Washington D.C. Abuzz; L.A. Disappointed

[Photos from top to bottom: Markus Werba, Nathan Gunn and Teddy Tahu Rhodes]

Washington D.C. is absolutely abuzz and the excitement is palpable. No, I'm not talking about the January 20th Presidential Inauguration. Washington D.C. was a bit gloomy when they learned that budget realities were forcing the cancellation of the planned Ring Cycle. But opera fanatics cheered up when it was announced that barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes would be singing Le Nozze di Figaro as the Count. Even the heralded Washington Post led with the tidbit in their article about the 2009-2010 season.

On the other coast, our Barihunks readers are not too thrilled about the LA Opera's revival of Zauberflote. Barihunks was playing up the fact that this opera was loaded with hunk talent, even on the tenor side. Here is a report from one of readers:

"Nathan Gunn looked like Cyndi Lauper gone mad, with a big blonde wig and a pair of tights that wouldn't have looked good on a ballet dancer. Gunther Groissboeck came out completely unrecognizable in a giant triangle (or whatever). He looked like a reject from the movie "Death to Smoochy." Matthew Polenzani looked like Heath Ledger as the Joker. What a disaster and the second act plodded along FOREVER!"

Then I got this delivered late last night from another reader:

"Is the Los Angeles Opera trying to go out of business? First Rasputin, which was the worst opera I ever saw until LA Opera's The Fly. Now they destroy the standard repertoire with a ridiculous and sometimes ghoulish Magic Flute. If Markus Werba is a barihunk the folks in LA sure didn't want you to know it. I can't wait for the Kenneth Branagh film of the opera so I can see what [tenor] Joe Kaiser really looks like. He was washed in kabuki makeup! DISASTER!"

Ouch!

I was planning to make the quick trek to La La Land for this production, but was sidelined with the flu. Sounds like the flu was more bearable than the opera.

I try to keep this site positive, so if anyone saw this production who liked it, I'd love to hear from you.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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LA Times: Beefcake goes baritone and tenor too

[Photo of Gunn and Kaiser from LA Times; photo of Gunther Groissboeck from http://www.guenther-groissboeck.com]

The LA Times has run a piece on the pretty boys performing in the Magic Flute at the LA Opera. Although they focus on Nathan Gunn and Joseph Kaiser, Barihunks readers will be thrilled to know that Gunther Groissboeck plays Sarastro and barihunk Markus Werba takes over for Gunn in four performances. Amazingly, the LA Times fails to mention both Werba and Groissboeck (who arguably is the hottest guy in the cast - see photo!).

It's nice to see how unapologetically Gunn relishes being a barihunk. Here's part of what he says:

Gunn has become an expert when it comes to visual distractions: “Every opera where there’s a love scene or where I am semi-dressed, like the bathing scene in ‘Billy Budd,’ there’s this attention about ‘Is Nathan Gunn getting naked again?’”

It all started with a 1997 production of Gluck’s “Iphigénie en Tauride” at Glimmerglass Opera in upstate New York. Gunn and tenor William Burden were told to hit the gym for the production envisioned by director Francesca Zambello. “It worked,” he says with a laugh. “The theater was selling out opera glasses.”

More important, as the New York Times noted of Gunn and Burden: “When they are thrown into the temple, bruised, stripped down to loincloths and chained together, they create a kind of intensity rare in the opera house. Their physicality might have been distracting had their singing not been so ardent and intelligent.”

If buzz about his shirtless scenes attracts newcomers, that’s fine, says Gunn, as long as they — as well as worried purists — realize that opera’s traditional reverence for the voice isn’t diminished just because “you make it believable for an audience by having characters who can sing and act and look the way they should.”

To read the entire article, click here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/01/nathan-gunn-jos.html

To buy tickets or to get more information, click here: www.laopera.com.

This site can be contacted at barihunks@gmail.com

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