Yaroslav Abaimov, Robert Davies & Nicholas Crawley (L-R)
The last time that British barihunk Nicholas Crawley was featured on this site, he was featured in nothing but a towel as Don Basilio in the Nederlandse Reisoper's production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville. He's currently appearing in with the company in Mozart's Così fan tutte in a production directed by Dutch actor Xander Straat.
He's joined by the Ferrando of hunkentenor Yaroslav Abaimov. Straat has duo outfitted in form-fitting tattoo body suits and colored beards while disguised in an effort to prove their girlfriends as unfaithful. Performances are running from February 9 -March 19 and tickets and additional cast information is available online.
Crawley studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he was awarded The Independent Opera Vocal Scholarship 2012. After completing the Master of Arts in Vocal Studies and Royal Academy Opera Advanced Diploma course he joined De Nederlands Reisopera as a resident artist where he has also performed Sleep, Hymen and Winter in Purcell's Fairy Queen as well as Petrus in a staged Bach's St John Passion.
Roderick Willams, Peter Brathwaite & Vitali Rozynko (L-R)
Today is another first for Barihunks, as we feature our first barihunk trio in Puccini's Madama Butterfuly, where Roderick Williams is singing Sharpless, Peter Brathwaite is performing Yamadori and Vitali Rozynko is portraying the Imperial Commissioner. The performances are at the De Nationale Reisopera in the Netherlands and runs through October 10th in the following cities: Enschede, Arnhem, Den Bosch, Apeldoorn, Rotterdam, Zwolle, Den Haag, Amstelveen, Heerlen and Amsterdam. The cast also includes Annemarie Kremer as Cio-Cio San and Eric Fennell as Pinkerton.
HRH King Willem-Alexander and the cast of Madama Butterfly
Opening night was attended by His Royal Highness King Willem-Alexander, who succeed his mother Princess Beatrix on April 30, 2013, becoming King of The Netherlands. There is some interesting Dutch history with the opera. In 1877, King William III of the Netherlands announced that he as going to marry the French opera singer Eleonore d'Ambre.whom he ennobled as Countess d'Ambroise without the government's consent. Under pressure from society and the government, he abandoned their marriage plans.
The last time we featured the 39-year-old French barihunk Laurent Alvaro he was nude in Howard Shore's operatic version of "The Fly" at the Théatre du Châtelet He's currently playing Thoas in "Iphigenie in Tauris" and Arcas in "Iphigenie in Aulis" at the Nederlandse Opera where he's still shirtless, but wearing pants.
Laurent Alvaro in the Iphigenie double-bill
One thing is certain, he's as sexy as ever. The double-bill of the underperformed Gluck operas runs through September 22. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.
Nigl today and as a child soloist; As Don Giovanni in center
We recently asked readers to submit names of potential barihunks who haven't appeared on this site before. So far, we've received about 30 submissions, so our original idea of putting our reader submissions into one post flew out the door. A few of them jumped out at us, like Austrian baritone Georg Nigl, who originally made a name for himself as a child soloist with the Vienna Boys Choir. Readers may remember our popular post about Jacques Imbrailo that featured him as a child soloist.
Here is Nigl singing Mozart's "Laudate Dominum" with the Vienna Boys Choir from Japan in 1986.
Here is Nigl 23 years later singing Henry Purcell's "You twice tne hundred deities," Z.630 wth Luca Pianca on lute.
Nigl has a wide ranging repertory that features Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Mozart’s Papageno and Berg’s Wozzeck. Nigl's biography points out that they are all "human characters with an inherent brokenness."
He has sung at the Teatro alla Scala, Staatsoper Unter dem Linden Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Festival and the Vienna Festwochen. He also has released a number of recordings on a variety of labels. He can next be seen at De Nederlandse Opera next month performing Wolfgang Rihm's "Dionysos."
We are still accepting submissions for barihunks who are new to this site. Please send your suggestions to Barihunks@gmail.com.
Jacques Imbrailo, who recently starred in a somewhat controversial production of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne, is tackling the title role in a different production. Imbrailo will perform in the heralded Richard Jones production that we previously saw Peter Mattei perform at Frankfurt.
Imbrailo created a bit of a tempest before the Glyndebourne run with some comments he made in the Sunday Times that suggested to some that he was trying to take the gay element out of the opera. Here is an excerpt;
Imbrailo features on a website called barihunks.blogspot.com, whose breathless preview of Billy Budd is: “Let’s hope the production is shirtless.”
“They’re going to be disappointed,” says Imbrailo. “That’s a lazy way to characterise; Billy swinging round pipes. He doesn’t have to be a gym bunny.” Never mind Billy’s biceps, Imbrailo would rather emphasise his goodness.
Barihunks was besieged with emails and comments not just from readers, but from people involved with the production who felt that "stuffy" Glyndebourne was trying to rewrite the story to make Claggart troubled with Billy's "goodness" and removing the gay attraction. Of course, the current production is in the Netherlands where they celebrate rather than run from gay themes in opera. This production's Claggart, Clive Bayley, makes it clear in the preview video that Claggart is clearly gay and attracted to Billy, but decides to destroy what he loves.
Jacques Imbrailo: Not afraid to disappoint Barihunks readers?
Assuming he needed to redeem himself, Imbrailo has clearly done it in this production. One Dutch reviewer described Imbrailo and "vigorous" and "charismatic" with just the right baritone sound. He clearly didn't shy away from portraying a sexy Billy Budd and he appears to have redeemed himself with those "disappointed" Barihunks readers he previously referenced.
The Netherlands Opera has added a Gay Date Night on March 25th for the current of the opera. Details can and ticket information are available on their website. We hope that Glyndebourne does the smae thing when they mount Billy Budd again.
[Photo courtesy of De Nederlandse Opera] Those of us in San Francisco were already familiar with Kyle Ketelsen's sexy, hot Escamillo in Carmen. He portrayed the role here in 2006 and completely stole the show. He is reprising the role at De Nederlandse Opera and apparently he has gotten even hotter with time. Or perhaps it's that sexy torreador outfit that costuming made for him. He certainly fills out those pants nicely.
This production was directed by the brilliant Robert Carsen, who also directed the sexy version of A Midsummer Night's Dream at La Scala featured in a recent post (and more pix coming!).
