Barihunk bliss in Seattle's Eugene Onegin

Michael Adams, John Moore and David Leigh

If you want to start off the new year with some barihunk bliss then you might want to head to the Pacific Northwest. The Seattle Opera will be rotating barihunks as the title character in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin running from January 11-25 with John Moore and Michael Adams both taking on the charming, but jaded character.

Also in the cast will be bass-barihunk David Leigh as Prince Gremin, who sings the beautiful aria "Lyubvi vse vozrasty pokorny," where he tells Onegin how love can change a life at any age, and how he is madly in love with Tatiana.

The remainder of the cast includes Colin Ainsworth as Lenski, Marjukka Tepponen and Marina Costa-Jackson as Tatyana, Melody WIlson as Olga, Meredit Arwady as Filipievna, Margaret Gawrysiak as Larina and Martin Bakari and Triquet. Tickets are available online.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Eugene Onegin at The Met:

Tchaikovsky based his opera on Alexander Pushkin's s novel, which was written in verse and is considered a classic of Russian literature. The idea of setting the story to music was suggested to the composer by the great Russian mezzo-soprano Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya. Tchaikovsky arranged much of the verse himself into the libretto with help from his friend Konstantin Shilovsky.

The opera was first performed in Moscow in 1879 and has remained popular since its premiere.

A number of barihunks have sung Onegin to great acclaim, including Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Mariusz Kwiecien, Nathan Gunn, Simon Keenlyside, Artur Rucinski, Peter Mattei, Paulo Szot, Tobias Greenhalgh, Christopher Maltman, Günter Papendell and Franco Pomponi.   

Other companies performing the opera in 2020 include the Norwegian Opera, Rome Opera, Finnish National Opera, Israeli Opera, Semperoper Dresden, Munich Opera Festival and Opera Australia.        

Michael Adams to make Utah Opera debut as Marcello

Baritone Michael Adams

American barihunk Michael Adams will be making his debut with the Utah Opera as Marcello in Puccini's La bohème, a role he debuted in 2016 at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He was recently featured in Opera News as being among "25 Rising Stars: Opera's Exciting New Voices."

Adams was recently seen as Donald in Britten's Billy Budd at the Des Moines Metro Opera, a performance that will be broadcast on Iowa Public Television on September 29 at 8:30 PM CST.  The cast includes barihunks Craig Verm in the title role, Zachary James as the evil John Claggart and Emmett O'Hanlon as the Novice's Friend, as well as barihunk turned hunkentenor Chris Carr as Maintop.

Last month, the Washington National Opera announced that Adams would be one of the incoming members of the Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program, which began this month. Adams will be performing Melisso in Handel's Alcina in November and the Pilot in Portman's The Little Price in December with the company. He also is currently under a fest contract at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
 
Joining him in the cast of La bohème will be Samuel Schultz as Schaunard, Ao Li as Colline, Jennifer Black as Mimì, Scott Quinn as Rodolfo and Celena Shafer as Musetta. Tickets are available online and performances are on October 7, 9, 11, 13 at 7:30 PM and October 15 at 2 PM.