Russian barihunk Ilya Kutyukhin won the
2019 Paris Opera Competition, taking home both the Claude Dassault First Prize and the Audience Prize. Second Prize went to French barihunk Jérôme Boutillier.
Kutyukhin, a native of Pyatigorsk, Russia, performed
Yeletsky’s aria Ya vas lublyu from Tchaikovsky's ,” and Ebben, cosi si
narra!...Quando le soglie paterne from Donizetti’s La Favorite” and a
duet with Russian-Israeli mezzo-soprano Zlata Khershberg.
Nina Tarandek & Ilya Kutyukhin sing the duet from Così fan tutte:
Kutyukhin is a member of the ensemble at the Bolshoi Theatre, where he has performed Andrey Shchelkalov in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, Moralés in Bizet's Carmen, the Novice's Friend in Britten's Billy Budd and Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte.
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Upcoming roles include Yeletsky in Tchaikovsky's Pique Dame at the Vilnius City
Opera, the title role of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene
Onegin at the Bregenzer Festspiele and Guglielmo at the Bolshoi.
Jérôme Boutillier
Upcoming performances for Jérôme Boutillier include Bardi in Godard's Dante at Opéra Saint-Étienne, Le Précepteur Alidor in Massenet's Cendrillon and the duel roles of Le corrégidor and Bridoison in Offenbach's Maître Péronilla.
Third prize at this year's Paris Opera Competition went to French soprano Melissa Petit.
Pietro di Bianco opens on Saturday, September 13th as Beaupertuis in Nino Rota's Il cappello di paglia di Firenze at beautiful Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, Italy. This performance precedes his upcoming performance at the Paris
Opera Competition on November 19tth, where he will be in the finals with fellow baritones Xiaohan Zhai of China and Sam Roberts-Smith of
Australia.
Il cappello di paglia di Firenze (The Florentine Straw Hat) is based on the classic French farce The Italian Straw Hat by Eugène Labiche and Marc Michel, and the 1955 opera is considered one of the truest opera buffas since the death of Donizetti.
Watch the opera complete in this 1999 production with Juan Diego Florez:
The story is about Fadinard, a nervous bridegroom, who takes a ride in the park the morning of his wedding. His horse finds a straw hat and starts to eat it. It belongs to a young married woman named Anaide who is trysting in the park with her military officer lover, Emilio. Fadinard must find a match for the hat–else fight a duel with the officer–all the while fending off the suspicions of his bride’s father.
Di Bianco's character of Beaupertuis is the jealous husband of Anaide.
(The
Florentine Straw Hat) is based on the classic French farce The Italian
Straw Hat by Labiche and Michel, and it may be the best pure opera buffa
since the death of Donizetti. It has the sparkle of Rossini, the
sassiness of Prokofiev, and the wit of Poulenc. (The plot: Fadinard, a
nervous bridegroom, takes a ride in the park the morning of the
nuptials. His horse finds a straw hat and starts to eat it. It belongs
to a young married woman who is trysting in the park with her military
officer lover. Fadinard must find a match for the hat–else fight a duel
with the officer–all the while fending off the suspicions of his bride’s
father.)
- See more at:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-12670/#sthash.zmyZsG4c.dpuf
(The
Florentine Straw Hat) is based on the classic French farce The Italian
Straw Hat by Labiche and Michel, and it may be the best pure opera buffa
since the death of Donizetti. It has the sparkle of Rossini, the
sassiness of Prokofiev, and the wit of Poulenc. (The plot: Fadinard, a
nervous bridegroom, takes a ride in the park the morning of the
nuptials. His horse finds a straw hat and starts to eat it. It belongs
to a young married woman who is trysting in the park with her military
officer lover. Fadinard must find a match for the hat–else fight a duel
with the officer–all the while fending off the suspicions of his bride’s
father.)
- See more at:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-12670/#sthash.zmyZsG4c.
Performances run from September 13-18 and tickets are available online.
Our latest reader submission comes from Paris, where Chinese barihunk Yu Di is competing in the Paris Opera Awards.
Born in 1981 in Zi Gong, China, he
received his diploma from the Academy of Music in Shanghai. He attended master classes with Carlo Bergonzi, Eva
Marton and Robert White and went on to became a singing teacher at the
University of Shanghai and the Shanghai Theatre Academy.
He made his professional debut
in 2005 at the 22nd International Spring Festival in Shanghai in a concert devoted to contemporary music. He was invited back to the festival to years later. I
In 2010 he sang at the Dublin City Hall in Ireland in a concert organised by the Spring Festival of Shanghai.
Yu DI won the Second
Special Prize in the International Singing Competition of Turandot at
the Teatro Filarmonico de Vérone in Italy in 2009. The following year, he
was awarded the CNIPAL Prize at the International Singing Competition
of Marmande, which led to his professional performing career.
In October 2013, he participated in the
Gala concert of the 30th Anniversary of CNIPAL at the Marseille Opera
with the Marseille Philharmonic Orchestra singing Escamillo's aria “Votre toast...” from Bizet’s Carmen.
