Ryan McKinny reprises sexy Stanley Kowalski at HOT

Ryan McKinny (photo Ronen Zilberman)

The Hawai‘i Opera Theatre (HOT) opened Andre Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire tonight, which will also be performed on January 29, and 31st at the NBC Concert Hall in downtown Honolulu. The cast is led be barihunk Ryan McKinny in the role of Stanley Kowalski, which was made famous by Marlon Brando in the 1951 movie version. McKinny performed the role with the Los Angeles Opera to great acclaim in 2014.

He'll be joined by soprano Jill Gardner  as Blanche DuBois and Victoria Livengood as Eunice Hubbell. Tickets are available online.

Ryan McKinny (photo Ronen Zilberman)

The production will be directed by Brad Dalton who mounted the London premiere of the opera with the composer.  He also directed the piece at Carnegie Hall, Washington, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The production comes from New Orleans where the story takes place. Mark Morash will conduct.

Next up for McKinny is another American opera classic, John Adams' Nixon in China with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on March 3 and 5. He then returns to his specialty as a Wagnerian, singing Gunther in Götterdammerung at the Houston Grand Opera and Amfortas in Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival.

Happy Birthday, Gregory Gerbrandt!

Gregory Gerbrandt

August 19th is barihunk Gregory Gerbrandt's birthday, so it seems like a good time to check on his upscoming schedule, which runs from Broadway musical to opera. 

From October 2-26, he'll be performing in Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones' Broadway musical The Fantasticks at the Playhouse on the Square in Memphis, Tennessee. He'll be performing the role of El Gallo who sings the hit tune, "Try to Remember." The role El Gallo was originally played by Jerry Orbach (of TV's Law & Order), who asks the audience to use their imagination and follow him into a world of moonlight and magic. A boy and the girl fall in love, grow apart, and finally find their way back to each other after realizing the truth in El Gallo's words that "without a hurt, the heart is hollow."

Jerry Orback sings Try to Remember from The Fantasticks:

Gerbrandt will then return to his native state of Colorado when he appears at the Arvada Center. He'll be playing the lead role of Stephen Kodaly in Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick's Broadway musical She Loves Me. The musical was written by the same team that created Fiddler on the Roof. Performances run from November 25 - December 21 and tickets are available online.

Next year, Gerbrandt returns to opera as Stanley Kowalski in André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire joined by one of the most exciting tenor voices in opera, Casey Candebot, who is singing Mitch.  Performances are on April 24 and 26 and tickets are available online. We have a feeling that he's going to be one of the sexiest Stanley's to hit the stage in the history of the opera.

Before he dons his white tank top in Streetcar, he can be seen in the title role of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin at Opera Idaho on February 13 and 15, followed by Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro on March 20 and 22 at Opera on the James in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Ryan McKinny's ripped Stanley Kowalski at L.A. Opera

Ryan McKinny as Stanley Kowalski (Photo: Robert Millard for LA Opera)

The Los Angeles Opera has been marketing their upcoming performance of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire around mega-star Renée Fleming as Blanche DuBois. Fleming, who is a major exponent of American opera, and for whom the role was written when the opera premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 1998, certainly deserves to be the star attraction.

We, of course, were curious to see if the long tradition of casting a gym-toned barihunk as Stanley Kowalski was being upheld. The original Stanley was the Rod Gilfry in his vocal and physical prime. The role has subsequently been sung by a veritable Who's Who of barihunks, including Teddy Tahu Rhodes, David Adam Moore and Philip Cutlip. The L.A. Opera didn't disappoint, as they cast Ryan McKinny in the role, who like a bottle of 1982 Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion just gets better and better with age.

Ryan McKinny as Stanley Kowalski and Stacey Tappen as Stella (Photo: Robert Millard for LA Opera)

McKinny became a household name in the world of opera after performing the Dutchman in Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer at the Glimmerglass Festival under the direction of Francesca Zambello. Not only was McKinny's Dutchman vocally stunning, but it was the sexiest portrayal of that role in operatic history. The photos on our site went viral and almost doubled the traffic to our site.

In addition to Fleming and McKinny, the all-star cast also includes  Stacey Tappan as Stella and Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch. Performances are on Sunday, May 18th at 5 PM and May 21 and 24 at 7:30 PM. Tickets for all three performances are available online.

You can read an interview with Ryan McKinny on the LA Opera blog. 

Nathan Gunn Premiers Previn Opera

Nathan Gunn is premiering his second Andre Previn opera, Brief Encounter, based on the play by Noel Coward. Top Gunn joins his colleague from Previn's Streetcar Named Desire, Elizabeth Futral at the Houston Grand Opera. According to the program notes, the opera is an honest and compassionate look at emotional infidelity with a couple that is torn between love and loyalty.

For additional information go to: http://www.houstongrandopera.org/briefencounter

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