The barihunk duo of Björn Bürger as Wolfram and Kay Stieferman as Biterolf are part of director Christof Loy’s first Wagner opera presentation for the Dutch National Opera, an updated Tannhäuser.
The production features some male nudity, but since this is Amsterdam, there weren't the howls of protest that might have greeted the opera in other cities. Since story is about the knight Tannhäuser, who is torn between carnal thoughts of Venus and the socially acceptable love for Elisabeth, Loy added scenes in a men's club and included orgies.
The remaining cast includes Ekaterina Gubanova as the alluring Venus, Stephen Milling as Landgrave Hermann, Svetlana Aksenova as Elisabeth and Daniel Kirch in the title role.
Performance continue on April 14, 18, 21, 24 & 28, and May 1st. Tickets are available online.
British audiences can enjoy Björn Bürger this summer when he takes on Papageno at the Glyndebourne Festival. Kay Stieferman has a full calendar of Wagner ahead of him, including Ein Steuerman in Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuther Festspiele, Alberich in Oper Leipzig's Ring Cycle and Klingsor in the company's Parsifal.
Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas will mark his 25th and final season as the San Francisco Symphony’s music director with a schedule that includes newly commissioned works by John Adams, Julia Wolfe, Adam Schoenberg and the composer/conductor himself.
Bass-barihunk Ryan McKinny will be featured along with mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke in the world premiere of Tilson Thomas' composition, "Rilke Songs," a musical setting of lyric poems by German modernist poet Rainer Maria Rilke. A number of composers have set Rilke texts to music, including Alban Berg, Paul Hindemith, Anton Webern, Arnold Schoenberg and Peter Lieberson.
Tilson Thomas has been an active composer throughout his career He has set the texts of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anne Frank. Other compositions include Street Song for brass instruments and Agnegram, an overture for orchestra.
Performances run from January 9-12 and tickets and additional concert information is available online.
Ryan McKinny can currently be seen in the European premiere of John Adams' "Girls of the Golden West" at the Dutch National Opera.
Erwin Schrott as 2 of 4 Offenbach villains(Images: Dutch National Opera)
Conductor Carlo Rizzi and German director Tobias Kratzer have created a revised version of Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, which may upset some purists. Using a variety of versions of the opera, the duo reduced some of the spoken dialogue and left out some popular numbers, including the villain’s aria “Scintille, diamant” and the septet.
This means that you won't get to hear barihunk Erwin Schrott sing the famous aria in his Dutch National Opera debut, as well his first staged performance of the four villains.
You can watch the complete broadcast HERE. And so you don't miss out on hearing Schrott sing Dapertutto's famous aria, here is the version from his album.
Schrott can currently be seen as Escamillo at the Arena di Verona in Bizet's Carmen from August 9-25. He then takes the torreador to the Vienna State Opera, where he'll perform the role from Septemeber 6-12.
Polish barihunk Pawel Konik is taking on double duty in the Dutch National Opera's produciton of Madrigals, an amalgam of works by Monteverdi. He performs as Tancredi in the section taken from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and on of the Infernal Spirits taken from Il ballo delle ingrate. As Tancredi he is suite in 77 pounds (35 kilos) of armor.
Only three full-length works from Monteverdi’s opera oeuvre have survived. From Arianna, only the Lamento has survived, in which the Cretan princess sings of her desire for death, as her lover Theseus has left her. Il ballo delle Ingrate and Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda are both part of Madrigals, Book 8. In these works, too, death is the central theme. In a dance, women who have died show what the living can expect if they resist the arts of Cupid. Il combattimento shows the futility of every war or battle. In a duel, Tancredi kills a supposed enemy, who turns out to be his lover Clorinda.
The show also includes hunkentenor Nicólas Maraziótis, bass-barihunk Nathanaël Tavernier as Plutone and is conducted by Christophe Rousset with his orchestra Les Talens Lyriques. You can watch the trailer for the show on YouTube.
Paweł Konik and Nicólas Maraziótis
The performances will take place in the Scenery Atelier of Dutch National Opera & Ballet in Amsterdam-Zuidoost. The set is dominated by a steel artwork by Jannis Kounellis.There are three remaining performances on May 16, 17 and 19, and then it travels to the U.K.s Brighton Festival for a single performance on May 21.
Konik was born in Cieszyn, Poland and studied at the at the Karol Szymanowski Academy of Music. He made his debut in January 2013 as Shvochniev in Shostakovich's The Gamblers, for which won "The Best Singer's Debut Award" from the Jan Kiepura’s Drama Music Awards. He is a member of the Young Artists Program at the Polish National Opera's Opera Academy at the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw.
His operatic experience includes performances of title roles in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Massenets Don Quichotte,, Bottom in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Betto in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Nikitich Pristav in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Henri Perrin in Madame Curie by Elżbieta Sikora and Zbigniew in Moniuszko’s Haunted Manor.
On May 28th, Paweł Konik returns to his hometown of Cieszyn to sing Bach’s Ich habe genug BWV 82 in a concert in memory of Polish conductor Karol Stryja.
Last night, the Dutch National Opera premiered Mohammed Fairouz's The New Prince, which celebrates the 500th anniversary of the book in 2032. The piece is set in both the past and in the future and features the barihunk trio of Joshua Hopkins as Niccolò Machiavelli, Paulo Szot as Alexander Hamilton, Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney (three very different characters!), and Dominic Kraemer as Prince Saud al-Faisal.
Paulo Szot as Bill Clinton
Besides Machiavelli, it features well-known people of our day,
including Henry Kissinger, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Osama bin
Laden, as well as a fantasy world ruler Wu Virtu. Machiavelli’s lover is
Fortuna, who is also his publisher. There is even a scene where Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fight over a blow-up globe of the world.
Niccoló Machiavelli’s famous book The Prince describes the means that can be used by a dictator in strengthening his position. He can even permit himself lies and deceit, providing he ensures that they do not come to light. The politician/diplomat/writer was way ahead of his time.
Dominic Kraemer and a scene from The New Prince
The relevance of Machiavelli’s writing to today inspired composer Mohammed Fairouz to write his second opera. The opera's ultimate message of the piece is delivered by Wu Virtu, which is "the end of war is war" and that aggression met with aggression is a only zero-sum game.
There are three remaining performances on March 26, 28 and 29.
The Dutch National Opera will be presenting the somewhat controversial and provocative production of Mozart's Don Giovanni that was created for the 2008 Salzburger Festspiele. That production featured the barihunk trio of Christopher Maltman as Don Giovanni, Erwin Schrott as Leporello and Alex Esposito as Masetto. Maltman and Schrott returned to Salzburg for two revivals with Adam Plachetka and Stefan Kocan as Masetto.
Stefan Kocanas Masetto in 2010.
The Dutch National Opera has brought Christopher Maltman back in the title role, with Adrian Sâmpetrean as Leporello, Iurii Samoilov as Masetto and Mika Kares as the Commendatore. This production will no doubt be a veritable feast for barihunk lovers. The modern-dress production features a dying and sympathetic Don Giovanni and a lovable, drug addicted Leporello, whose physical attributes are freely shown off by the director.
In the opera's first scene, the Commendatore manages to shoot Don Giovanni in the abdomen before expiring. Don Giovanni spends much of the remainder for the evening trying not to die of his wound, first in desperation and eventually with wry resignation.
Christopher Maltman sings "Deh, vieni alla finestra" in Salzburg's Don Giovanni:
Erwin Schrott sings Leporello's catalog aria in Salzburg's Don Giovanni:
We've not featured the Finnish bass Mika Kares before, who was an ensemble member at the Baden State Opera from 2005-2010. Active off the stage, as well, he founded a children’s songwriting competition, serves as the Artistic Director of a Rauma Chamber Music Festival and the Eurajoki Bel Canto Festival. He also runs his own blog.
Christopher Maltman is returning to the Dutch National Opera where he had a successful and highly-acclaimed run as Rodrigo in Verdi’s Don Carlo in 2012. He'll be singing Don Giovanni again in the Fall at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. In between Dons, he'll be at Covent Garden as the Count di Luna in Verdi's Il Trovatore. He returns to the Metropolitan Opera later this year in both Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Puccini's Manon Lescaut.
Iurii Samoilov, who appears in this year's Barihunk calendar, returns to his home base at the Oper Frankfurt, where he'll appear in Berg's Wozzeck and Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Adrian Sâmpetrean can next be seen at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden as Ferrando in Verdi's Il trovatore. He makes his U.S. stage debut in October as Raimondo in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Performances of Don Giovanni run from May 7-28 and tickets and additional cast information is available online.
Bass-barihunk Davone Tines is starring in Kaija Saariaho’s new double bill Only the Sound Remains, which includes Tsunemasa (Always Strong) and Hagoromo (Feather Mantle). The pieces are based n
14th-century Japanese Noh theatre works brought to the US by American
art historian and Buddhist convert Ernest Fenollosa in the early 20th
century and later pieced together by poet
Ezra Pound. They are being directed by Peter Sellars.
The operas are scored for small ensemble of live electronics with acoustic sound and two singers — baritone and
countertenor, who is famed countertenor Philippe Jaroussky. Both characters narrate encounters with the supernatural. Tines and Jaroussky perform the earth/spirit counterparts of the
two pieces, the ghost and priest for Tsunemasa, and the fisherman and angel
for Hagoromo.
Davon Tines sings Ol' Man River:
The Japanese Nôh theatre was born from the Buddhist idea that light is
concealed largely in darkness, so as not to blind mere mortals. There is
little action in Only the Sound Remains, which is meant to heighten the tension, concentration and symbolism.
There are performances remaining on March 27 and 29 and then it heads to the Finnish National Opera Helsinki, Opéra national de Paris, Teatro Real in Madrid and the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. Tickets are available online.
Tines is building an international career
commanding a broad spectrum of opera and concert performances. Recent
performances include programs of Bach and Rameau at Alice Tully
Hall, the U.S. premiere of Meanachem Zur's Cartoons at Lincoln Center and Matthew Aucoin's new opera Crossing, which we featured on the site. He is a 2009
graduate of Harvard College and received a Masters degree in voice from
The Juilliard School in 2013.
You can catch two of operas hottest barihunks in a live broadcast of Emmanuel Chabrier'sL’étoile (“The star”) from the Dutch National Opera until April 29, 2015. Jérôme Varnier sings Siroco and Elliot Madore sings Hérisson de Porc-Épic. You won't want to miss Varnier's duet with the king (Christophe Mortagne) praising the
comforting effects of green Chartreuse.
Chabrier's opéra bouffe is beginning to be performed with greater regularity, having recently been staged in Augsburg, Frankfurt, Montpellier and Nancy. The Dutch National Opera production, directed by Laurent
Pelly, plays up the librettos mix of the surrealism, farce and poetry.
The comic plot and the main characters’ belief that the stars control their destiny make L’étoile
one of the most entertaining works in the genre. You can click HERE to watch the broadcast.
You can next catch Elliot Madore on January 16th as Adario in Rameau's Les Indes galantes with Les Arts Florissants in Paris. He returns to the U.S. on March 15th for a recital with the Cleveland Art Song Festival.
You can catch Jérôme Varnier along with fellow barihunk Stéphane Degout on November 27th in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. Tickets are available online.
Don't forget to purchase your 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar, so that you can enjoy 19 of opera's hottest singers all year.
The role of Heinrich in Wagner's Lohengrin is beginning to fill Austrian bass-barihunk Günther Groissböck's schedule. Earlier this year, he had a successful run in the role at the Vienna State Opera in April and he previously performed it in Tokyo. On November 10th, he'll sing seven performances of the role at the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, before reprising the role in Berlin in April 2015.
Günther Groissböck as Heinrich in Berlin:
He'll be joined in Amsterdam by Nikolai Schukoff as Lohengrin and Yevgeny Nikitin as Telramund, both of whom are making their company debuts. Juliane Banse will sing Elsa and Michaela Schuster is taking on Ortrud. Performances run from November 10-29 and tickets are available online.
In Berlin, the all-star cast includes Klaus Florian Vogt as Lohengrin, Waltraud Meier as Ortrud and Anja Harteros as Elsa. Tickets are available online. Ring Cycle fanatics will be thrilled to know that Groissböck will sing Hunding and Fasolt in the Munich Ring in February and March.
If want to enjoy an entire year of nineteen of opera's sexiest men,
order you 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar today by clicking on the LULU
button below.
Sasha Waltz's Dido & Aeneas(left)& Douglas Williams
Choreographer Sasha Waltz is bringing her provocative and entertaining work back to opera when she takes on Monteverdi's Orfeo with the Dutch National Opera. Waltz had great success with Purcell's Dido & Aeneas in 2005 and 2011 with her brilliant combination of dancers and opera singers.
Orfeo promises to have a lot of singing and dancing and the cast is lead by one of the most popular barihunks on our site, Douglas Williams. Williams has made a specialty of baroque music, singing Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane, Purcell's Apollo e Dafne, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and Purcell’s King Arthur.
We can't imagine a singer better suited to a Sasha Waltz production. Performances are on September 3, 5 and 6 and tickets are available online.
Dutch barihunk Thomas Oliemans is starring in the world premiere of Martijn Padding's new opera Laika at the Dutch National Opera in a co-production with the Holland Festival 2014.
Martijn Padding and librettist P.F. Thomése poke fun at the superficiality of ratings-obsessed television programs. Oliemans stars as Robbert, a famous TV personality who is tired of his fame and popularity and his superficial life.
Behind the scenes at Laika with Martijn Padding & Thomas Oliemans:
Robbert still lives with his domineering mother, who keeps the embalmed body of his father on display in the living room. He dreams of abandoning TV and aspires to a more peaceful life with personal privacy. Since his early youth he has immersed himself in the cosmos. After meeting astronaut Yuri Gagarin and a Laika, the first living animal to be sent into space, Robbert decides to embark on his own journey into space.
Performances run from June 3-8 and tickets are available online.
We'd be lying if we didn't admit that the bare butt in the ad for the Dutch National Opera (formerly De Nederlandse Opera) caught our attention. Curiosity got the best of us and we checked to see if anyone equally sexy was in their upcoming 2014-15 season.
We also noticed pretty quickly that if sex sells,
they'll have very few empty seats in the house, as that every opera
features fairly provocative photography.
Doug Williams
We didn't have to dig too deep into their calendar, as their first complete opera of the season, Monteverdi's Orfeo, features barihunk Doug Williams as Caronte. Readers may recall that we just featured baroque music's sexiest performer in a production of Handel's Agrippina in Omaha.
Jérôme Varnier
Next up is Jérôme Varnier as Siroco in Emmanuel Chabrier's L’étoile, which runs from October 4-16. The company then switches to Wagner's Lohengrin with Günther Groissböck as Heinrich der Vogler. They wrap up the 2014 portion of their season with native barihunk Thomas Oliemans as Schaunard in Puccini's La bohème.
