Crossing with Rod Gilfry makes NY debut at BAM

Rod Gilfry as Walt Whitman in Crossing

Matthew Aucoin's opera Crossing is making its New York premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from October 3-8. The ageless barihunk Rod Gilfry returns in the role of Walt Whitmen, whose Civil War diary that he kept while working as a nurse inspired the opera.

Crossing explores how the individual experiences of soldiers are remembered and told. As Whitman listens to wounded veterans share their memories and messages, he forges a bond with a soldier who forces him to examine his own role as writer and poet. The opera, directed by Diane Paulus, begins with Walt Whitman's prologue, delivered while facing the audience in front a bunch of rickety hospital beds. Whitman sings, “What is it, then, between us?,” a key line from his poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” While caring for the injured soldiers, Whitman is drawn to a haunted-looking soldier names John Wormley, who is sung by tenor Alexander Lewis. The opera deals with a number of "crossings," including between poet and reader, performer and audience, and the contradictory elements of Walt Whitman himself.

The cast also includes a spate of barihunks, including Davone Tines as a South Carolina slave, Hadleigh Adams, Michael Kelly as a soldier, Ben Lowe, Matthew Patrick Morris and Jorell Williams. Tickets are available online.

The opera heads to California for its West Coast premiere in May 2018 for a concert performance at the Los Angeles Opera, which also stars Rod Gilfry. The opera originally premiered in May 2015 at the Shubert Theater in Boston.

Brooklyn Art Song Society sings with barihunks

(Clockwise from top L) Jesse Blumberg, Jorell Williams, John Moore and Jarrett Ott

The Brooklyn Art Song Society not only has our favorite acronym (BASS), but they also seem to book the hottest and most vocally gifted basses and baritones for their concerts. This year's roster includes many of our favorite singers, most of whom have appeared on this site.

The season kicks off on September 18th with Britannica at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn. It will feature barihunk Jesse Blumberg along with soprano Sarah Brailey, mezzo Kate Maroney and tenor Nils Neubert in music by Dowland and Purcell.

On October 22, Jorell Williams will join soprano Justine Aronson and tenor Joseph Gaines for Ned Rorem's birthday celebration, which will include his King Midas and selected songs. Performances are at Bargemusic at Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn.

On November 6, barihunks Jarrett Ott and John Moore join tenor  Dominic Armstrong at The Old Stone House in Brooklyn for In Memoriam: Songs of the Great War, which includes music by William Dennis Browne, George Butterworth, Gerald Finzi, Ivor Gurney and Ralph Vaughan Williams. On November 11th, Ott and Armstrong will travel to the National WW I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City to reprise their portion of the program.

Jarrett Ott sings Glen Roven's "After Great Pain"

On December 3rd, Sidney Outlaw will be part of a program with tenor Dominic Armstrong that includes Finzi's A Young Man’s Exhortation and Ralph Vaughn Williams' Songs of Travel.

The February 14th concert will bring back Jorell Williams along with soprano Kristina Bachrach and tenor Dominic Armstrong for songs based on Shakespeare. The program includes music by Hector Berlioz, Ernest Chausson, Gerald Finzi, Francis Poulenc, Roger Quilter, Franz Schubert, Richard Strauss, and Peter Warlock.

Additional concerts include Jarrett Ott performing Britten on March 17th, Steven Eddy in a program of love songs on April 2, Kyle Oliver singing Hugo Wolf on April 19th, Steven Eddy and Michael Kelly singing more Wolf on April 29th, and Tyler Duncan and soprano Martha Guth performing the Canadian Songbook on May 22 at The Old Stone House.

Visit the BASS website for a complete list of concerts and performers. Tickets are available online.

Bevy of baritones in Met Auditions in New York

Pnini Grubner and the bass & baritones from the Met Opera Eastern Regional

If you want to hear lots of great low male voices, you'll want to attend the upcoming Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in the Eastern Region on Tuesday, November 19th and Wednesday, November 20th. The group includes at least three singers who have appeared on this site, Jorell Williams, Vasil Garvanliev and Michael Adams. The latter two have also appeared in our Barihunks Charity Calendar.

The competition will be at Merkin Hall from 10 AM - 3.30 PM on Tuesday and from 10 AM - 6 PM on Wednesday. The final concert will be held on January 16th at Merkin Hall. Audience members are welcome to come and go as they please. A $20 donation is suggested for admission. All the money raised is used to provide cash prizes to our winners which they can use to further their careers. You can sign up ONLINE for any or all of the three concerts.

Judges will be Gayletha Nichols, Roger Malouf and Bill Powers.

One of the participants who is new to us is Israeli bass-barihunk Pnini Grubner. The 28-year-old will be performing "Vecchia zimarra senti" from Puccini's La bohème. "Quand la flamme de l'amour " from Bizet's La Jolie Fille De Perth, "Épouse quelque brave fille" from Massenet's Manon, Aleko’s Aria ("Ves tabor spit) by Rachmaninov and "Non più andrai" from Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro.

23-year-old Michael Adams, who was a hit in our 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar is considered by many to be one of the favorites in this competition. The Texas native will be performing  "Avant De Quitter Ces Lieux" from Gounod's Faust, excerpts from Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, "Come Paride vezzoso" from Donizetti's L’elisir D’amore, Onegin's Arioso ("Uzhel Ta Samaja Tatiana") from Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin and "Rivolgete a Lui lo Sguardo" from Mozart's Così fan tutte.

Jorell Williams at the 2011 Lotte Lenya Competition:

Winners of the District auditions advance to their Region Finals where they compete to win a trip to New York to participate in the National Semi-Finals, a competition held on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Approximately ten of the Semi-Finalists are selected as National Finalists and compete the following Sunday in a public concert, the Grand Finals Concert, accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The jury awards approximately five Grand Winner awards of $15,000 each. The concert is broadcast nationwide on the Metropolitan Opera Radio Network. The remaining National Finalists receive $5,000 each, and those singers who were National Semi-Finalists but did not advance to the National Finals will be given $1,500 to further their studies.

Many of the world’s foremost singers, among them Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Ben Heppner, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick have received awards from the National Council.

Vasil Garvanliev

 You can enjoy barihunk Vasil Garvanliev all year in our new 2014 Barihunks Charity Calendar. Remember that all proceeds go to young artists. We've already given out our first grant and are eager to raise money to help more of the singers who will keep opera alive and thriving for the next generation. Click HERE to order you calendar today.

Justin Hopkins to perform "Composers & The Voice" in NY

Justin Hopkins, who was one of our 2012 Charity Calendar models, will perform as part of the American Opera Projects six scenes from "Composers & The Voice." The performances are on Friday, September 7 and Sunday, September 9, 2012 at 7:30PM, at South Oxford Space in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Scenes include "The Waiting Woman" by Ronnie Reshef, "Stop and Frisk" by Sidney Marquez Boquiren, "Companionship" by Rachel Peters, "Safe Word" by Robert Paterson, "Decoration" by Mikael Karlsson, and "Male Identity" by Zach Redler and Sara Cooper. The emerging composers were mentored by John Corigliano, Daron Hagen,  John Musto, Tobias Picker, Kaija Saariaho and Stephen Schwartz.

The composers will discuss with the audience what it takes to create new operas that range from topical subjects like repercussions from a stop-and-frisk incident to the dark humor of an emotionally delicate woman's relationship to her sentient baking dough. 

Joining Justin Hopkins will be soprano Amy Shoremount-Obra, mezzo-sopranos Rebecca Ringle and Rosalie Sullivan, tenor Brandon Snook and fellow baritone Jorell Williams.

The primary focus of "Composers & The Voice" is to provide composers and librettists experience working collaboratively with a group of singers on writing for the voice and the opera stage.  Participants meet in closed sessions from September to April to present and discuss new works composed specifically for the individual voices of AOP's Resident Ensemble. 

Tickets are $15 general admission, $10 for students/seniors and are available at www.operaprojects.org or at the door.

Happy Birthday, Kurt Weill (1900-1950)

Kurt Weill (L) and a poster from Opera Narodowa

The son of a cantor, Kurt Weill was born in Dessau into a family that took in operatic performances as a main form of entertainment. When Weill was in his teens the director of the Dessau Hoftheater, Albert Bing, encouraged him in the study of music. Weill briefly studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and was already working professionally as a conductor when he attended composer Ferruccio Busoni's master classes in Berlin. Delighted to see the positive responses of an audience to his first collaboration with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Protagonist (1926), he thereafter resolved to work toward accessibility in his music. In 1926 Weill married actress Lotte Lenya, whose reedy, quavering singing voice he called "the one I hear in my head when I am writing my songs." 

Kevin Burdette  sings 'Let Things Be Like They Always Was' from Street Scene: 

In 1927 Weill began his collaboration with leftist playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht; their first joint venture, Mahagonny-Songspiel (1927), launched the number "Alabama Song," which, to their surprise, became a minor pop hit in Europe. The next show, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Three-Penny Opera, 1928), was a monstrous success, in particular the song "Moritat" ("Mack the Knife").

Louis Armstrong plays and sings Mack the Knife:

Nonetheless, strain in their association was already being felt, and after the completion of their magnificent "school opera" Der Jasager (1930), the two parted company. Brecht and Weill were brought together once more in Paris to create Die Sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins) in 1934. In the meantime, Weill collaborated with Caspar Neher on the opera Die Bürgschaft (1931) and Georg Kaiser again on Der Silbersee (1933), works that garnered the hostile attention of the then-emerging Nazi party. 

Liam Bonner sings "Lost in the Stars"

With the rise to power of Hitler, Weill and Lenya were forced to dissolve their union and flee Continental Europe. Weill found his way to New York in 1935; rejoining Lenya, Weill became a citizen and devoted himself to American democracy with a vengeance, preferring his name pronounced like "wile" rather than "vile." After a series of frustrating flops, Weill hit his stride with playwright Maxwell Anderson, producing his first hit, Knickerbocker Holiday (1938).

Frank Sinatra sings "September Song"

In the dozen years left to him, Weill's stature on Broadway grew with a series of hit shows, including Lady in the Dark (1941), One Touch of Venus (1943), Love Life (1948), and Lost in the Stars (1949). Weill had ambitions to create what he regarded as "the first American folk opera"; the closest of his American works to reach that goal is Street Scene (1946), a sort of "urban folk opera" based on a play by Elmer Rice with lyrics by Langston Hughes. 

Jorell Williams  sings 'I Got a Marble and a Star' from Street Scene

On April 3, 1950, Weill unexpectedly suffered a massive coronary and died in Lenya's arms. Weill's estate was valued at less than 1,000 dollars, and Lenya realized that his contribution to musical theater was likewise undervalued. She commissioned composer Marc Blitzstein to adapt an English-language version of Die Dreigroschenoper; it opened off-Broadway in 1954 and ran for three years, touching off a Weill revival that continues to this day.

A number of his works were scored for baritone including (partial):
- 1923 : Stundenbuch, Lieder cycle for baritone and orchestra, text: Rainer Maria Rilke
- 1928 : Das Berliner Requiem, cantata for tenor, baritone, male chorus (or three male voices) and wind orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht)
-1928 : The Threepenny Opera (German: Die Dreigroschenoper), Macheath (tenor or baritone), Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum, Tiger Brown and numerous smaller roles.
- 1929 : Der Lindberghflug, cantata for tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht, first version with music by Paul Hindemith and Weill, second version, also 1929, with music exclusively by Weill)
- 1930 : Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Dreieinigkeitsmoses (Trinity Moses), Sparbüchsen Billy (Bank Account Billy) and Alaska Wolf Joe.
- 1947 : Street Scene, Frank Maurrant, George Jones and numerous smaller roles.

David Bowie sings "Moon of Alabama"

Ian Greenlaw sings 'Oh Captain! My Captain!' from Walt Whitman Songs

Songs frequently performed by baritones include (partial):
- Lost In The Stars, F Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Lost In The Stars'.
- Mack The Knife, C Major, composed by Marc Blitzstein, Kurt Weill, from 'The Threepenny Opera'.
- September Song, C Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Knickerbocker Holiday'.
- This Is The Life, Eb Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Love Life'.
- Thousands Of Miles, C Major, composed by Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill, from 'Lost In The Stars'.

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