George Humphreys sings lead drag role in Donizetti's Viva la Diva

George Humphreys' shirtless curtain call in Glass' The Trial

British barihunk George Humphreys just wrapped up a successful run in Carl Maria von Weber's Oberon at the Salzburger Landestheater, where is a member of the ensemble.

He will next appear with the company in Donizetti's comedy Viva la Diva, whose original title was the mouthful Le convenienze e le inconvenienze teatrali (Conventions and Inconveniences of the Stage). Performances start on February 8 and run through April 2.

Donizetti wrote the lead role of La Diva (aka Agata) for a baritone, which opens up another level of comedy as the singer performs in drag. As the drama unfolds and the jealousies come to a head, it is up to La Diva  to rescue an evening at a theater company trying to mount an opera. Donizetti chose a subject that allowed him to compose both virtuosic and parodistic music.

The opera became a great success after its 1827 world premiere in Naples and 1831 performances in Milan, but was soon forgotten. Regular performances did not resume until 1963. Recent performance include a 2015 production at the Volksoper Wien and one at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2017. The National Theatre Prague is currently staging the opera with Roman Hoza in the title role.

The Salzburger Landestheater produces its own version of the opera with a new translation by Andreas Fladvad-Geier, which revives the tradition of transferring the opera’s plot into a local setting to make the parody of the opera world even easier to recognize and appreciate for audiences.

Revised version of Brokeback Mountain debuts in Salzburg

Florian Plock as Ennis del Mar and Mark Omvlee as Jack Twist

American composer Charles Wuorinen's Brokeback Mountain continues to get European performances, while awaiting its US premiere. The latest production in at the Salzburger Landestheater with Florian Plock as Ennis del Mar and Mark Omvlee as his lover Jack Twist. The piece was originally commissioned by Gerard Mortier for the New York City Opera before its demise. Mortier then had the piece premiered at the Teatro Real of Madrid on January 28, 2014.

The piece was subsequently performed in Aachen, Germany on December 7, 2014 in a new production directed by Ludger Englels, featuring German bass-barihunk Christian Tschelebiew as Ennis Del Mar and Dutch tenor Mark Omvlee as Jack Twist. In the world premiere, Ennis Del Mar was performed by Daniel Okulitch and Jack Twist by Tom Randle.

The Salzburger Landestheater production will premiere a new chamber version by the composer for 24 instruments and will be directed by Jacopo Spirei, and conducted by Adrian Kelly.

Wuorinen used Schoenberg's half-sung, half-spoken Sprechstimme as a way for the character of Ennis to express himself in the early part of the opera. He does not develop sung lines until the second act, as before that he cannot acknowledge who he really is. He associates the two leads with different musical pitches, "B-natural and C-sharp, a whole step apart, yet divided by a third tonal area associated with the mountain itself, based on a low C."

There are six more performances between now and April 21 and tickets are available online.

Reader submission: Simon Schnorr in sexy operetta

Simon Schnorr in Don Giovanni

A reader in Germany alerted us to a very sexy production of Benatzky's Im Weissen Rössl at the Salzburger Landestheater. They described the production as filled with "Verlockende Männer" (seductive men) and a "sexy Bariton" named Simon Schnorr, who was playing Dr. Otto Siedler.

Well, that caught our attention. 

The Tyrolean set operetta isn't normally known for being particularly sexy, although it may appeal to a few lederhosen fetishists. However, this production serves up a good number of men wearing only white lederhosen, scenes with men in one-piece swimwear, shirtless dancers and a scene involving some dropped trousers. Sometimes German regie theatre has its benefits.

Two scenes from Benatzky's Im Weissen Rössl

Munich native Simon Schnorr was a member of the famed Tölzer Knabenchor in his youth, allowing him to perform as a chorister and alto soloist in many of the major European opera houses and concert halls. He pursued his vocal training with scholarships from the MIGROS-Kulturstiftung in Zürich and from the Richard Wagner Association in Karlsruhe. He went on to win the International Schubert Song Competition in Osaka, the Franz-Völker prize in Neu-Isenburg and the Gustav-Scheck price in Freiburg.

In 2008, Schnorr made his debut at the Staatstheater Karlsruhe playing the role of Morales in Bizet's Carmen and subsequently became a full time member of their Opera Studio. During that time he performed Ping in Puccini's Turandot, Donner in Wagner's Rheingold, the Sergeant in Puccini's Manon Lescaut, Dumas in Giordano's Andrea Chenier and Viconte Valvert in Alfano's Cyrano de Bergerac. To great acclaim, he took over the role the Traveler in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice on short notice.

Since the 2009-2010 season Simon Schnorr has been a permanent member of the Salzburger Landestheater where he debuted as Count Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro. Other roles with the company include Don Giovanni, Count Almaviva, Guglielmo, Eisenstein, Dandini, Belcore, Eugene Onegin and roles in Gluck's La Rencontre imprevue and Krenek's Jonny spielt auf.

Two scenes from Benatzky's Im Weissen Rössl

In 2012, he performed Giacomo II alongside the famed actor John Malkovich in the music theater project "The Giacomo Variations" and toured Canada with the show in 2013. The piece is based on the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova and features arias from Mozart's operas. He was also hailed by the press for his interpretation of the baritone part in Frank Martin's In terra pax at the Europäischen Kulturtagen (European Culture Days).

Performances of Benatzky's Im Weissen Rössl run through April 9 and tickets are available online. Schnorr will also appear with tenor Franz Supper at the Salzburger Landestheatre's New Year's Eve concert where they'll perform music by Johann Strauss and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.


If you can't make it to Austria, you can watch him on the Salzburg Festival's DVD of Alban Berg's Lulu. 

There are less than three weeks left to purchase your 2015 Barihunks Charity Calendar, featuring the sexiest men in all of opera. Order yours today by clicking below. All proceeds from this year's calendar is going directly to singers.