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!).

World's largest gathering of barihunks at Glimmerglass?

Jarrett Ott, Michael Hewitt, Jarrett Porter and Brent Michael Smith (left) and Justin Austin (right)

Once again, director Francesca Zambello has deservedly landed on our site. Longtime readers know that most opera lovers credit her with beginning the barihunk craze and coining the phrase after having Nathan Gunn appear shirtless in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. Now she may have created the largest single gathering of barihunks ever assembled at the Glimmerglass Festival, where she is the Artistic & General Director, as well as the stage director for Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, Donizetti's The Siege of Calais and Ben Moore's Robin Hood.

Norman Garrett in Glimmerglass' Porgy and Bess

There are at least a dozen barihunks who we know of in the various casts and probably a handful more that we've not been made aware of yet. Most of them have appeared on this site in the past. The Glimmerglass artists include:

• Norman Garrett as Crown in Porgy and Bess 

• Brent Michael Smith as the cop in Porgy and Bess; Ariodates in Handel's Xerxes; and the Commentator in Derrick Wang's Scalia/Ginsburg.

• Zach Owen as the English Spy in The Siege of Calais and the detective in Porgy and Bess.

• Jarrett Ott as Curly in Oklahoma! 

• Michael Hewitt as Jud Fry in Oklahoma! and Edoardo III in The Siege of Calais

• Harry Greenleaf as Cord Elam in Oklahoma!

• Jarrett Porter as Sam in Oklahoma!

• Justin Austin as Jake in Porgy and Bess

• Calvin Griffin as the Undertaker in Porgy and Bess and Elviro in Xerxes

• Conor McDonald as Skidmore in Oklahoma!

• Eric Shane covering roles in Oklahoma! and Porgy and Bess

The festival opened July 7th and runs through August 22. Additional cast information and tickets are available online.

POST UPDATE: We heard from some of the singers at Glimmerglass that we may have missed a few singers, including Makoto Winkler, Nicholas Davi, Carl DuPont and Adrian Timpau. We also made some casting updates to the list above.