LA Opera's Ghosts of Versailles wins 2 GRAMMY® Awards

Christopher Maltman as Beaumarchais

The Los Angeles Opera's critically-acclaimed recording of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles walked away with both GRAMMY® Awards that it was nominated for: "Best Opera Recording" and "Best Engineered Recording, Classical."

The cast includes two barihunks, led by Christopher Maltman’s Beaumarchais and Lucas Meachem as Figaro. The cast also includes Patricia Racette as Marie Antoinette, Renée Rapier, Guanqun Yu, Joshua Guerrero, Lucy Schaufer and conductor James Conlon and the LA Opera Chorus & Orchestra.

Also winning was classical music producer David Frost, whose many recording included Ildar Abdrazakov's recording of Shostakovich's Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti.  

Maltman to make Met role debut as in Barber of Seville

Christopher Maltman and Lawrence Brownlee in San Diego's Barber of Seville

A revival of Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia will open at the Metropolitan Opera on November 18th featuring barihunk Christopher Maltman in his first Met performances of Figaro. He'll be joined in the all-star cast with Lawrence Brownlee as Count Almaviva, Isabel Leonard as Rosina, Maurizio Muraro as Dr. Bartolo and Paata Burchuladze as Don Basilio.

The November 22 matinee performance will be transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, which is now seen in more than 2,000 movie theaters in 69 countries around the world. The Barihunks team will be at the November 26th performance!

Tickets are available online. 

On January 10th, Maltman goes to the Bavarian State Opera to perform the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni alongside the Leporello of Alex Esposito. On February 7th, he returns to the opposite coast in the U.S. to sing Beaumarchais in Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles at the Los Angeles Opera. The cast includes Broadway icon Patti LuPone, Patricia Racette and fellow barihunk Lucas Meachem. 

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David Krohn in Beaumarchais Trilogy

[Rosina (mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Jarrett) and Figaro (baritone David Krohn) plan her escape in the Aspen Opera Theater Center's new production of "The Barber of Seville." - Photo byAlex Irvin]

 We might as well keep the trilogy theme going, as the Aspen Music Festival is presenting the Beaumarchais Trilogy from July 31 through August 21. The trilogy's links are Count Almaviva and Rosina who we encounter in Rossini's "Barber of Seville," Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro," and John Corigliano's modern masterpiece "The Ghosts of Versailles."

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French watchmaker, spy, revolutionary, diplomat, gun smuggler and author. His Figaro plays Le Barbier de Seville, Le Mariage de Figaro and La Mère coupbale have provided inspiration for two classics of the standard repertoire and a modern work that seems destined to stay around. 

Beaumarchais was known to show sympathy to the lower classes. Figaro's character is portrayed as more wily than his aristocratic and better-educated counterparts and his plays are filled with mockery of society's "nobler" class. The character of Figaro is still revered in France and throughout the world as a symbol of the common man standing up to the priveleged class.

It is extremely rare to have the opportunity to see the Beaumarchais Trilogy performed in one place, so the undertaking by the Aspen Music Festival is particularly notable. Barihunks fans will be thrilled to learn that David Krohn will perform Figaro in the Barber of Seville. Unfortunately, we don't know who is cast is in any of the other roles since the Festival doesn't post cast lists, which we find highly insulting to young singers. We rarely criticize anyone on this site, but posting the names of conductors and directors, but not singers is inexcusable.

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