Barihunk duo in R-Rated Don Giovanni at Opera Ithaca

Garrett Obrycki in Opera Ithaca's promo for Don Giovanni

Opera Ithaca  will present the latest creation of innovative director R.B. Schlather when their Don Giovanni opens on December 5th. The opera comes with an R-rated warning for containing "nudity, sexual content and violence." The opera stars the barihunk duo of Garrett Obrycki in the title role and Zachary James as the Commendatore. James was also a co-founder of the company with Lynn Craver, which launched in 2014.

Schlather has become a regular feature on Barihunks for his sexy productions, which have included barihunk David McFerrin in Philip Glass' In the Penal Colony, Hadleigh Adams stripped down to his briefs in Handel's Orlando and frequent Barihunks calendar model David Adam Moore in Handel's Alcina. Schlather is a graduate of Ithaca College.

We learned that the opera will open with a rape and a murder and the rest of it is about sex. There will be full nudity and partial nudity from at least two characters (one being Don Giovanni).

Garrett Obrycki sings "Bella siccome un angelo" from Donizetti's Don Pasquale:  

Don Giovanni will star Philadelphia baritone Garrett Obrycki in the title role. Obrycki is a Minnesota native who receieved his Bachelor of Music in Voice from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. While at Eastman, he performed Tarquinius in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and Frank  Maurrant in Kurt Weill's Street Scene. After his undergraduate studies, Garrett sang as a Young Artist with the Ohio Light Opera, a chorister with Opera Philadelphia and as a member of the Philadelphia Singers. He's also a teaching artist with Opera Philadelphia. 

Zachary James as Bluebeard at Opera Ithaca

Zachary James previously performed the role of the Commendatore at Central City Opera. The towering bass-barihunk aptly created the role of Abraham Lincoln in the world premiere of Philip Glass’ opera The Perfect American at the Teatro Real in Madrid, a role he reprised for London’s English National Opera and Australia’s Opera Queensland. Upcoming performance for Zachary James include La Reina with the Prototype Festival in New York in January 2016, Liebeslieder Walzer with the New York City Ballet also in January 2016 and The Mikado with Anchorage Opera in April 2016.

Opera Ithaca’s production of Don Giovanni will play Ithaca’s Community School of Music and Arts Ballroom Saturday, December 5th and Sunday, December 6th at 8pm each evening. Tickets are available online.

Enjoy 18 more barihunks in our new Charity Calendar, which is on sale now. 

Hadleigh Adams in New York's latest indie opera success Orlando

Hadleigh Adams in Orlando (and at rehearsal)

It seems like every season, one of New York's innovative smaller companies produces a show that sets the international opera world on fire. Last season it was Gregory Spears' Paul's Case that Beth Morrison produced and starred barihunk Keith Phares.

This season, the buzz is surrounding R.B. Schlather's innovative opera/art installation of Handel's Alcina at the Whitebox Art Center starring barihunk Hadleigh Adams. The opera, which wrapped up tonight, also included soprano Kiera Duffy and the countertenor Drew Minter in the cast. Last season Schlater scored a huge success with another Handel opera, when he produced Alcina in the same
space.

Hadleigh Adams in Orlando

The innovative director has opened up these rehearsals to the public and live streamed the rehearsals. The rehearsals have become NY mini-social scenes, even attracting Yoko Ono, Justin Vivian Bond and rapper Big Dipper.

Word is that is only the second part of a trilogy, so there will be another chance to catch his latest work next season. 

David Adam Moore in innovative Alcina in NYC

David Adam Moore as Melisso in Alcina (Photo: Philippe Tremblay-Berberi)

David Adam Moore, who is featured in October in our 2014 Barihunks Charity Calendar, is currently appearing in Handel's Alcina in director R. B. Schlather's innovative production at the Whitebox Art Center in New York City. There will be performances on September 20 and 21 at the Whitebox main exhibition space.

Handel’s 1735 opera Alcina is a story of love and illusion that includes some of the composer's most inventive and melodic music. Schlather is staging this work in an untraditional opera venue and is opening up all the musical and staging rehearsals up to September 17, as well as the General Rehearsal on September 19th at 7pm.  These rehearsals are free, except on Thursdays, thanks to an IndieGoGo campaign, which you can still donate to. For the final performances, the opera will be enacted live with an orchestra, in Italian, utilizing new technologies with projected English subtitles.

The opera is set on the island of the enchantress Alcina, and explores themes of identity, illusion, and transformation. This island exists as a beautiful landscape in the middle of the ocean, where Alcina culls her powers to create a paradise, only to lure and seduce the knights that wash up on her shore, one of whom is the heroic Ruggiero. Alcina’s magic causes Ruggiero to fall under her spell and, in doing so, he forsakes his duty as a knight and forgets his fiancée, Bradamante. The opera develops as Bradamante disguises herself as a male warrior her brother “Ricciardo” and sets out on a mission to recover her love.

Accompanied by Alcina’s guardian, Melisso (played by David Adam Moore), the two are shipwrecked on Alcina’s island by fate. Imminent danger awaits Ruggiero, as Alcina possesses the power to transform her foes and lovers of whom she tires into rocks, trees, and wild beasts. The already heavily dramatized plot is further complicated by the integration of different characters who all, in their own right, act on emotions of love and jealousy. In portraying Alcina’s thickened plot, Schlather’s production brings to life a story of enchantment, folding into it classic operatic moments of romance, betrayal, violence, unrequited love, and magic.

Click HERE for tickets.