Barihunks star in NY premiere of Britten's Owen Wingrave

Michael Weyandt and Robert Balonek

Barihunks Robert Balonek and Michael Weyandt will alternate the title role in Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave at The Little Opera Theatre of New York from May 9-May 12. The performance is being billed as the New York premiere of the opera. Performances will be at the GK Arts Center in Brooklyn and tickets are available online.

Owen Wingrave, which premiered in 1970, tells the story of a committed pacifist born into a renowned military family.  Despite strong disapproval over his beliefs and desperate to maintain the love of his would-be bride, Owen Wingrave is determined to prove his inner strength – even if it leads to his own demise.

Britten was a deeply committed pacifist, which traces back to his early life, particularly during his years at Gresham’s, his public school in Holt, Norfolk. He was know as a sensitive young boy who abhorred violence and bullying. World War I had cast a huge shadow over Britten’s generation and it was felt nowhere more keenly than at Gresham’s.  Britten was born a year before the onset of WWI  where the U.K. and its colonies saw 887,711 killed in action between 1914 and 1918. 100 boys from Gresham’s alone lost their lives.  His school formed one of the first branches of the League of Nations Union, which was designed to foster peace and prevent future conflict. The school also banned corporal punishment.

Britten's most famous pacifist composition is his War Requiem.

Properly introducing Brian Mextorf; Competing in Met SE Regional Finals

Brian Mextorf

We briefly introduced Brian Mextorf back in September 2013, when he was workshopping composer Clint Borzoni's Antinuous and Hadrian with Operamission in New York City. He recently was named a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (North Carolina District), so we thought this was a good time to properly reintroduce him to readers.

Mextrof hails from Williamsport, Pennsylvania and studied music at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (B.M.) and the Westminster Choir College (M.M.). This season he'll be an Emerging Artist with Virginia Opera for the 2014-15 season. In 2012, he was a member of the Gerdine Young Artist with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis where he performed three roles in the North American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Alice in Wonderland.

A favorite of Operamission, in addition to Borzoni's work, he has appeared as Lesbo in their production of Handel’s Agrippina and Edward Ficklin’s Flash of Recognition. He sang Judas in the Philadelphia Orchestra's performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin in a cast that included fellow barihunks Luca Pisaroni and Andrew Foster-Williams.

Christian Zaremba and Alexander Elliott to compete in Met Semi-Finals

He will also be making his debut at Opera Saratoga as Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas. His Dido will be Jennifer Johnson Cano and the performance will be led by the brilliant conductor Nicole Paiement. Performances run from July 6-21 and tickets are available online.

Mextorft will compete in the Metropolitan Opera's Southeast Regional Finals on February 15, 2015. We'll be watching those closely, as a number of other singers who have appeared on this site will be competing in the regionals, including Vasil Garvanliev, Robert Balonek, Ricardo Rivera, Cairan Ryan, Alexander Elliott, Colin Ramsey, Steven Eddy, Christian Zaremba, Andrew Lovato and Chris Carr.       

Also competing are a number of singers who we've not featured yet, but will profile this week. They include Jonathan Harris, Phillip Gay, Andrew Bogard, Zachary Read, Brian Vu, Ben Taylor, Nathan Milholin, Christopher Besch and Christian Pursell.    

Nine Baritones Competing in Met Auditions in NYC

The Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions will be held at Merkin Hall in New York City on November 18 and 19. This year, nine of the 82 singers are baritones, including SeokJong Baek, Vladimir Tsyglian, Robert Balonek, LaMarcus Miller, Kidon Choi, Takaoki Onishi, Ryan Torino, Anthony Caputo and Cameron McPhail.

A number of the singers have appeared on Barihunks, including Takaoki Onishi who we introduced to readers in May 2014, Robert Balonek who we featured in our Met Auditions overview earlier this year and Cameron MacPhail who is in our recent post about upcoming Messiahs (he's performing with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra).

The singers will perform before judges Susan Ashbaker, Richard Bernstein and Cori Ellison for a spot in the Region Finals to be held on January 14, 2015. The judges for the Finals will be Gayletha Nichols, Richard Bado and Susan Graham.

Cameron McPhail

Canadian baritone Cameron McPhail was the 2014 winner of the George London Foundation Competition. He joined the Canadian Opera Company for the 2012-13 season as a member of the Ensemble Studio where he made his company debut as Premiere Officer in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmelites. During the 2013-14 season he returned to Canadian Opera Company with mainstage appearances as Schaunard in La Bohème, Guglielmo in Così fan Tutte, and Silvano in Un Ballo in Maschera.

Robert Balonek

Robert Balonek attended SUNY Purchase College and the Mannes School of Music. During his two years at Mannes he performed Guglielmo in Cosi Fan Tutte as well as ​Ford in Falstaff. He also performed with the Mannes Baroque Ensemble as the bass soloist for the Bach's St. Matthew Passion and the Fauré Requiem soloist for the Westchester Choral Society.  In 2014, he performed in scenes from Le Chevalier Saint George's L'amant Anonyme with the Little Opera Theater of NY, Paul Revere in the Boston Tea Party Opera at the NY Fringe Festival and Castro in Victor Herbert's only grand opera, Natoma.

LaMarcus Miller

In 2012, LaMarcus Miller won First Place at the Nico Castel International Master Singer Competition at Carnegie Hall. That same year he won the Encouragement Award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition (Eastern Region). He made his Kennedy Center Center debut singing the leading role of USMC Philip in the new Opera “Fallujah” by Tobin Stokes & Heather Raffo.
In August, he performed Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus with the Sugar Creek Symphony.

Anthony Caputo

New York City native Anthony Caputo recently completed his Graduate work at SUNY Purchase College Conservatory of Music where he studied under the tutelage of Jacque Trussel. While there he performed Balthazar and Melchior in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors, Antonio in Mozart's La Nozze di Figaro, Mercurio in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Prince Ferdinand in the East Coast Premiere of Holby's The Tempest, Father Francis in the World Premiere of Lucas' Confession, Pappageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Le Directeur in Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tiresias, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen and Pandolfe in Massenet's Cendrillon.

Vladimir Tsyglian

Canadian Vladimir Tsyglian earned his Performance Degree from the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music. He was a 1st Prize winner in the Concert Recital category at the Kiwanis Music Fesival. He made his professional debut in the world premiere of "A Dickens of a Christmas." He recently performed Zuniga in Bizet's Carmen with Opera by Request in Toronto.

Takaoki Onishi

Takaoki Onishi won the Top Prize in the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, and the First Prize in both the Opera Index, Inc. Vocal Competition and the Licia Albanese - Puccini International Vocal Competition. He also received a prize in the 2013 Loren L. Zachary Competition, as well as two Grants from the Giulio Gari Foundation.  He made his Lincoln Center debut in the Julliard Vocal Arts Honors Recital at Alice Tully Hall. In February, he performed the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Julliard Opera and in March he performed Jesus in Bach's St. Matthew's Passion.

Kidon Choi

Kidon Choi is a first-year Master's student at Manhattan School of Music and a recipient of the Joseph F. McCrindle Scholarship. He completed his B.M. in vocal performance at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea. In April 2013, Choi made his Sejong Art Center debut with Seoul Metropolitan Opera as Amonasro in Verdi's Aida. Choi released his own CD ‘Soar’ with Sony Music Entertainment.

Ryan Torino and SeokJong Baek

We don't have bios for Ryan Torino and SeokJong Baek.

Suggested admission to the Metropolitan Opera District Auditions is $20.  You are welcome to attend both days and come and go as you please. Tickets are available online.

Make sure to order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today. Each year, the money raised from the calendar goes to support young artists like those featured above. This year's calendar features 19 of the hottest singers in opera today. Order by clicking below.

An overview of barihunks advancing in the Met Competition

We thought that we'd take a look at some of the baritones and basses who advanced in the Metropolitan Opera Regional Audtions. These singers will compete in the next round. This is list is not all-inclusive, but they are the singers who we've been following.

Edward Hanlon

Edward Hanlon, who we've featured before, was the winner of the Chicago District Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition held on October 12th at Northwestern University. He ended up taking 3rd place in the Metropolitan Opera Central Region. He's racked up a number of top prizes at other vocal competitions, as well. You can catch him as Frank in Strauss' Die Fledermaus with the Edmonton Opera from January 31- February 6.

Luis Alejandro Orozco

Mexican-American barihunk Luis Alejandro Orozco has appeared on this site before. He was a winner of the District Council's competition in Indiana. Orozco is as graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and he has performed with the Lake George Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera,  El Paso Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Lexington Philharmonic, Florida Grand Opera and Opera Theater of St Louis. You can catch him reprise his sexy performance as El Payador in Piazzolla's Maria de Buenos Aires with the Syracuse Opera, from January 31-February 9.

Robert Balonek

Robert Balonek was one of the winners of the Eastern District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. He attended SUNY Purchase College and the Mannes School of Music where he performed with the Mannes Baroque Ensemble. In March, you can catch Balonek in a semi-staged performance of Handel's Alceste with the American Classical Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall.

Other low voice coming out of the Eastern District Auditions were Takaoki Onishi, Kyle Oliver, Scott Russell and Brian Vu.

Iain MacNeil

 Iain MacNeil sings Debussy's "Ballade des femmes de Paris:

Iain MacNeil was one of the winners at the Great Lakes Region auditions. He was born and raised in Brockville, Ontario and was introduced to opera during his first year at Dalhousie University. MacNeil is currently at the University of Toronto, where he is currently completing an opera diploma. In 2013, he participated in the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival.

Andrew Bogard

We introduced Mid-Atlantic Region winner a little over a year ago. Bogard received his undergraduate degree in vocal performance from the Julliard School, where he performed the roles of Peter Quince in Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cousin Brandon in Hindemith’s Long Christmas Dinner. Bogard won first place in the 2014 Mario Lanza Scholarship Competition.  Upcoming performances include the Maestro in Golijov''s Ainadamar at Opera Philadelphia and Alidoro in La Cenerentola at Curtis Institute of Music.

Jarrett Ott

Also advancing from the Mid-Atlantic Region is Jarrett Ott. He is finishing up his Master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music where he has performed  Argante in Handel’s Rinaldo, Aeneas in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Gregor Mittenhoffer in Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers, Valentin in Gounod’s Faust, Harašta in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, and Le Mari in Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tiresias. This season he will also perform Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen with Mikael Eliasen at various venues, as well as perform Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with the Riverside Symphonia. At Curtis he will sing roles in Poulenc's Dialogues des carmélites and Rossini's La Cenerentola. You can listen to some sound clip HERE.

Samuel James Dewese

Samuel James Dewese advanced in the Midwest Region. Dewese is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he performed Mercurio in Cavalli's La Calisto, Anselmo in Man of La Mancha, and Mr. Gedge in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring. In July of 2011,  Dewese originated the role of Jackson the Slave in 1787: We the People with Creative Dramatics Workshop. He was named the Joann Damman Memorial Scholarship winner by the Bel Canto Foundation of Chicago in April 2010 and April 2011, as well as the recipient of the Golden Lyre Foundation Award from the University of Illinois School of Music in May 2011.

Steven Eddy

Indiana University graduate Steven Eddy advanced in Northwest Region Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions. Eddy attended one of our Barihunks lunches while performing in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos at the Fort Worth Opera Festival (which is where he got that great shirt!). He returns to the Festival this year singing the role of Ponchel in Kevin Puts’ Pulitzer-Prize winning opera Silent Night.

Andrew Craig Brown

Andrew Craig Brown advanced in the Western Regionals in Los Angeles. He graduated from the Yale School of Music where he performed in productions of Mozart's Don Giovanni, Stravinsky's Le Rossignol, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and Cosi fan Tutte. He has recorded the role of Il Duca Ramiro in Donizetti's Maria Padilla with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Patrick Murray

Patrick Murray also advanced at the Western Regionals in Los Angeles. Murray graduated from the University of Southern California before being a granted a Fulbright Scholarship, which allowed him to study in Vienna, Austria. He recently spent the winter as a Studio Artist with the Sarasota Opera and is being mentored by fellow barihunk Luca Pisaroni. You can listen to him sing HERE.

Jeff Williams

Pennsylvania native Jeffrey Williams, was one of our reader submissions last year, and he just advanced in the Nashville Auditions. Following a summer at the Russian Opera Workshop at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia he sworked with fellow barihunk Tom Krause at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and in Sachrang, Germany. Williams has portrayed Lord Ruthven in Marschner’s Der Vampyr, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Prince Yeletsky in Pique Dame, the title role in Rachmaninoff’s Aleko, the title role in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Rabonnier (La rondine), Le Commissaire (Orphée), Jack Point (Yeomen of the Guard), Superintendent Budd (Albert Herring), Strephon (Iolanthe) and Marchese d’Obigny (La Traviata), as well as opera chorus work with the Washington National Opera, the Baltimore Opera, and Florida Grand Opera.