Jacques Imbrailo to premiere new Danish opera Brødre

Jacques Imbrailo

Jacques Imbrailo will premiere composer Daníel Bjarnason's new opera Brødre (Brothers) at the Danish National Opera on August 16th. The opera is based on Susanne Bier’s film Brothers, which is part of the Musikhuset Aarhus’ Bier Trilogy, in which the acclaimed film trilogy by Susanne Bier is adapted into three different genres. Brothers will be performed as an opera, After the Wedding as musical theatre and Open Hearts as modern dance.

Bier not only directed the 2004 film version of Brothers, but she also co-wrote the screenplay for the opera adaptation with Anders Thomas Jensen. The opera will be directed by Kasper Holten.

The tale relates the story of two brothers who both fall in love with the same woman. While the elder brother is on military service in Afghanistan, leaving his family behind in Denmark, the younger brother – who has just came out of prison – ends up spending a lot of time with the family. When they are informed that the elder brother is missing in action, a love grows between the younger brother and the sister-in-law out of solitude and despair. And when the hero returns from war, everything changes.

Performances are on August 16, 18, 20 and 22.  Tickets are available online.

Jacques Imbrailo to sing at gala for soprano's dying husband

Stefano Guidi, Anna Leese and Jacques Imbrailo

South African barihunk Jacques Imbrailo will perform at a gala for Stefano Guidi, the partner of New Zealand soprano Anna Leese. Guidi was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease, an aggressive form of motor neurone disease, and given two years to live. He found out about his diagnoisis last April, just days after the birth of their son Matteo.

The 42-year-old Guidi is an Italian wine-maker recently moved to New Zealand to create a new life and build a family with Anna Leese.

Spanish tenor José Carreras and English baritone Sir Thomas Allen are leading the appeal to raise funds for the family, which aims to raise £25,000.

Bass Sion Goronwy, baritones Phillip Rhodes and Philip Smith will also perform, along with Sophie Bevan, Sarah Castle, Alisdair Hogarth, Madeleine Pierard, David Butt Philip and Wendy Dawn Thompson.

You can buy tickets or make a donation online.

Imbrailo will be singing Horatio in Brett Dean's new version of Hamlet this summer at Glyndebourne. from June 11-July 6 with Allan Clayton as Hamlet and barihunk Rod Gilfry as Claudius. Tickets are available online.

Teatro Real's sexy, "100% Masculine" Billy Budd

Jacques Imbrailo and Borja Quiza in Billy Budd at the Teatro Real

The advertisement for Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Teatro Real in Madrid looks like it was written by Bariunks: "100% Masculine, 8 baritones, 1 bass-baritone and 3 basses..." [and some tenors, etc.].  The production, which is part of their bicentenary celebration, includes a veritable "who's who" of barihunks, including Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd, Thomas Oliemans as Mr. Redburn, Duncan Rock as Donald, Torben Jürgens as Lieutenant Ratcliffe and Borja Quiza as The Novice's Friend.

Teatro Real's sexy ad for Billy Budd

The libretto is based on the novel with the same name by Herman Melville and takes place aboard a ship of the British Royal Navy. The opera tells the story of the sailor Billy Budd: a beautiful youth who is loyal, generous, strong, naive and kind. Billy’s physical attributes and charisma disarm the ship's master-at-arms who is incapable of controlling the situation and in the end, he sacrifices the innocent lad without compunction. 

The Teatro Real certainly plays up these aspects in their production, which runs through February 25. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Barihunk duo in Zürich Pelleas et Melisande

Kyle Ketelsen, Corinne Winters and Jacques Imbrailo

Barihunks Jacques Imbrailo and Kyle Ketelsen are starring in the Zürich Opera's production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, which Russian director Dmitri Tcherniakov has set in a contemporary living room and dining room. This marks Imbrailo's debut with the company.

Corinne Winters and Kyle Ketelsen

Tcherniakov opts to view Debussy's symbolic opera through the lens of Freudian analysis. Ketelsen's Golaud is portrayed as a psychoanalyst who has brought his patient, Mélisande, home for more intensive analysis after finding her weeping in the forest. This production makes Golaud very much the center of focus in the opera. Golaud never learns the reason for Mélisande’s melancholy, nor where she comes from, but she exerts a great fascination over him and he videotapes her therapy.

 

For those not familiar with the piece, the opera is tragic love triangle involving two noble half-brothers, Golaud and Pelléas, and the enigmatic Mélisande, who comes into their lives unexpectedly after a tremendous and undisclosed personal calamity. She marries Golaud, but he is soon convinced of her illicit union with his brother, and his jealous rage ends in Pélleas’ murder.  Mélisande dies after giving birth to a child.

Tickets and additional cast information is available online. 

Barihunk Bradley Travis singing Masetto opposite two fellow barihunks

Bradley Travis

We introduced Bradley Travis back in October when he won the Leonard Ingrams award. This Spring he'll be singing Masetto opposite fellow barihunk George von Bergen in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The company will begin this year's tour at the Hackney Empire on March 5th and perform through June 10th, when they wrap up at the Sands Centre in Carlisle. They will also be performing Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride and Donizetti's Pia de'Tolomei. The entire tour schedule is available online.

Shortly after the tour, Travis will join another barihunk, Jacques Imbrailo, for Don Giovanni with the Classical Opera Company at Cadogan Hall in London's Chelsea district. The June 17th performance will be the company's first production of Don Giovanni in their history.

Travis was born in Cheshire and studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. He recently graduated from the Royal College of Music International Opera School (RCMIOS) where he won the Eric Joseph Shilling Award for Opera.

Bradley Travis sings Masetto's "Ho capito...":

Operatic roles performed include Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Don Iñigo Gomez in Ravel's L’heure espagnole, Lord Ellington in Offenbach's La Vie Parisienne, Ottone in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea all for the RCMIOS. He has also appeared as Count Robinson in The Secret Marriage for British Youth Opera who presented him with the Basil A. Turner Award, Minos Arianna in Handel's Creta, Argenio Imeneo under Laurence Cummings for the London Handel Festival, Alidoro in Rossini's La Cenerentola for Mananan Festival Opera and Lesbus in Handel's Agrippina for Iford Opera. 

He recently made his Opera North début singing Figaro in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and sang the Fireman in Šimon Voseček's Biedermann and the Arsonists at Independent Opera.

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Vittorio Prato, Malte Roesner & Cyril Rovery

 

Celebrating Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd"

Lauri Vasar in Berlin (Photo- Hans Jörg Michel)

Today we celebrate the anniversary of Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd, which premiered on December 1, 1951 at the Royal Opera House in London. Britten originally planned on having Sir Geraint Evans sing the title role, but the great baritone felt that the role sat too high for his voice. Britten opted for blond heart thrrob Theodor Uppman as his replacement. The opera received 17 curtain calls and Uppman was acclaimed as a new star. Evans remained in the cast as Mr Flint.

Billy Budd received its United States première in 1952 at Indiana University with Jack Gillaspy in the title role. Gillaspy went on to have a career primarily in Germany under the name John Gillas.

Theodor Uppman

The libretto was written by the English novelist E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier, and is based on the short novel Billy Budd by Herman Melville. The book was first published posthumously in London in 1924. Melville began writing the work in November 1888, but left it unfinished at his death in 1891. The novella was discovered in manuscript form in 1919 by Raymond M. Weaver, who was studying Melville's papers as his first biographer.

It was acclaimed by British critics as a masterpiece when published in London, and quickly took its place among the canon of significant works in the United States.

Jacques Imbrailo at Glyndebourne & Amsterdam

In 1960 Britten revised the score substantially in preparation for a BBC broadcast, and compressed it into two acts. Vere's first appearance after the prologue had been originally the Captain's Muster, in which he addresses the crew at the end of Act 1; Britten cut this, explaining to his librettist Eric Crozier that he had never been happy with that scene, so making Vere's first appearance on the ship a private moment alone in his cabin. Britten changed some of the structural balance from the contrasting Acts 3 and 4. The original version in four acts is still occasionally revived, such as at the Vienna State Opera in 2001 and 2011, and has been recorded at least twice.

The opera was produced on November 6, 1970 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, with Uppman reprising the title role; the cast also included Richard Lewis as Vere, Geraint Evans as Claggart, Bruce Yarnell as Redburn, Raymond Michalski as Flint, and Arnold Voketaitis as Ratcliffe.

Lucas Meachem, Craig Verm, Liam Bonner and John Chest

The opera has become a calling card for barihunks, as Herman Melville described Billy Budd as a fine physical specimen at age twenty-one, renowned for his good looks and gentle, innocent ways. It was recently performed in Berlin with John Chest in the title role, who we once described as a Brad Pitt lookalike. Other recent barihunk portrayals include Liam Bonner at the L.A. Opera, calendar model Craig Verm in Santiago, Jacques Imbrailo at Glyndebourne and in Amsterdam, Lauri Vasar in Berlin, Lucas Meachem in Paris, Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Sydney and Santa Fe, and Daniel Belcher in Houston. Other famous barihunk Billy Budd's include Simon Keenlyside, Peter Mattei, Nathan Gunn, Rod Gilfry, Bo Skovhus and Thomas Hampson.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Santa Fe & Sydney

The author E. M. Forster had an interest in the novella, which he discussed in his Clark lectures at Cambridge University. Having admired Britten's music since attending a performance of The Ascent of F6 in 1937, he first met the composer in October 1942 when he heard Peter Pears accompanied by Britten perform the Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo at the National Gallery. In 1948, Britten and Forster discussed whether Forster might write an opera libretto, and by that November, Britten seems to have mentioned Billy Budd as a possible work to be adapted. Forster agreed to this project, and worked with Eric Crozier, a regular Britten collaborator, to write the opera's libretto.

The next scheduled Billy Budd is at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova in April 2015 with Philip Addis in the title role. 

Pietro di Bianco, Michael Hewitt & Michael Scarcelle

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Schrott seeks tenor soul via Twitter

Erwin Schrott tweets to Charles Castronovo

There are few opera singers who we enjoy more on social media than Erwin Schrott. His posts on Facebook, Twitter and his blog are a great way to follow his career and enjoy a few laughs along the way. This tweet to Charles Castronovo, who was Faust to Schrott's Méphistophélès in Gounod's opera in Baden-Baden, is classic Erwin. The duo were joined by fellow barihunk Jacque Imbrailo, who was Valentin.

Upcoming appearances for Schrott include a July 12 concert with soprano Nino Machaidze in Linz and the Count in Le nozze di Figaro in Munich. The all-star cast includes Gerald Finley as Figaro, Christine Schäfer as Cherubino and Véronique Gens as the Countess. Performances run from July 17-24 and tickets are available online. On December 4th, he'll take his Count to the Metropolitan Opera alongside fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien as Figaro.

Introducing British Barihunk Toby Girling

Toby Girling in Zatopek! (left) and Winterreise (right)

Some singers just seem to inspire directors to get them into various states of undress and British barihunk seems to be one of them. We originally saw the picture of him from Zatopek! (above left) when we were posting about his castmate Peter Brathwaite and then the picture of him on the right from a Bluebeard's Castle/Winterreise double bill showed up in our messages. Girling is the sole vocal performer in Schubert's Winterreise with the Vlaamse Opera, which will run in Antwerp through May 10th. Tickets are available online.

Toby Girling is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He was a member of the Glyndebourne Opera Festival Chorus in the Michael Grandage production of Britten's Billy Budd, in which he also sang the role of Arthur Jones and covered the role of Donald. Regular readers may recall that Glyndebourne's Billy Budd also featured barihunks Jacques Imbrailo and Duncan Rock. 

Toby Girling sings Der Lindenbaum from Schubert's 'Die Winterreise:

He has sung at a number of major festivals other than Glyndebourne. These include a 2011 performance of Ben in Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti at the Wexford Festival, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte and the Sorceress in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas at the Verbier Festival, and Ceprano in Verdi's Rigoletto at the Iford Festival. He also performed in both Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and Fiorello in Rossini's the Barber of Seville to great acclaim with the English Touring Company.

He is currenlty a Studio Artist at Oper Frankfurt, where he performed as the Flemish Deputy in a revival of Verdi's Don Carlo.  Other appearances with the company include Ein Steuermann in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, Manuel in de Falla's La Vida Breve and Mann in Sallinen's Kullervo.

Barihunks dominate 2014 International Opera Awards

Stéphane Degout and Duncan Rock

The nominations for the 2014 International Opera Awards have been announced and barihunks are dominated many of the categories. The awards ceremony features nineteen categories, including Best New Production, Best Chorus, Best Conductor, Best CD, Best DVD, Best Rediscovered Work and even Best Philanthropist. The awards are the work of British opera patron Harry Hyman and the the British magazine Opera.

The Best Male Singer category is dominated by barihunks Stéphane Degout, Peter Mattei, Luca Pisaroni and Ludovic Tézier, pitting some of the sexiest and most vocally gifted performers against each other.

Barihunks calendar model Duncan Rock has been nominated as Best Young Singer for the second consecutive year.

Christopher Maltman in ENO's 2001 production of Rape of Lucretia

In the Best DVD Category Jake Heggie's Moby-Dick conducted by Patrick Summers and featuring Morgan Smith leads the pack. The DVD was featured in our Best of 2013 feature in December as the best performance on disc. Also nominated was Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with conductor Stefan and featuring Jacques Imbrailo and Britten's The Rape of Lucretia conducted by Paul Daniel and featuring the barihunk duo of Christopher Maltman and Leigh Melrose.

The Opera Awards will take place on Monday 7th April at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane, London. You can check out the entire list of nominees and categories at the Opera Awards website.

Glyndebourne to stream six operas

Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd (Photograph: Tristram Kenton)

This summer Glyndebourne will be streaming six operas worldwide, three live from the festival and three recorded in previous seasons.

The first opera to be streamed will be Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos on June  4th at 7:00pm GST.  It will be followed by Verdi's Falstaff on June 21st at 1:30pm GST.    

Of interest to barihunk lovers is the July 12th broadcast of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro featuring Audun Iversen's Count and Vito Priante's Figaro from a 2012 performance. Also of interest will be Jacques Imbrailo as the title character in Britten's Billy Budd slated for broadcast on August 23rd.

In between those two operas will be Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie on July 25th and Donizetti's Don Pasquale on August 6th.

Visit the Glyndebourne website for more information.

Benjamin Britten's Centenary Will Keep Barihunks Busy

Duncan Rock: Hugely popular with our readers

When we flip over the December 2012 Barihunks calendar in twelve days, we will enter the centenary of Benjamin Britten's birth. It will prove to be a busy year, as along with Mozart, his operas have provided the most eye candy to our readers.

Britain's The Independent takes a look at the upcoming year and lists their Top 10 performances of 2013 (listed at the end of this post). We have our own list of performances that we're looking forward to since certain operas like Billy Budd and The Rape of Lucretia have provided us with some of our favorite posts.

On August 10th, the Glyndebourne Festival will present Billy Budd with three barihunks who have appeared on this site: Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd, Christian Van Horn as Lieutenant Ratcliffe and the mega-popular Duncan Rock as The Novice’s Friend. We should also mention that the sublimely gifted tenor Mark Padmore will be Captain Vere. Visit the Glyndebourne website for additional information.

Dae-Hee Shin als Tarquinius und Carolina Krogius als Lucretia in Eisenach

Although many schedules and much casting has not been announced yet, here are some of the notable performances that we're watching. The Rape of Lucretia will be performed in Eisenach, Florence, Oslo and Trieste. Jacques Imbrailo will take his Britten on the road as Tarquinius in Florence in May. Peter Grimes is scheduled in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Stockholm. Albert Herring will be performed in Milwaukee, Sydney, Toulouse and Victoria with barihunk Sam Dundas taking on the role of Sid in Sydney,  Barihunks Calendar cover model Craig Verm taking on the same role in Toulouse and Phillip Addis as Sid in Victoria. The Pacific Opera in Victoria is also having a mini-Britten festival that will also include his rarely performed opera Noye's Fludde and Let's Make an Opera/The Little Sweep. There will be plenty more of these being announced and we'll make sure to keep you apprised.

The Turn of the Screw may end up being the most performed of Britten's operas in 2013, with performances already announced for Bologna, Istanbul, Kassel, Cologne, Mannheim, New York City Opera, Saarbrucken, Tel Aviv and West Palm Beach. 

Sam Dundas

10 INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS from The Independent:
• Brazilian premiere of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', São Paolo (March 2013)
• 'Peter Grimes' performed on the beach during the Aldeburgh Festival (June 2013)
• Royal Opera House: 'Gloriana', new production by Richard Jones (June 2013)
• Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics give joint performance of the 'War Requiem' in Berlin conducted by Sir Simon Rattle (June 2013)
• Choir of London tours the Palestinian Territories (August 2013)
• Israeli premiere of 'Curlew River', Tel Aviv (September 2013)
• Focus on Britten at Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals, USA (August 2013)
• Opera North devotes entire season to Britten operas (from September 2013)
• Moscow Festival of Britten includes Russian premiere of 'Death in Venice' at Moscow Conservatoire and an exhibition at the Pushkin Museum (November 2013)
• 75,000 schoolchildren in the UK sing 'Friday Afternoons' simultaneously on Britten's centenary (22 November 2013)

ONLY 11 DAYS LEFT TO BUY YOUR 2013 BARIHUNKS CHARITY CALENDAR FEATURING DUNCAN ROCK AND 13 OTHER STUNNING MEN!:

New to Barihunks: Georg Nigl

Nigl today and as a child soloist; As Don Giovanni in center

We recently asked readers to submit names of potential barihunks who haven't appeared on this site before. So far, we've received about 30 submissions, so our original idea of putting our reader submissions into one post flew out the door. A few of them jumped out at us, like Austrian baritone Georg Nigl, who originally made a name for himself as a child soloist with the Vienna Boys Choir. Readers may remember our popular post about Jacques Imbrailo that featured him as a child soloist. 

Here is Nigl singing Mozart's "Laudate Dominum" with the Vienna Boys Choir from Japan in 1986.

Here is Nigl 23 years later singing Henry Purcell's "You twice tne hundred deities," Z.630 wth Luca Pianca on lute.



Nigl has a wide ranging repertory that features Monteverdi’s Orfeo, Mozart’s Papageno and Berg’s Wozzeck. Nigl's biography points out that they are all "human characters with an inherent brokenness."

He has sung at the Teatro alla Scala, Staatsoper Unter dem Linden Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels, Festival Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg Festival and the Vienna Festwochen. He also has released a number of recordings on a variety of labels. He can next be seen at De Nederlandse Opera next month performing Wolfgang Rihm's "Dionysos."

We are still accepting submissions for barihunks who are new to this site. Please send your suggestions to Barihunks@gmail.com.

Nigl in La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein

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Imbrailo back as Billy Budd (as Britten and Melville intended)

Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd

Jacques Imbrailo, who recently starred in a somewhat controversial production of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne, is tackling the title role in a different production. Imbrailo will perform in the heralded Richard Jones production that we previously saw Peter Mattei perform at Frankfurt.

Imbrailo created a bit of a tempest before the Glyndebourne run with some comments he made in the Sunday Times that suggested to some that he was trying to take the gay element out of the opera. Here is an excerpt;

Imbrailo features on a website called barihunks.blogspot.com, whose breathless preview of Billy Budd is: “Let’s hope the production is shirtless.”

“They’re going to be disappointed,” says Imbrailo. “That’s a lazy way to characterise; Billy swinging round pipes. He doesn’t have to be a gym bunny.” Never mind Billy’s biceps, Imbrailo would rather emphasise his goodness.

Barihunks was besieged with emails and comments not just from readers, but from people involved with the production who felt that "stuffy" Glyndebourne was trying to rewrite the story to make Claggart troubled with Billy's "goodness" and removing the gay attraction. Of course, the current production is in the Netherlands where they celebrate rather than run from gay themes in opera. This production's Claggart, Clive Bayley, makes it clear in the preview video that Claggart is clearly gay and attracted to Billy, but decides to destroy what he loves.

Jacques Imbrailo: Not afraid to disappoint Barihunks readers?

Assuming he needed to redeem himself, Imbrailo has clearly done it in this production. One Dutch reviewer described Imbrailo and "vigorous" and "charismatic" with just the right baritone sound. He clearly didn't shy away from portraying a sexy Billy Budd and he appears to have redeemed himself with those "disappointed" Barihunks readers he previously referenced.




The Netherlands Opera has added a Gay Date Night on March 25th for the current of the opera. Details can and ticket information are available on their website. We hope that Glyndebourne does the smae thing when they mount Billy Budd again.

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Raves For Schrott/Kwiecien Pairing In London

 [Mariusz Kwiecien and Annette Dasch]

It doesn't get any better that Mariusz Kwiecien and Erwin Schrott singing together - vocally or visually. The reviews are in for this pairing and it sounds like the two Über-Hunks stole the show.


The Times of London wrote:


"...Erwin Schrott who, in superbly cultivated voice, has a knowing, dignified and often very amusing sense of self-possession and a vocal depth that, in Act IV, can find the true darkness of despair. His counterpart in the struggle for male self-awareness is the Count of Mariusz Kwiecin, a rabid hunter, filling his own inner vacuum with a virtuoso anger and violence that can make body and voice quiver from top to toe."

 [Kwiecien & Schrott talking to the BBC]

Mark Berry, writing for MusicWeb wrote:

"...there were two stellar performances from Erwin Schrott as Figaro and Marius Kwiecien as the Count. Both are artists – and actors – of extraordinary charisma. Testosterone levels registered during their confrontations might well have exceeded all previous records. Never have I felt so keenly the fury of Figaro’s ‘Perché no?’ immediately prior to the third act finale. The Count’s frustrations of his valet had finally pushed him too far; I thought he might kill his master. For the chemistry between the two baritones was something special indeed, their relationship far more credible than any other. Kwiecien possessed the stage as to the manor born, the dark arrogance of his vocal portrayal enhanced by his physical presence. And the slipping away of his authority, supplanted by the upstart Figaro, was if anything all the more impressive in its astonishing subtlety. But victor, of course, there could only be one: Schrott left one in no doubt that this was ultimately Figaro’s show. Try as I might, I could not summon up a single reservation – and, to be frank, I have no inclination to do so. Whether it be his ease with the Italian language, the diction of extraordinary and meaningful clarity, not least in his daring sashays into parlando delivery, the beauty of his legato tone, the smouldering sexuality, or the equally extraordinary vulnerability displayed in his fourth-act aria, this Figaro had it all. Schrott’s is an assumption every bit the equal of his astounding Don Giovanni."

 [Erwin Schrott, Photo by Bill Cooper]

 Tim Ashley in the Guardian wrote:

"...in Mariusz Kwiecien's Count and Erwin Schrott's Figaro we have performers equal in vocal and dramatic sensibility, capable of realising the central conflict in terms of psychology and class consciousness.

You sense danger whenever they are on stage. Kwiecien's sexual insistence carries the terrifying potential for abuse. Schrott paces like a frustrated animal before stalking the Count with a shotgun. The climax comes in a phrase of recitative, often overlooked. "I never dispute matters of which I know nothing," Schrott hisses at Kwiecien, eyeball to eyeball for the first time. The world seems changed in an instant."

The production at the Royal Opera House runs through July 3 and Jacques Imbrailo will take over for Kwiecien in the later performances.
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Duncan Rock's Video Diary of Billy Budd

If our email is any indication, then Duncan Rock not only has a lot of fans who find him quite hot, but a lot of colleagues who really love working with him. We started hearing about the hunky singer last year and ran our first post in January when he released his Elgar recording. There are a couple of themes in every email, mainly that he's fun, a great colleague, and "check out that body and those arms."

He is also a gifted singer and you can hear him sing Finzi and Mussorgsky at InstantEncore.

We also received a ton of email about the Billy Budd at Glyndebourne, which generated intense passions. One of the choristers was nice enough to alert us to Duncan Rock's video diary of the production. We've had some issues getting video margins to work, so you can watch it HERE if you have problems.





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WSJ Bemoans Billy Budd Minus Sexual Tension

It looks like the American press wasn't quite as forgiving as the British press when it came to Michael Grandage's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne. Both the director and the Billy Budd - Jacques Ibrailo - talked openly before opening night about their desire to focus more on Billy's goodness than the sexual tension in the libretto. Howls erupted from some within the opera community, but the British press still gave the production polite if not favorable reviews. However, Paul Levy in the Wall Street Journal was pretty forthright in his criticism.

Mr. Grandage seems to have eliminated the homosexual theme from the piece. As Billy, who is so good-looking that he is nicknamed "Beauty," Jacques Imbrailo radiates goodness and innocence. Most productions rely on the dramatic tension created by the feelings both Captain Vere and the Master-at-Arms, Claggart, have for the handsome able seaman, Billy, who has been press-ganged from his passing merchant ship, Rights o' Man. Neither John Mark Ainsley's Vere nor Phillip Ens's Claggart seems to have any sexual desire for Billy. Though it feels deliberate, this could, of course, simply be a failing in their performances.

In any case, it exposes a real weakness in the work's first half, in which Billy, unjustly accused by Claggart of inciting mutiny, stammeringly fails to defend himself, and in frustration strikes him dead with a single blow. The only witness is the unfailingly just Captain Vere. As he wrote to literary critic Lionel Trilling, Forster was more interested in Vere's lapse from goodness than in Claggart's "natural depravity." The novelist thought he'd written Claggart's monologue along the lines of Iago's in Verdi's "Otello," but in the absence of the sexual chemistry that usually conceals the poverty of the text, Claggart's Act I aria is just a statement of an inexplicable hatred for Billy. Forster's words don't even support a Coleridgean analysis of Iago and Claggart's characters as pure, unmotivated evil.

Read the entire review HERE.

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Imbrailo's Billy Budd Well Received

The reviews are in for Jacques Imbrailo's much anticipated Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and it appears to have been a critical success. One of the criticisms before opening night was that the director and Imbrailo might take out some of the eroticism that both Hermnan Melville wrote into the original story and composer Benjamin Britten wrote into the opera. Despite the overall glowing reviews, The Guardian touched on the issue in their review:

The story-telling is pellucid, the characterisation focused down to the last rating. All I could have wished for was a little more imaginative playing-out of the repressed erotic tension – the essential queerness – between Billy, Claggart and Vere.

The Independent wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo’s slight but refreshingly modest Budd likewise had to dig deep – and did - to surmount the limitations of his bantam-weight voice and ultimately achieve real pathos through the strength of his conviction.

The entire review is HERE.



The Times of London wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo’s Billy, his fateful stammer intensified to epileptic proportions, has exactly the right mixture of puppyish naivety and physical prowess (his right hook would not disgrace Lennox Lewis), though in his superbly sung final soliloquy he tellingly hints that, beneath the jolly-Jack-Tar bravado, a terrified boy is trying desperately to hold it together.

The entire review is HERE.

The Guardian wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo's Billy is a total joy – slight, lithe and wonderfully guileless, singing his farewell to life with immense dignity and pathos.

Finally, The Stage wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo makes an important career step with his assumption of Billy. In imposing voice, he has the difficult task of presenting a character of natural goodness and entirely succeeds.

Imbrailo now heads to the Royal Opera House for performances of Le Nozze di Figaro and as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale. He will be alternating nights as Count Almaviva with fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien in Nozze. He will reprise the role of Billy Budd at the Netherlands Opera in March 2011. Early reports are that this Billy Budd will be the more radical interpretation that starred Peter Mattei in Frankfurt.

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Two Anticipated Openings in the U.K and U.S.

[Photo courtesy of Ft. Worth Opera]

Early reports from Ft. Worth Opera point to a huge success for their Don Giovanni, led by Michael Todd Simpson. Not only is he joined by the sexy barihunk Tom Corbeil as his sidekick Leporello, but we hear that the singing is going to be incredible (and isn't that what opera is all about?). Of course, we don't mind when there is a litte extra beefcake on stage, as well, and from the looks of things Michael Todd Simpson is looking good.

Don Giovanni opens Saturday, May 22 and repeats on May 30 and June 4. Visit the Ft. Worth Opera website for additional information.

[Photo by Alastair Muir]


Jacques Imbrailo finally makes his long anticipated appearance at Glyndebourne in Billy Budd today. We'll have plenty of more coverage, but we wanted to share with you the first photo, which accompanied an article in The Independent about a long-running feued between composer Bemjamin Britten and Glyndebourne.

The new production at Glyndebourne will run through June 27th. Click HERE for performance and ticket information. The website also contains musical excerpts and a fascinating podcast about the production and opera.

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Imbrailo Says Barihunk Fans Will Be Disappointed WIth Glyndebourne "Billy Budd"

[Jacques Imbrailo]

Jacques Imbrailo has told The Times of London that Barihunks readers will be disappointed with his portrayal of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne. Click HERE to find out why.

[Bo Skovhus: Not afraid to look sexy!]


For those of you who still like a sexy Billy Budd, there are performances of the Benjamin Britten masterpiece coming up at Vienna with Adrian Eröd, Paris with Lucas Meachem, and Frankfurt with Peter Mattei. The Netherlands Opera, which is far more provocative than the somewhat stuffy Glyndebourne, has also booked Imbrailo to sing Billy Budd. Of course, the Netherlands Opera always has other barihunk options. They have Bo Skovhus singing in Eugene Onegin and Henk Neven in Romeo et Juliette.

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Jacques Imbrailo - Then & Now

South African barihunk Jacques Imbrailo started as a boy soprano and when we learned that there was a YouTube clip of him singing the Queen of the Night's aria we had to post it. Like Max Emanuel Cencic and Aled Jones, he managed to get through puberty and have a career as an adult.

Barihunks is eagerly awaiting his debut as Billy Budd at Glyndebourne opening on May 20th. This production promises to be one of the highlights of the 2010 opera season.





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