(Properly) Introducing Bass-Barihunk Marko Mimica

Marko Mimica (photos by Simon Pauly & Foto Piccinni)

Our post about Simon Keenlyside's New Year's Eve concert at the Royal Opera House of Muscat prompted a reader to remind us that we've never properly featured Croatian Bass-Barihunk Marko Mimica. We only featured him briefly when he was in the finals of the Cardiff Singer of the World in 2013 and he certainly deserves his own post. Mimica will be performing Mustafa in Rossini's  L’italiana in Algeri at the Royal Opera House of Muscat on February 9 and 12.

His next performance will be from January 21-29 as Banquo in Verdi's Macbeth at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo. He'll reprise the role at the Teatro Regio in Torino from June 22-July 1. In the interim, he'll perform Alfonso in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia in Valencia, Oroveso in Bellini's Norma in Verona and Lord Sydney in Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims in Verona.

Marko Mimica performs Rossini's La Calunnia at the Cardiff competition:

Mimica was a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper, Berlin from 2011-16, where he performed the title role in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Raimondo in Donizetti's  Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Basilio in Rossini's Il barbiere di Sivigilia, Talbot  in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen, Pater Lorenzo in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Tschelio in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, Colline in Puccini's La bohème, Pistola in Verdi's Falstaff, Banquo in Verdi's Macbeth, Oroveso in Bellini's Norma and Ferrando in Verdi's Il Trovatore.

Mimica graduated from the Academy of Music in Zagreb, Croatia and was a participant in the 2011 Salzburg Festival’s Young Singers Project. In 2008, Mimica made his professional debut at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He continued to perform regularly in Zagreb until 2011, where he performed Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni, Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola, Kochubey in Tchaikovsky's Mazeppa and Padre Guardiano in Verdi's La forza del destino.

LAST CALL for the 2017 Barihunks in Bed Calendar.  

 

 

(Properly) Introducing Croatian Barihunk Krešimir Stražanac

Krešimir Stražanac

We recently ran a photo of 31-year-old Croatian bass-baritone, Krešimir Stražanac on our Facebook feed as our "Gratuitous Picture of the Day" [top left photo]. Needless to say it created a bit of buzz amongst our readers. It was subsequently brought to our attention that we've never properly introduced him to readers.

Stražanac studied at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. He went on to win the International La Voce Competition of the Bavarian Radio for art song and the International Cantilena Competition in Bayreuth for opera/operetta. In September 2012, he won the International Hugo Wolf Competition in Hugo Wolf's birthplace in Gradec, Slovenia. 

Krešimir Stražanac

Since the 2007-2008 season, he's been a member of the ensemble at the Opernhauses Zürich, where he's performed Ping in Turandot, Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Fernando in Fidelio, Morales in Carmen and Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly. In November 2012, he made his debut as Dr. David Livesay in the world premiere of Frank Schwemmer's Die Schatzinsel and in March 2013 in the role of Baron Tusenbach in Péter Eötvös' opera The Three Sisters. 

He can be heard in complete recordings of Bizet's Carmen, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Fidelio.

Matija Meić takes two prizes at Mirjam Helin Competition

Matija Meić took the top prize for Finnish song interpretation and 2nd overall for men

Even though three of the four male finalists were baritones, the top prize for a male singer at the 7th Annual Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition was awarded to tenor Beomjin Kim, who we commend for his stellar performances. However, the €3 000 prize for the best performance by a non-Finnish singer of a Finnish song went to Croatian baritone Matija Meić. Meić placed second behind Kim, followed by fellow Croatian Leon Kosavic and Ukranian Dmytro Kalmuchyn.

First prize for a female singer went to the Ukranian soprano Kateryna Kasper, who was followed by Russian soprano Ekaterina Morozova, Korean soprano Sunyoung Seo and Russian soprano Elena Guseva. 

A total of €133 000 was awarded in prizes and the laureates receive invitations to perform in Finland and abroad. The members of the Jury voted independently and did not discuss the performances during the voting procedure. In adjudicating the Final performances from all three rounds were taken into account.

Forty-six singers from around the globe took part in the Competition this year, with the jury selecting 19 for the semi-finals and eight for the final round. The chairman of the 2014 Jury was the Artistic Director of the Savonlinna Opera Festival, Jorma Silvasti. Other jurists included Franz Grundheber, Maria Guleghina, Ben Heppner, Robert Holl, Andrea Rost, Nathalie Stutzmann and Deborah Voigt.

The prize winners will perform at a concert on August 15th at Tampere Hall accompanied by the Tampere Philharmonic under the baton of Hannu Lintu.

You can listen to Majita Meić's performance HERE,  Leon Kosavic's performance HERE, and Dmytro Kalmuchyn's performance HERE.

Introducing Croatian Barihunk Matija Meić

Matija Meić

28-year-old Croatian barihunk Matija Meić began his studies at the Music Academy in Zagreb before continuing on to the University of Performing Arts Vienna. He performed Escamillo in Bizet's Carmen while at the Music Academy.

At today's Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition he performed Pylkkänen's Pastorale, a set of Finzi songs (Come away, come away, death; Who is Silvia?; Fear no more the heat o' the sun; O mistress mine; It was a lover and his lass), and Donizetti's Cruda, funesta smania from Lucia di Lammermoor. You can listen to his entire performance HERE.

In the 2010/2011 season, Matija Meić made his debut at the Zagreb National Theatre as Levi in Zajc's Nikola Šubić Zrinjski, subsequently performing Schaunard in Puccini's La Boheme. The following season he performed Belcore in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore with the company.

Matija Meić sings Largo al factotum from the Barber of Seville:

In June 2013, Meić sang the role of Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at the Dubrovnik Summer Festival. The following season he sang Belcore and Figaro at the Zagreb Opera House. This season, he was enlisted to sing the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Vienna Performing Arts University production at the Schlosstheater Scönbrunn.

Meić has take top prizes at a number of vocal competitions, including at the 2010 International Singing Competition in Montenegro in 2010, the Iuventus Canti Competition in Slovakia in 2013, as well as being named the “Young Singer of the Year ” at the Molto Cantabile Competition in Zagreb in 2013.

Introducing Croatian Barihunk Leon Košavić

Leon Košavić

Leon Košavić performed his semi-final set today at the Mirjam Helin International Singing Competition. He performed Sibelius' Fågellek, a set of the Schubert Heine Lieder (Der Atlas, Ihr Bild, Das Fischermädchen, Die Stadt, Am Meer, and Der Doppelgänger, and Donizetti's Bella siccome un angelo from Don Pasquale. You can watch the entire performance HERE.

Leon Košavić began his vocal education at the age of twelve at the Academy of Music in Zagreb with Giorgio Surian. In 2011, he was awarded first prize at a Croatian national competition for students.

He made his stage debut as Moralés in Bizet's Carmen at the The Academy of Music and subsequently performed there as the Emperor in Stravinsky´s The Nightingale. He made his professional debut at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, where he subsequently performed Mr. McC in Introductions and Goodbyes by Lukas Foss and Masetto in Mozart's Don Giovanni.

In 2013, he was awarded the Audience Choice Award at a competition for young artists in Croatia.

Rossini Festival a veritable Barihunk Festival

Alex Esposito

The internationally-acclaimed Rossini Opera Festival is kicking off on Sunday, August 10th with the vocally challenging Armida. The piece is best known in opera circles for requiring six tenors and two basses, with a trio for three tenors in Act 3. In between booking tenors, they managed to bring in a quartet of barihunks to perform in the Festival.

Alex Esposito sings Rossini's "Cade dal ciglio" from Mosè in Egitto:

On August 11, the Festival features Il barbiere di Siviglia with bass-barihunk Alex Esposito as Basilio, giving fans the chance to hear him showcase the aria La Calunnia about the spreading of vicious gossip. Although we think of Esposito for his definitive portrayals of Mozart's leading men, he has actually sung far more Rossini. He has 13 Rossini roles in 12 operas to his credit, including Alidoro in La cenerentola, Mustafà in L'italiana in Algeri, Selim in Il turco in Italia, Mahomet II in Le siège de Corinthe, Fernando Villabella in La gazza ladra, Moses and the Pharaoh in both versions of Mosè in Egitto, Assur in Semiramide, Orbazzano in Tancredi, Lord Sidney and Don Profondo in Il viaggio a Reims and Polidoro in Zelmira.

Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore

The opera also features Andrea Vincenzo Bonsignore as Fiorello, who is new to this site. The 30-year-old singer studied at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan where he made his debut as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro in 2010. He was first invited to the Rossini Festival in 2011 when he sang in Il Viaggio a Reims under Alberto Zedda.

Performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia are on August 11, 14, 17 and 20.

Marko Mimica

On August 13 and 16 the Festival will present Il Viaggio a Reims, with Marko Mimica as Lord Sidney. Opera aficionados will recall that he made waves earlier this year as one of the top five finalists in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition. He is currently a principle artist at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he is singing the High Priest of Baal in Verdi's Nabucco, Pistola in Verdi's Falstaff, and Mr. Bosun in David Alden's production of Britten's Billy Budd.

The Festival will also be performing Aureliano in Palmira on August 12, 15, 18 and 22. Tickets for all performances are available online. 

Mirco Palazzi

 Mirco Palazzi sings "All'invito generoso" from Rossini's Maometto II:

Another of our favorite singers will be featured in Petite Messe solennelle on August 21, when Mirco Palazzi sings the bass part of the vocal quartet under the baton of Alberto Zedda. He will continue singing Rossini after the Festival, as he heads to Edinburgh on August 26 to sing Gualtiero in William Tell. He'll be joined by soprano Angela Meade as Matilde and John Osborn as Arnold. Tickets are available online.