Jarrett Porter and Brent Michael Smith featured in Hercules vs Vampires

Jarrett Porter and Brent Michael Smith (taken at Glimmerglass for Barihunks)

The Arizona Opera will present the campy mixed media event Hercules vs Vampires this month in time for Halloween. The production will be performed on October 15th in Tucson, and on October 21st and 22nd in Phoenix. On October 14th, students can receive a special discount for the final dress rehearsal.

Barihunk Jarrett Porter will sing Hercules, while fellow barihunk Brent Michael Smith takes on the dual duty of the God of Evil and Procrustes, the stretcher who hammers out metal.

Hercules vs. Vampires combines opera and midcentury pop culture, synchronizing live music with cult fantasy film Hercules in the Haunted World, a 1961 sword-and-sandal epic starring bodybuilder Reg Park. When the actors projected on the silver screen open their mouths to speak, the audience will hear their lines sung by the cast of the Arizona Opera.

Watch Hercules in the Haunted World in its entirety: 

Directed by the great Italian filmmaker Mario Bava, the film itself is fantastic in every sense of the term, swaddled in glorious early-1960s Technicolor. Action-packed and wildly operatic in scope, the film follows Hercules on a heroic journey to rescue his beloved from a fiendish mastermind of terror, played onscreen by horror legend Christopher Lee.

Porter is a first year Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artist at the Arizona Opera, where he is also appearing as Maximilian in Bernstein's Candide, as Sciarrone in Puccini's Tosca, and as Fiorello in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. He recently appeared at the Glimmerglass Festival as Sam in Oklahoma! alongside fellow barihunk Jarrett Ott.

Brent Michael Smith from the 2017 Barihunks Calendar

Brent Michael Smith, who is featured in our 2017 Barihunks Calendar, recently appeared at the Glimmerglass Festival as Ariodate in Handel's Xerxes and as The Commentator in Derrick Wang’s Scalia/Ginsburg. This season, he joins the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, where he will sing Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore, Fafner in Wagner's Das Rheingold and Truffaldino in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. 

Our 2018 Barihunks Calendar is now on sale and available HERE. Due to customer demand, we have also created a 20-page Barihunks Photo Book, which features additional photos not included in the calendar. It is available HERE. Both the calendar and photo book feature nineteen of the sexiest singers from seven countries (16 barihunks and 3 hunkentenors!).