Three barihunks advance to Operalia finals; No sopranos!

Sean Michael Plumb, Simon Shibambu and Johannes Kammler

Three barihunks have made it to the finals of the Operalia competition in Lisbon, Portugal. South Afrian bass Simon Shibambu, American baritone Sean Michael Plumb and German baritone Johannes Kammler are among the final 12 singers who will compete on September 2nd.

In a bit of shocker, not a single soprano made it to finals. Readers of Barihunks may recall the "Baritone Blackout" in 2014 when not a single baritone made it to the finals despite some amazing low voice talent in the competition.

Bass Simon Shibambu graduated from the Royal College of Music, and in 2017 entered his second season as a member of the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He next appears at the English National Opera in Richard Strauss' Salome, which opens on September 28.

Johannes Kammler is a former Samling Artist and Britten-Pears Young Artist and a member of the Opera Studio at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He next appears in Trier in the title role of Mendelssohn's Elias on October 3. He then heads to the Canadian Opera Company to sing Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte.

Johannes Kammler sings Pierrot's Lied:

Sean Michael Plumb was graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music and made his national television debut in the HBO documentary “Renée Fleming: A YoungArts MasterClass.” He is currently a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper ensemble. He next appears as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte with the Kentucky Opera opening on September 21.

The other finalists are the brilliant American mezzo-soprano Samantha Hankey, Russian tenor Migran Agadzhanyan, Candian mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, Canadian/Italian mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, Portuguese tenor Luis Gomes, Chinese tenor Long Long, Belarus tenor Pavel Petrov, Swiss/French mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti and Russian tenor Arseny Yakovlev.

The competition's five Zarzuela finalists are mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, tenor Luis Gomes, tenor Pavel Petrov, Brazilian mezzo-soprano Josy Santos and Colombian/American soprano Vanessa Vasquez.

The September 2nd finals will be streamed on Medici.TV and Facebook.

Barihunk Ed Parks featured in Indiana Gazette

Ed Parks

American barihunk Ed Parks, who was the highest ranking baritone at the recent Operalia competition, was recently featured in the Indiana Gazette. Here is the article:

Baritone Parks puts on world class performance by CHAUNCEY ROSS

For Ed Parks, the day he was invited to the prestigious Operalia singing competition in London is more memorable than the day he pocketed a $10,000 prize in the contest.

Parks, the Indiana-raised opera singer, with the Metropolitan Opera of New York and Carnegie Hall on his credit list, took third place in the international competition held last weekend in London.

A renowned baritone, Parks was the top American in the 23rd annual Operalia, a program founded by Plácido Domingo.

Two tenors, Ioan Hotea, of Romania, and Darren Pene Pati, of New Zealand, placed first and second in the men’s division, making Parks, in the eyes of many, the best baritone.

In. The. World.

Parks would be the first to put some perspective on that thinking.

“It’s the best in the world under (age) 32. And there’s a lot that goes into it,” Parks said. “And there are a lot of singers that probably couldn’t even audition because of having summer programs or summer festival work.

“But of the singers that I heard — and I didn’t hear everybody through all the rounds — these are very high-quality singers.”

CONTINUE READING ARTICLE HERE. 

American Barihunk Ed Parks takes 3rd at Operalia

Ed Parks performing at Operalia

American barihunk Ed Parks walked away with 3rd Prize and $10,000 at this year's Operalia Competition in London. He performed Rossini's Largo al factotum from the Barber of Seville in the final round.  Barihunks Tobias Greenhalgh from the U.S. and Bongani Justice Kubheka from South Africa also made it to the final round, where eleven singers competed.

Hunkentenor Ioan Hotea won over the hearts of viewers and judges

Norwegian dramatic soprano Lise Davidsen, who sang Dich, teure Halle from Wagner's Tannhäuser took 1st Prize for women. She also won the Audience Prize for female singers. Romanian hunkentenor Ioan Hotea, who sang Ah! mes amis from Donizetti's Daughter of the Regiment took the top male singer prize. He also won the Zarzuela Prize for male singers. Darren Peni Pati took 2nd Prize for male singers, while Hyesang Park and Noluvuyiso Mpofu finished 2nd and 3rd respectively for women.

Other prizes included a Zarzuela Prize for South Korean soprano Hyesang Park and and Audience Prize for Darren Pene Pati.

Barihunks competing in Operalia finals

Edward Parks, Bongani Justice Kubheka & Tobias Greenhalgh

Three baritones, including two barihunks familiar to readers of this site have advanced the finals of Plácido Domingo's Operalia Competition, which is being held in London this year. Edward Parks and Tobias Greenhalgh, both of the U.S., have been featured on our site before. South African Bongani Justice Kubheka is new to our site.

Edward Parks and Tobias Greenhalgh have both opted to sing Rossini's Largo al factotum from Il barbiere di Siviglia, while Bongani Justice Kubheka has chosen to sing La calunnia from the same opera.

Other finalists include tenor Julien Behr (France); soprano Andrea Carroll (USA); soprano Lise Davidsen (Norway); tenor Ioan Hotea (Romania); soprano Kiandra Howarth (Australia); soprano Noluvuyiso Mpofu (South Africa); soprano Hyesang Park (South Korea); and tenor Darren Pene Pati (New Zealand). In addition to vying for the competition’s main prizes, Carroll, Hotea, Howawrth, Park and Pati will also compete for Operalia’s Zarzuela prize.

Sunday evening's Gala concert will feature Plácido Domingo conducting the orchestra of the Royal Opera House. Operalia will award two $30,000 first prizes, two $20,000 second prizes, and two $10,000 third prizes, with one male and one female singer receiving prizes in each category. In addition, one man and woman will each receive a $15,000 Birgit Nilsson prize for his or her performance of an aria by Richard Strauss or Richard Wagner. One male and one female singer will also be awarded the $10,000 Zarzuela prize, which is meant to encourage singers to work in the art form. There is also an Audience Prize.

Past Operalia winners have included Ainhoa Arteta, Nina Stemme, Brian Asawa, José Cura, Elizabeth Futral, Eric Owens, Erwin Schrott, Joyce DiDonato, Rolando Villazon, Joseph Calleja, Susanna Phillips, Ailyn Perez, Olga Peretyatko and Sonya Yoncheva.

Low voices bounce back in Paris after Operalia's "Baritone Blackout"

Sam Roberts-Smith and Pietro di Bianco

Just days after Placido Domingo's Operalia Competition completely eliminated any low male voices from their finals scheduled in Los Angeles today, the Paris Opera Competition announced that three baritones/bass-baritones have advanced to their finals. Xiaohan Zhai of China, Sam Roberts-Smith of Australia and Pietro Di Bianco of Italy will compete in the Competition's final gala concert on November 19th. 

After the gala performance, three male and three female singers will be selected as winners, with a prize of €5000 (US $6750) for 1st place, €3000 (US $4050) for 2nd place and €1000 (US $1350) for 3rd place.  Special prizes for Best Artistic Performance and Audience Favorite will earn the winners €1000. 

Joining the three in the final concert will be Carol Garcia of Spain, Marina Nachkebiya of Georgia, Daria Terekhova of Russia, Yujoong Kim of South Korea, Miriam Zubieta of Spain, Cristian Mogosan of Romania and Sarah Strauss-Zhai of Germany. 

Xiaohan Zhai sings Leporello's aria from Don Giovanni:

 

Xiaohan Zhai was born in in Kaifeng, China in 1986. He went to France to study at the l'École Normale de Musique de Paris. In 2011, he took second place at the Concours de Clés d'Or and a year later finished third at the FLAME Competition. Last season, he performed Leoporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Festival Saint-Cere.   

Born in 1983, Pietro Di Bianco studied piano at the Conservatoire Giuseppe Martucci of Salerno, where he graduated in 2004. He studied chamber music at the Accademia nazionale de Santa Cecilia and won several national competitions. He was hired as a piano accompanist at the music conservatories in Salerno and Potenza.

 

Pietro di Bianco sings Tamerlano's aria:

 

 
He then took up singing at the conservatory in Aquila and graduated in 2009. He worked with the great soprano Renata Scotto at the opera in Santa Cecilia and with the legendary baritone Renato Bruson in Sienna. He was a finalist at the 62nd Concours européen Associazione lirica concertistica Italiana at the Teatro de Como. He is currently honing his skills with the Bulgarian soprano Raina Kabaiwanska. 

 

He recently received critical acclaim for his performance as Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra National de Paris in a cast that featured fellow barihunk Damian Pass as Masetto (who was eliminated at Operalia!). 

 

Sam Roberts-Smith sings "Sois immobile" from Rossini's William Tell:

 

Sam Roberts-Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Diploma in Opera from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2008. After completing his studies he relocated to Sydney and joined Australia’s national company, Opera Australia.

 

He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards including the Joan Sutherland Society of Sydney Scholarship, the Rosina Raisbeck Award and winner of the prestigious 2009 Australian Singing Competition. As winner of the ASC, Sam was asked to perform at both Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge’s 80th Birthday Galas. 

 

In 2010, after performing the role of Morales in Francesca Zambello’s production of Bizet's Carmen and Yamadori in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, he was invited to join Opera Australia’s Young Artist Program.

SHOCKER: "Baritone Blackout" at Operalia

Despite 11 of the 40 competitors being baritones in this year's Operalia competition, not a single baritone made it to the final round. Many felt that a top prize winner could have come from the talented field of low voices that included Igor Bakan, Aleksey Bogdanov, Alexandre Duhamel, Dan Kempson, Alexey Lavrov, Alex Lawrence, Shea Owens, Damien Pass, Pavel Shmulevich, Anatoli Sivko and Ivan Thirion.

In what has been dubbed the "Golden Age of Baritones," it was a bit of shocker to see a complete blackout of baritones. Baritones have been winning top prizes at almost every major vocal competition in recent years, including the thrilling two runner-up finishers at the Mirjam Helin Competition, Croatian baritones Matija Meić and Leon Kosavic. Jonathan Beyer alone has won no less than 18 competitions. The Lotte Lenya Competition has a distinguished roster of low-voice winners that includes Doug Carpenter, Lucas Meachem, Liam Bonner, Zachary James, Cooper Grodin and Justin Lee Miller. Other examples include Gordon Bintner who won two prizes at the Canadian Opera Company Competition, Scott Conner who won the Loren L. Zachary Competition, Brandon Cedel who won the George London Competition, Jongmin Park taking two prizes at the Neue Stimmen Vocal Competition, Ukrainian Baritone Andrei Bondarenko Wins Cardiff Song Prize and Dominik Köninger winning the prestigious Wigmore/Kohn Competition.

At the Queen Sonja Competition last year, a full third of the finalists were baritones, including American Brandon Cedel, Turk Kartal Karagedik, Croatian Krešimir Stražanac and Moldavian Oleg Tilbulco. And the list goes on, which makes the "Baritone Blackout of 2014" at Operalia all the more shocking!

The finalists at the Operalia Competition will be tenor Joshua Guerrero - USA/Mexico, mezzo Alisa Kolosova  - Russia, soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen - USA, mezzo Carol Garcia -Spain, countertenor Andrey Nemzer - Russia, tenor Abdellah Lasri - Morocco, tenor Yi Li - China, soprano Amanda Woodbury  - USA, countertenor John Holiday - USA, soprano Sicilia Mariangela - Italy Anaïs Constans - France, tenor Mario Chang - Guatemala and soprano Christina Poulitsi - Greece.

You can watch the finals on Medici.tv at 10 PM EST/7 PM PST.

Eleven Baritones Competing in Operalia; Broadcast Live on August 30th

Dan Kempson from the 2013 Barihunks Calendar

Eleven of the 40 singers in next week's Operalia Competition in Los Angeles are barihunk. Competing are Igor Bakan, Aleksey Bogdanov, Alexandre Duhamel, Dan Kempson, Alexey Lavrov, Alex Lawrence, Shea Owens, Damien Pass, Pavel Shmulevich, Anatoli Sivko and Ivan Thirion. Dan Kempson, Alex Lawrence and Damian Pass have been featured regularly on barihunks over the years

Daniel Kempson sings Pierrot's Tanzlied:

Operalia, was created by the legendary tenor Plácido Domingo and is in its third season and has instantly become one of the premiere vocal competitions in the world. The singers will compete over the course of one week, with the ten finalists performing on a concert at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion on August 30th. If you can't make the concert, it will broadcast live on Medici.tv beginning at 7 PM PST.

Domingo's "Operalia" to be broadcast live

Baritone Aldo Heo

We're still listening to the Concours vocal competition from Montreal because we can't seem to get enough of the amazing singing that took place. We've listened not just to the three thrilling barihunks - winner Philippe Sly, 3rd place winner John Brancy and Sidney Outlaw - but to many of the other contestants who wowed us with their vocalism. We were particularly impressed with 2nd place winner Olga Kindler and countertenor Eric Jurenas, who remarkably didn't advance to the finals. 

Yunpeng Wang sings "Ah! per sempre" from I Puritani:

We're hoping that we have time to recover in time for the live broadcast of Placido Domingo's Operalia competition being broadcast live from Beijing, China on Sunday, June 10th. A number of well-known singers were exposed to the opera world at the Operalia competition including barihunks Stéphane Degout and Ludovic Tezier, as well as Joyce DiDonato, Rolando Villazon, Inva Mula, Nina Stemme, José Cura, John Osborn and Susanna Phillips.

Yungpeng Wang

This year's competitors include four baritones, Amaruvshin from Mongolia, Roman Burdenko from Russia, Aldo Heo from South Korea and Yunpeng Wang from China, as well as soprano Janai Brugger form the United States, tenor Like Shing from China, mezzo Nadezhda Karyazina from Russia,    tenor Antonio Poli from Italy,  tenor Hyojong Kim from South Korea, soprano Guanqun Yu from China.  mezzo Olesya Petrova from Russia, countertenor Anthony Roth Constanzo from the United States and  tenor Brian Jadge from the United States. 

You will probably need to be a subscriber to Medici.tv to watch the competition, but we be keeping our eyes and ears open for audio feeds. [We've been informed that Medici will have the Operalia competition online for FREE for 90 days. Enjoy it!].

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Konstantin Shushakov Garners 2nd Prize at Operalia; Gabriel Preisser Advances

Konstantin Shushakov

The baritone winning streak that we've been covering in international singing competitions suffered a minor setback at this year's Operalia competition. Russian baritone Konstantin Shushakov came in second place after being nudged out by American tenor René Barbera and South African soprano Pretty Yende.

"I was one of the two baritones who were allowed into the finals," Shushakov told Voice of Russia. "I was surprised to see how many tenors reached the finals. That was a real battle of tenors, you know. But all competitions after all are aimed to help singers get access to the world`s best opera stages. Very often those who received second or third prizes become even more successful than top-prize winners."

Barihunk Erwin Schrott is a past winner of the competition.

The annual competition, which was founded in 1993 by tenor Placido Domingo, was held last Sunday. The competition is held in a different city each year. During Sunday's ceremony, Domingo received the Russian Order of Friendship for his work in cultural exchange.

Here are some selections of Shushakov from other performances.





Meanwhile, across the globe at the Utah Festival Opera, Gabriel Preisser was redeeming baritones as he won the final round of the Lirico Concorso Competition and will now advance to the interantional finale in Italy. The Barihunks Team wishes him well.

Gabriel Preisser

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New Barihunk: Tae Joong Yang

Tae Joong Yang

Korean born barihunk Tae Joong Yang first came to international attention after performing in the Neue Stimmen competition in Germany. He is another one of our reader submissions from Germany.

Yang resides in Germany, but is a member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera in Austria. Yang continued his studies in Germany with Siegfried Lorenz at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has performed in throughout Europe and the Far East.  In 2007, he won first prize in Plácido Domingo’s famous OPERALIA competition in Paris.

He made his critically acclaimed debut with the Vienna State Opera as Figaro  in Rossini's "Barber of Seville. " As a member of the ensemble he has also performed Schaunard (La Bohème), Christian (Un ballo in maschera), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Silvio (Pagliacci), Marullo (Rigoletto), Belcore (L’elisir d’amore) und Alessio (La sonnambula).

His video of "Largo al factotum" has received almost 200,000 hits on YouTube. 





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Mario Caria Makes U.S. Mainstage Debut in Cincinnati

You have to give the Cincinnati Opera some credit. First, their recent Le Nozze di Figaro featured Barihunks favorite Teddy Tahu Rhodes, then they follow it up with American mainstage debut of Mario Caria. Caria, by the way, also made his U.S. debut at the Cincinnati May Festival. Maybe it's Cincinnati's famous chili, but whatever is bringing the barihunks to this quaint river town, keep 'em coming!

For more information visit: http://www.cincinnatiopera.org/content.jsp?articleId=719

The 32-year-old Sardinian has studied with famed soprano Mirella Freni and has won a series of prestigious vocal awards, including the audience prize at the 2007 Operalia competition. It's easy to see why he'd be an audience favorite, with his smoky Mediterranean good looks and perfect Verdian baritone.

His next U.S. appearance will be with the Washington National Opera portraying Figaro in Rossini's classic comedy: http://www.dc-opera.org/performances/barber.asp

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