Australian barihunk Morgan Pearse will be joining the New Zealand husband and wife team of Pene Pati and Amina Adris as Belcore in a run of Donizetti's The Elixir of Love. The all-Antipodes cast will perform the opera in Auckland on May 31, June 2, 7 and 9, and in Wellington on June 23, 26, 28 and 30. This will be Pearse's first time ever singing in a Donizetti opera.
Pearse recently made his solo Wigmore Hall recital, where he sang Six Songs by Johannes Brahms, Richard Strauss' Vier Lieder, Opus 27 and Samuel Barber's settings of James Joyce's poetry.
Pene Pati has become a best-selling classical music artist as part of the group Sol3 Mio. He met his wife while singing across the globe at San Francisco's prestigious Merola Opera Program. He has made Nemorino's aria "Una furtiva lagrima" a bit of a calling card.
Morgan Pearse sings the serenade from Handel's "Aci, Galatea e Polifemo":
Pearse's character of Belcore is a cocky Army sergeant, who takes an immediate liking to Adina. He puts his charms into high gear and quickly asks Adina if she’ll marry him, only to have the wedding delayed when military service beckons.
Donizetti wrote some 70 operas during his career, ranging from comedies like Elixir to tragedies, including the famous "Tudor Trilogy" of Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux. In 1832, Donizetti set to work with librettist Felice Romani on his latest commission based on an existing French text about a love potion, Le philtre (The Potion) by Eugène Scribe for this new opera’s libretto. Le philtre had already been set to music by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, but multiple uses of the same text was common at the time.
The story of the opera reflects Donizetti's own life, in that the composer’s military service was bought by a rich woman, like Nemorino, so that he did not have to serve in the army.
The barihunk trio of Nathan Lay, Jeremy Kleeman and Simon Lobelson opened this weekend in the Sydney Chamber Opera's production of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. This is the company's first production of the opera, which is being directed by Kip Williams, winner of the coveted Helpmann Award for his work as a director. Additional performances are on August 21, 22, 24, 25 and 26 and tickets and additional cast information can be found online.
We introduced Nathan Lay, who sings Tarquinius, to readers last year. He has won the National Liederfest, Australian Music Events’ Opera Scholar
of the Year, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria, placed third in
the Herald Sun Aria and won the 2016 Australian International Opera Award. He has performed with Opera Australia, Melbourne Opera,
and has recently completed the Victorian Opera Developing Artist
Program along with his Master of Music at The
University of Melbourne. He is featured prominently on Remembrance, a CD of songs and poems in memory of the soldiers that fought in World War One. During his time at Victorian Opera, he
performed in Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, Puss in Boots, La traviata, Hansel and Gretel, The Magic Pudding – The Opera, Richard Mills’ Remembrance, I Puritani, Weill’s Die sieben Todsünden featuring Meow Meow, Massenet's Cendrillon, and Mr. Mayor in Richard Mills’ world premiere of The Pied Piper.
Nathan Lay sings Britten's "Look! Through the port comes the moon astray":
We also introduced Jeremy Kleeman, who will be singing Collatinus, to readers last year after a reader submitted him to us. Kleeman is a graduate of Victorian Opera’s Developing Artist Program, and has a
Master of Music in Opera Performance and Bachelor of Music from the
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. In 2014 and 2015, Jeremy was a
scholar with Melba Opera Trust on the Joseph Sambrook Opera Scholarship,
and was the 2016 recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Memorial Award. Upcoming engagements will include soloist in the Duruflé Requiem with the Melbourne Bach Choir, Monteverdi's The Coronation of Poppea with Pinchgut Opera and soloist in Nielsen’s Symphony no. 3 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Roles with the Victorian Opera have included Lord Valton in I puritani, Marquis D’Obigny in La traviata, Rapunzel’s Prince in Into the Woods, Jonas Fogg in Sweeney Todd, Mother in Seven Deadly Sins and Albert the Pudding in the Green
Room award-winning world premiere The Magic Pudding – The Opera.
Simon Lobelson has been featured three times on Barihunks, dating back to 2008! He was born in Sydney to Egyptian parents and spent his childhood in Brussels before moving to Australia. He received his Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Sydney and his postgraduate degree at London’s Royal College of Music. He was a finalist in the 2011 Wagner Society Competition and a Tait Memorial Trust 2011 Thornton Foundation Award recipient. He is also a coach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Lobelson has performed over 70 operatic roles including Doctor Falke in Die Fledermaus, Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Geôlier in Dialogues des Carmélites, Osmin in Mozart’s Zaide, and Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff. His recordings include The Sofa, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Nicolai Mass with the Israel Camerata, The Fairy Queen and Charpentier’s David et Jonathas. He has also been featured on broadcasts for Classic FM, Fine Music FM, Foxtel and
BBC Radio 3, as well as soundtracks to exhibitions at both the Australian and
British Museums, and on the inflight soundtrack for British Airways and
Qantas flights.
Barihunk Morgan Pearse won the 7th Annual International Cesti Voice Competition for Baroque Opera in Innsbruck, Austria.
The competition was named after Italian composer Pietro Antonio Cesti, who turned Innsbruck into a center for the Italian opera north of the Alps in the mid-17th century. Young singers from all over the world competed for prizes, as well as the chance to perform in a baroque opera at the Innsbruck Festival next season.
The ten semi-finalists have been selected for the Lexus Song
Quest and half of them are baritones. The singers will now work with head judge, soprano Yvonne Kenny, before the Grand Finals singers are selected for the last round at the Auckland Town Hall in
July. Around 50
contestants competed in the initial round with
judges Graham Pushee and Patricia Price.
The baritones include Tavis Gravatt, Bradley Christensen, Harry Grigg, Jarvis Dams and Benson Wilson. The remaining singers include sopranos Madison Nonoa, Imogen Thirlwall, Emily Mwila and Sophie Sparrow, as well as tenor Filipe Manu
The Lexus Song Quest will dole out $85,000 in
prizes, with the
winner receiving a total prize of $50,000, and the runner up
receiving an immediate cash prize of $8,000, supported by
the Dame Malvina Major Foundation, plus a study scholarship
of $10,000. Third and fourth place winners receive
$1,000 each. A further $15,000 prize, sponsored by the Kiri
Te Kanawa Foundation, will be awarded to the singer who has
demonstrated great potential through the semi-finals stage
of the competition.
Tickets for the Final
Lexus Song Quest Gala on July 23 are available online.
Australian barihunk Christopher Tonkin, who is new to this site, will be singing the role of Hans in Austrian composer Alexander Zemlinsky's rarely performed Der Traumgörge (Görge the Dreamer) at the Staatsoper Hannover. The 2-act opera was originally intended to be performed at the Vienna State Opera where Gustav Mahler, a mentor of Zemlinsky's, was Musical Director.
Mahler had encouraged Zemlinsky to compose the opera
following the success of Es war einmal which Mahler had premiered in
1900. In 1907, the same year Der Traumgörge was scheduled for its premiere, Mahler hired Zemlinsky to be an assistant conductor. However, Mahler abruptly resigned and his successor,
Felix Weingartner, dropped Der Traumgörge from the schedule as rehearsals were underway. Zemlinsky himself then
resigned in protest. Zemlinsky moved on to other compositional projects
and made little effort
to further promote it.
The original performance materials were discovered in the
archives of the Vienna State Opera in the 1970s, a period of renewed
interest in Zemlinsky's music. This led to the opera's belated premiere
in Nuremberg, Germany on October 11, 1980. The opera was performed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 2008 with Markus Brück as Hans and has been recorded twice.
Tickets for the Hannover performance, which runs from April 16-May 28, are available online.
Tonkin is a resident principal baritone with Hannover Staatsoper, where he's performed Marcello in Puccini's La bohème, Ottokar in Weber's Der
Freischütz, Maximilian in Berstein's Candide, Pollux in Rameau's Castor
et Pollux, Albert in Massenet's Werther, the Count in Mozart's Le nozze
di Figaro and other roles.
He grew up in Geelong, Australia, before moving to Melbourne, where he
completed a Bachelor of Music Performance at the Victorian College of
the Arts. In his native country he performed the Count in Richard Strauss' Capriccio and the Novice’s Friend in Britten's Billy Budd for Opera Australia, the Black Minister in Ligetti's Le Grand Macabre at the Adelaide Festival, and the roles of Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Chou En-Lai in Adam's Nixon in China and Belcore in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore for the Victorian Opera, for which he received a Green Room Award nomination.
Our favorite thing about posting Reader Submissions, is that it inevitably prompts more submissions. When we posted Aussie barihunk Adrian Tamburini a reader quickly alerted us to Paull-Anthony Keightley who also has eluded our notice.
Keightley is a recent graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, which he
attended after completing his undergraduate studies at the Western
Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He was a finalist in the Fremantle Eisteddfod Open Aria competition and
won first place at the North of Perth Eisteddfod. He was awarded the
Royal Schools of Music Club Anniversary scholarship and won the Royal
Over-Seas League Singing Competition. He is the recipient of awards from
the Dame Joan Sutherland Fund and the Australian Music Foundation.
In February, he made his solo debut with the Western Australian Opera as Pinenello in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi. On May 28th, he'll join soprano Claire Condipodero and mezzo-soprano Chelsea Burns at the Fremantle Heritage Festival for a concert of music from composers from Western Australia.
In Australia and America Paull-Anthony’s operatic credits include Frank in Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus, Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Baptista in the Australian Premier of Goetz’s The Taming of the Shrew, Fiorello in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia and Gloster Heming in Virgil Thomson's The Mother of us All.
Since returning to Australia, Mr. Keightley participated in the WAAPA International Art Song Festival and appeared in productions of Faust, L’elisir d’amore and Les pêcheurs de perles.
Our latest reader submission comes from down under, where someone pointed out that we've somehow missed Adrian Tamburini in our posting of Aussie barihunks. He's been singing the roles of Alcindoro and Benoit in Opera Australia's production of Puccini's La bohème, which will be reprised in Melbourne from May 3-28. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.
From October 28 to November 5, he'll perform The Maestro in Alan Jones' new opera The Eighth Wonder, a piece written ABOUT the Sydney Opera House. The story revolves around the dramatic story
of the creation of one of the world’s most famous buildings and the coming of age of
Australia. The opera will be performed outside of the opera house, with a giants stage built across the 100 metre (328') steps, with giant screens, huge glowing balls of paper,
projections and spectacular lighting effects.
Adrian Tamburini
Other recent engagements for Opera Australia have included Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen, Antonio in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Sciarrone in Puccini's Tosca and The Speaker in Mozart's The Magic Flute. He sang Colline in La bohème for West Australian Opera and also joined an all-star cast in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 for the Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed with the Melbourne Opera, has appeared on the TV Christmas special Woolworths Carols in the Domain, and has been a musical director and producer.
Tamburini started his singing career as a chorister with the Victorian Boys Choir at age five and was awarded a scholarship to sing with the St Patrick's Cathedral Choir at age 10. He went on to receive many awards, prizes and scholarships including the Robert Salzer Vocal Scholarship, the Lygon Street Festa Aria Competition, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria Competition, the Lythgo Trust Operatic Aria Award, the Melbourne Welsh Male Voice Choir Singer of the Year Competition, the Acclaim Awards Scholarship and was twice a finalist in the German Australian Opera Grant
On September 3rd, he will join the Penrith Symphony Orchestra as a soloist Verdi’s Requiem. Tickets are available online.
We've posted about Aussie barihunk Brett Carter's sexy Valentin in Gounod's Faust (Margerete) before. He is down to his last two performances on January 17 and February 14th at the Staatstheater in Mainz, where he is a member of the ensemble. You can get tickets and additional cast information online.
On March 11th, he'll open in Pascal Dusapin's Perelà with the amazing tenor Peter Tantsits in the title role. Perelà tells the story of the mysterious "man of smoke" who appears in an unnamed city, and charts his rise and fall through a series of tragicomic encounters with its inhabitants. The opera does include male nudity for the tenor. Carter sings the role of the old valet Alloro,who sets himself on fire hoping to emulate the lightness of Perelà.
On December 26th and January 19th, he'll be singing Orff's Carmina Burana in Mainz with soprano Marie-Christine Haase and countertenor Alin Deleanu. In July, he returns to his native Australia where he''ll sing the title role in Rossini's The Barber of Seville at the Queensland Performing Arts Center.
You can hear Carter sing excerpts from Faust, Carmina Burana and The Barber of Seville on his website.
Carter studied Classical Guitar and Voice at the Western
Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He then became a member of the
Australian Opera Studio where his roles included Mozart’s Conte
Almaviva, Don Giovanni and Britten’s Tarquinius. After receiving a
Scholarship to participate in the Cincinnati Music Festival in Lucca,
Italy, he then went on to become a Young Artist with Opera Queensland.
During this time he received first prize in the German Australian Opera
Grant and from 2007- 2014 was a member of the Hessischen Staatstheater
in Wiesbaden.
MAKE SURE TO ORDER YOUR 2016 BARIHUNKS CALENDAR BEFORE THE NEW YEAR ARRIVES; 18 OF THE WORLD'S HOTTEST SINGERS FROM 9 COUNTRIES.
Opera Australia is taking a Mozart's The Magic Flute and transporting it to a modern day archaeological dig in Egypt, even including a mummy in the cast.
But the real transporting is of the sets and cast, as they take the production across the vast Australian outback to parts unknown. The opera will be performed in 26 cities, including Morundah with a population of ten. The town had no place to perform, so a farmer built a pig shed, which has been dubbed the Paradise Palladium.
Starring as Tamino, and on alternating nights the Armed Man 1, is barihunk turned hunkentenor turned barihunk Sam Roberts-Smith. If you're confused, check out our recent post about Sam Roberts-Smith's fach change. Christopher Hillier, is singing Papageno and on alternating nights the role of Armed Man 2.
This is Opera Australia's third production to hit the road and it
already appears to have been a hit with audiences in Ballarat, Bendigo,
Dandenong, Marysville and Nunawading. There are alternating casts, so
check out the Opera Australia website for cast information and tour dates.
Australian barihunk Morgan Pearse will be performing at Wigmore Hall tonight with accompanist James Baillieu, as well as the Françoise-Green Piano Duo. Pearse and the Françoise-Green Piano Duo are 2013 winners of the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition for singer and ensemble respectively.
Pearse will be performing Schumann's Liederkreis Op. 39 and Vaughan Williams Songs of Travel. Other music on the program includes the Schumann/Debussy Six studies in canon form Op. 56, Bach/Kurtág Chorales and a selection from György Kurtág's Játékok.
Pearse joins a long list of notable winners of the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition, including Keith Lewis, Jean Rigby, Susan Bullock, Elizabeth Watts, Cheryl Barker, Gillian Keith and Lucy Crowe. Tickets for the July 14th concert are available online.
Last year, Morgan performed the title role in Britten's Owen Wingrave for Sydney Chamber Opera, and as bass soloist in Handel's Messiah for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Pearse is headed to the United States to continue his studies at the Houston Grand Opera’s Opera Studio, where he is slated to sing Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute, Yamadori in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Anthony in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
We'll been following the career of the talented Aussie barihunk Morgan Pearse since 2011 when a reader heard him perform in the Australia Singing Competition. His nascent career has been on a steady upswing since that day.
He completed his undergraduate training at he Sydney Conservatorium of Music and then headed to London where he completed a Master’s degree at the
Royal College of Music as the inaugural Dame Joan Sutherland scholar. We also covered him when he won the gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League music competition and
the Wigmore Hall final of the Young Classical Artists Trust.
We've just learned that he's coming to the United States as one of the studio artists with the Houston Grand Opera. We can only imagine his artistic growth working with Patrick Summers and others in one of the best young artist training programs in the world. Previous young artists have included bel canto specialist Joyce Di Donato and fellow barihunk Ryan McKinney, who has become one of the world's preeminent Wagnerians.
Morgan Pearse sings the Catalog Aria from Don Giovanni:
Pearse is slated to sing Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Papageno in Mozart's Magic Flute, Yamadori in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and Anthony in Sondheim's Sweeney Todd.
Last year, Morgan performed the title role in Britten's Owen Wingrave for Sydney Chamber Opera, and as bass soloist in Handel's Messiah for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. We had some good-natured fun with his "crack" performance in Handel's Imeneo with the London Handel Festival.
Houston Grand Opera’s Opera Studio was co-founded in 1977 by composer Carlisle Floyd. Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 and is regarded as one of the major companies in the world. It has hosted the world premieres of the operas John Adams' Nixon in China, Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk and Rachel Portman's The Little Prince.
Brett Carter in Rape of Lucretia (left) and L'heure espagnole (right)
Our latest Reader Submission is Australian Barihunk Brett Carter who is currently starring as Mercurio in Cavalli's Calisto at the Hessischen Staatstheaters in Wiesbaden.
He studied Classical Guitar and Voice at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He then became a member of the Australian Opera Studio where his roles included Mozart’s Conte Almaviva, Don Giovanni and Britten’s Tarquinius in Rape of Lucretia. After receiving a Scholarship to participate in the Cincinnati Music Festival in Lucca, Italy, he then went on to become a Young Artist with Opera Queensland. During this time he received first prize in the German Australian Opera Grant and since 2007 is a member of the Hessischen Staatstheater in Wiesbaden.
Brett Carter sings L'heure espagnole:
His roles with the company include Papageno, Guglielmo, Masetto, Rossini’s Figaro, Malatesta, Puccini’s Schaunard and Ping, Falke, Harlekin, Kurt Weill’s Bill (The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny), Monteverdi’s Ulisse (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) and Ravel’s Ramiro (L’Heure Espagnole). In 2008 he made his debut with Staatsoper Stuttgart as Allazim in Mozart’s Zaïde and in 2010 in a new production of Pizzetti’s Murder in the Cathedral with Oper Frankfurt.
In Summer 2012 Brett made his debut with Victorian Opera in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro as Conte Almaviva. Further highlights for the 2013/14 season include Ford in Verdi's Falstaff, Leander in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, and Mercurio in the aforementioned Calisto at the Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. There are additional performances of Calisto on March 17 and 30 and April 4. Tickets are available online.
You can catch Aussie barihunk Damian Pass on the newest podcast on Radio France. He is performing Schumann's Belsazar Balthazar, Duparc'sLa vie antérieure andHandel's "O voi dell errebo" from La Resurrezione. Click here to play (you'll need to scroll down to find him).
If you want to catch him live, he'll be performing Junius in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at the Athénée Theatre in Paris with the emsemble Le Balcon from January 14 – 19. He then appears as Masetto in two productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni. First at the MC93 Theatre in Bobigny from March 22 – 31 and then from May 20 – 27 at the Opera of Toulon.
A reader is Germany pointed out that the current production of Lehar's Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow) at the Theater Altenburg in Gera, Germany features two barihunks, one who is new to this site. The newcomer is the extremely sexy Marco Vassalli who performs the role of Graf Danilo. Laurence Meikle, who has appeared on this site a number of times, performs the role of Cascada.
What really caught our reader's eye was that the two singers perform a strip tease at the end of the show where they're left wearing nothing but a hat. Unfortunately, we don't have pictures, but we're looking and asking around! There is one performance remaining on November 16th and tickets are available online.
Marco Vassalli performs Lehar's Graf von Luxemburg:
Despite his name, Vassalli is a German baritone who studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. From 2006 to 2012 he was a member of the ensemble at the Städtischen Bühnen Osnabrück. After his run in Die Lustige Witwe he heads to the Landestheater Flensburg to perform in Frank Wildhorn's Dracula.
Meikle will head to the Theater Nordhausen to perform Antonio in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Meikle graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in 2010 and has performed extensively throughout the United Kingdom and Europe.
Baritone Daniel Carison is the only male vocalist to advance to the finals of the 4th Annual Great Romantics Competition. The other finalists include four pianists, an oboist, a violist and a mezzo soprano.
The competition is aimed at semi-professional vocal and istrumental musicians who are currently attending university or have recently graduated and is open to soloists, duos or small ensembles. The finalists will compete on December 1st for the Great Romantics Prize at the Melbourne Recital Centre. The prize includes cash, a performance opportunity and a recording.
Daniel Carison sings "Madamina, il catalogo è questo"from Don Giovanni:
Daniel Carison is currently completing his second year studies in Bachelor of Music Performance at Melbourne University. He works as an actor and classical vocalist for TV, film and advertising. He has a number of years experience in film, stage and musical theatre performance, and operates his own recording studio. He is the winner of the Hermann Schildberger Award for best up and coming classical vocalist in the 2013 Boroondara Eisteddfod.
We had to share these pictures of Australian barihunk Ben Connor, who originally created quite a sensation on this site when he appeared in Puccini's La boheme in his skivvies. Connor has been a member of the young artist program at the Theater an der Wien, where in addition to La boheme, he performed in Rossini's La cambiale de matrimonio, the opening night concert and was featured in his own recital. These photos are by the Lukas Beck and are part of a series of the entire young artist program.
Connor has been on the opera world's radar for some time, having won the Art Song Prize of the Australian National Eisteddfod and the Welse Singing Competition, as well as a grant from the Australian Britain Society, which brought him to Europe. After entering the young artist program he immediately was singled out as a star performer, with his beautiful lyric baritone and natural acting style.
You can hear Ben Connor live on October 1st in a recital with accompanist Tomasz Kamieniak at the Kammeroper in Vienna. In November, he will be starring as Dandini in the company's production of Rossini's La cenerentola.
Australian barihunk Morgan Pearse has become a reader favorite since first appearing on this site in 2011. We've followed his young career, as he's won singing competition, continued honing his craft in London and making a splash on stage, including his popular "crack" performance in Handel's Imeneo.
He recently wrapped up a successful run in Britten's Owen Wingrave with the Sydney Chamber Opera. He sat down with Sylvia Rosenblum of East Side 89.7 FM's "Arts Wednesday" to discuss his career. Listen to the entire interview HERE.
Pearse will be competing in the prestigious Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition next week. We'll be following him and a number of other amazing baritones. Click HERE to listen to Pearse sing Schubert's Im Fruhling.
Our latest Reader Submission is 25-year-old Australian barihunk Samuel Johnson, the 2013 recipient of the RJ Hamer Opera Scholarship presented by the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust. He is also one of six finalists for the Lady Fairfax New York Scholarship, provided by the Opera Foundation Australia.
Johnson will face off against five other singers in a
public recital in Sydney on July 28, after which the winner of the
scholarship will be announced. The winner will receive $43,000 and the objective of this much valued Scholarship is to provide a talented and strongly motivated young Australian opera singer the opportunity to study with internationally acclaimed vocal, language and movement coaches in New York. Call 02 9550 9207 for tickets.
Johnson is currently completing his Masters in Operatic Performance, at
the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. He recently performed the role
of Nick Shadow in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress, a Queensland
Conservatorium production for The Brisbane Festival, conducted by Alex
Ingram. Johnson was also a national finalist in the McDonald’s Operatic
Aria and Italian Awards.
Samuel Johnson's career is taking off
Johnson has appeared in oratorio on numerous occasions in Brisbane and
throughout regional Queensland. In 2011, he performed as soloist with
tenor Simon O’Neill in the Puccini Gala Concert, with the Queensland
Symphony Orchestra.
While studying, Samuel has performed numerous operatic roles including Styx in Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, Taddeo and Silvio in excerpts from Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, Peter Quince in Benjamin Brittin’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Father in excerpts from
Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, the title role in Handel’s Saul, Pandolfe in Massenet’s Cendrillon and the title role in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.
According to a recent article, his dream roles include Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca and Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlos.
A little over a week ago, we posted about barihunks Bryan Watson and Giorgio Caoduro being nominated for Helpmann Awards for their performances in a leading role in opera. Also nominated in the category of "Best Male Performer in a Supporting
Role in an Opera" were barihunks Sam Dundas for his portrayal of
Marcello in La bohème at Opera Australia and José Carbó as Fritz in Die Tote Stadt at Opera Australia. Also nominated were, Wolf Matthias Friedrich for L'Orfeo at the Brisbane Festival and Douglas McNicol for Fidelio at the State Opera of South Australia.
The Helpmann Awards are the Australian equivalent of Broadway's Tony Awards and
London's Laurence Olivier Awards. They recognize distinguished artistic
achievement
and excellence in live
performances in Australia, including musical theatre, contemporary
music,
comedy, cabaret, opera, classical music, theatre, dance and physical
theatre.
José Carbó discusses and sings his aria 'Tanzlied des Pierrots' from Die tote Stadt:
Dundas was a member of the Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist program at Opera Australia. In 2009, he made his role debut as Don Giovanni in Victorian Opera’s production of the Mozart classic. He is currently performing as the Jailer in Puccini's Tosca at Opera Australia. which runs through August 31st. He then is featured in a number of consecutive performances at Opera Australia. He opens next week as Dr. Malatesta in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, which will run from July 18-August 15. The day after that run wraps up, he opens as Sid in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring.
Dundas is also featured on a new recording of Brahms' German Requiem with the ChorusOz® Choir & the Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra. Click HERE to order your copy.
José Carbó can be seen as Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata at Opera Australia, which runs from July 30-August 31.
We were on a Down Under binge for awhile but lately we've been in a bit of a drought. Many singers have moved on from studying Australia, including Hadleigh Adams, who is in San Francisco, and Morgan Pearse, who is in London.
Fortunately for folks in the "Land of Plenty," Nicholas Dinopoulos is still around and keeping busy singing a series of masses. He'll be performing Fauré's Requiem at St. John's Anglican Church in Croydon on May 19 and again at St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne on June 8, as well as Rossini's Stabat Mater at Federation Hall in South Yarra on June 1 and Mozart's Missa Solemnis at St. Francis’ Church in Melbourne on June 2.
In August, he'll return to singing opera, performing in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra on August 9 and Piazzolla's María de Buenos Aires with Victorian Opera from August 21-24. On Sunday May 26th, you can see him with mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell as part of the ABC Classic FM series for free in a program of
music that evokes the sea, including Fauré'sL'Horizon Chimérique, Brahms' Four Duets (op. 28) and Sir Edward Elgar's famous Sea
Pictures.
The event is at the Iwaki Auditorium near the Melbourne Arts Centre and is general admission. They are asking that all people be seated by 2:50 pm.
Dinopoulos is a core
member of Songmakers Australia under the artistic patronage of famed musicologist and accompanist Graham
Johnson. He can frequently be heard in
live-to-air broadcasts on ABC Classic FM and 3MBS FM.
