Martin Achrainer (shirtless) in another Philip Glass premiere

Martin Achrainer in Spuren der Verirrten

Tyrolian barihunk Martin Achrainer is making quite a name for himself as an exponent of new works by American minimalist composer Philip Glass. An alert reader spotted these pictures from Glass' new German language opera Spuren der Verirrten (“Footprints of the Lost”)," which is based on the play by Peter Handke. We've previously seen Achrainer in Glass' Orphée and in the world premiere of Kepler.

Much of this is attributable to the fact that Achrainer is in the ensemble at the Landestheater Linz, where the music director and principal conductor is long-time Philip Glass collaborator and champion Dennis Russell Davies.  Glass wrote “Spuren der Verirrten” for the opening of the new Musiktheater am Volksgarten, a state-of-the-art opera house that Davies was instrumental in getting built.

Martin Achrainer in Spuren der Verirrten

Although the world premiere of Spuren der Verirrten was in April of this year, the opera is being perfromed again beginning on November 9 and running into January 2014. Tickets are available online. 

Achrainer's character is called "F' and the rest of the cast includes A, B, C, D...you get the picture. Although the opera has many of the typical characteristics of the composer's works, including repetitiveness and minimalism, he has added alphorns and zithers to give it an Austrian flavor. The text is typical Glass, as well, with singers often repeating the question “Where are we?”

The joke at the opera house has been that this work is “Two Notes, One Opera.”

Happy Birthday, Philip Glass: Watch the complete opera Kepler here

OK, we have a birthday theme going on this week. An email message quickly showed up in our email box after we posted the birthday tribute to Franz Schubert reminding us that it is also Philip Glass' birthday. We're big fans of Philip Glass, so we're going to try something new to Barihunks and post the entire performance of his opera Kepler with the Austrian barihunk Martin Achrainer. This performance is from the 2009 production at the Landestheater Linz.

We can't think of a better way to celebrate his modern master's birthday.

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Philip Cutlip in new Philip Glass Recording

Philip Glass continues to gain a presence on Barihunks, most recently for the performances of Kepler with Martin Achrainer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Previously, we posted about Philip Cutlip performing in Glass' Orphée in Portland.

Now Orphée is back in the news, as the Orange Mountain Music label has announced that they are releasing a recording of the Portland Opera Company production, which featured Cutlip. Orphée (1993) was the first of a trilogy of operas that Glass composed on subjects by Jean Cocteau, which also comprises La Belle et la Bête (1994) and Les Enfants Terribles (1996). Orphée was made from a series of live performances that took place between November 6-14, 2009 at Portland Opera. The recording includes a full libretto in French and English, color production photos and cast and performer biographies.


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Kepler With Martin Achrainer Opens at BAM

[Photo of Martin Achrainer as Kepler by Jack Vartoogian/BAM]

Kepler review from the L.A. Times blog.

Read the review from the NY Times.

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Martin Achrainer to Premier new Philip Glass Opera

Composer Philip Glass' latest opera is the story of Johannes Kepler (1571—1630), a founding father of modern science who discovered the laws of planetary motion.

His new score is described as "spacious, elemental, and imbued with wonder" on Glass' website. The hypnotic score becomes the sound of the cosmos as we witness Kepler struggling to reconcile scientific discovery with the divine.

Celebrated conductor Dennis Russell Davies and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz support a stellar cast and 42-member chorus drawn from the Upper Austrian State Theatre, Linz. This means that our main character is being performed by barihunk Martin Achrainer, a regular on this site. The opera will premier on November 20th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then move on to Linz Landestheater on November 27th. Click on the BAM link to the left to hear Philip Glass discuss the opera.

Here is a profile of Martin Achrainer (in German) talking about the role, as well as a preview of the opera:





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