut of opera bad boy Calixto Bieito, whose provocative version of Bizet's Carmen is being presented to the occasionally stodgy War Memorial audience with Zachary Nelson as Escamillo. The opera is infamous for a scene involving oral sex behind a car. Nelson will rotate the role with Michael Sumuel.

Mariusz Kwiecien and René Pape

If our email box is any indication, our readers seem to be most excited about the prospect of seeing two of the greatest barihunks in the world sharing the stage for Verdi's Don Carlo. Polish über-barihunk Mariusz Kwiecień will sing Rodrigo and bass-barihunk René Pape as Philip II. They will be joined by the amazing tenor Michael Fabiano making his role debut as Don Carlo, soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as Elisabetta and Nadia Krasteva is Princess Eboli. Performances are June 12-29, 2016.

Also on the docket will be Thomas Hampson in Verdi's Luisa Miller; the barihunk trio of Elliot Madore, Gerald Finley and Wayne Tigges in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd; rising superstar Philippe Sly as Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute; Lucas Meachem in Rossini's The Barber of Seville; and, Nicolas Testé as Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

Other operas being performed are Leoš Janáček's Jenůfa and the American premiere of The Fall of the House of Usher—a double bill presentation of Gordon Getty’s Usher House and Robert Orledge’s reconstruction of Claude Debussy’s La Chute de la Maison Usher.

Subscriptions are on sale beginning January 12, 2015 and single tickets will go on sale beginning June 29, 2015.