Cleveland Orchestra to perform 5 operas with 5 barihunks

Simon Keenlyside, Hanno Müller-Brachmann, Eric Owens, Bo Skovhus and Ludwig Mittelhammer (center)

The Cleveland Orchestra announced that it is extending the contract of Music Director. Franz Welser-Möst’s for five years until 2027, which would be his 25th anniversary with the company.

They also announced five operas for upcoming seasons, each featured a noted barihunk.

First up will be Berg's Lulu, which runs from May 16-22, 2020 and features Bo Skovhus as Dr. Schön. The all-star cast will feature Barbara Hannigan in the title role, Jennifer Johnson Cano as Countess Geschwitz and John Tomlinson as Schigolch.

Next up will be a performance of Verdi's Otello in the 2020-21 featuring barihunk Simon Keenlyside making his role debut as the evil Iago. No other cast information was available.

The 2021-22 season will also include Wagner's Parsifal featuring barihunk Hanno Müller-Brachmann as Amfortas, along with tenor Piotr Beczala in the title role, mezzo-soprano Okka von der Damerau as Kundry and bass Peter Rose making his role debut as Gurnemanz.

The 2022-23 will undoubtedly feature a slew of barihunks in Puccini's almost all-male cast in  La Fanciulla del West. Bass-barihunk Eric Owens and soprano Tamara Wilson will both be making role debuts as Jack Rance and Minnie respectively.

The 2023-24 season will feature an all to rare U.S. appearance by Ludwig Mittelhammer, who will be features as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He'll be joined by tenor Julian Prégardien as Tamino and bass Peter Kellner as Sarastro.

Simon Keenlyside to appear at Wigmore Hall

Simon Keenlyside as Golaud
Photo: Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Michael Pöhn

Fan favorite barihunk Simon Keenlyside will appear at Wigmore Hall on July 26th joined by five British jazz musicians.

Keenlyside will sing selections from American jazz and light opera/musicals, including pieces by Kurt Weill, Emmerich Kálmán, Irving Berlin, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter and Billy Strayhorn. Tickets are available online.  

Earlier this year Keenlyside was knighted by HRH The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace for his "services to music." He won a Grammy Award for his recording of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and in 2011 was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year.

Simon Keenlyside as Golaud
Photo: Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Michael Pöhn

In 2016, he underwent thyroid surgery, which kept him offstage for 10 more months.

Upcoming opera performances include Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlo at the Vienna State Opera, Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata at the Bavarian State Opera and Goulaud in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at the Hamburg State Opera.

Simon Keenlyside knighted by Prince Charles

Simon Keenlyside (photos: Clarence House)

British barihunk Simon Keenlyside was knighted by HRH The Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace on February 7, 2019 for his "services to music.'

After the ceremony, he commented,  "I like the fact that the arts in some way are included. It's a wonderful present and I am thrilled to have it."

The 59-year-old singer made his debut as Lescaut in Puccini's Manon Lescaut at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1987.  The following year, he performed Count Almaviva in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Hamburg State Opera. In 1989, he joined the roster of Scottish Opera, where he remained until 1994, performing a wide range of repertory from operetta to Puccini, Britten and Richard Strauss.

He won a Grammy Award for his recording of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and in 2011 was named Musical America's Vocalist of the Year.
 
Also knighted at the ceremony was Nobel Prize-winning author Kazou Ishiguro, who wrote "Remains Of The Day," "Never Let Me Go" and "An Artist Of The Floating World."

Listen to Simon Keenlyside's return as Don Giovanni

Michael Adams (left) and Simon Keenlyside as Don Giovanni in Genève

Simon Keenlyside fans will be thrilled to learn that they'll be able to hear his Don Giovanni from the Grand Théâtre de Genève on June 30th at 8 PM GMT/2 PM EST/11 AM PST on Espace2, the French-speaking Swiss radio station.  

The opera is the final part of director David Bösch's trio of Mozart/Da Ponte operas, which began in Amsterdam with the Marriage of Figaro in 2016 and continued at the Grand Théâtre de Genève with Così fan tutte in 2017. In his 1950s-era production Keenlyside is a hyperactive Don Giovanni who is fueled by cocaine. He takes pictures of his conquests on a Polaroid camera and gives them to his sidekick Leporello to paste into a photo album.
upcoming  performances on June 8, 11, 13, 15 and 17. Tickets are available online.

The opera also features American barihunk Michael Adams as Masetto.

After Genève, Keenlyside heads to London to sing Ford at the Royal Opera opposite Bryn Terfel's Sir John Falstaff. He will return to Don Giovanni in March 2019 at the Bavarian State Opera.

Simon Keenlyside to kick off Opéra de Paris recital series

Simon Keenlyside

Simon Keenlyside will kick of the 2017/2018 Opéra de Paris recital series this year along with acompanist Malcolm Martineau. The British barihunk will perform music by Sibelius, Schubert, Vaughan Williams, Somervell, Warlock, Warlock and Poulenc. The recital is on September 17th, but tickets go on sale on June 8th and are available online.

The series will continue with Sophie Koch on October 15, Mattias Goerne on April 22, Angela Gheorghiu on June 17 and Pietr Beczala on July 8.

Simon Keenlyside sings Francis Poulenc's "Hôtel":

Keenlyside can next be seen as Golaud in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande at the Vienna State Opera from June 18-30. The cast includes Adrian Eröd as Pelléas, Olga Berzsmertna as Mélisande, Bernarda Fink as Geneviève and Franz-Josef Selig as Arkel. Tickets and additional information is available online.

Simon Keenlyside's Don Giovanni coming to PBS

Simon Keenlyside

Barihunk Simon Keenlyside's riveting Don Giovanni from the Metropolitan Opera will be broadcast on PBS on Sunday, February 19th.  Fabio Luisi conducts Tony Award-winner Michael Grandage's staging of Mozart's masterpiece.

The international cast also includes Hibla Gerzmava as Donna Anna, Malin Byström as Donna Elvira,Serena Malfi as Zerlina, Paul Appleby as Don Ottavio, Adam Plachetka as Leporello, Matthew Rose as Masetto, and Kwangchul Youn as the Commendatore.

Check local listings for times. In some cities, the opera will be rebroadcast on February 26th.

Keenlyside is currently singing Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera with fellow barihunk Erwin Schrott as his sidekick Leporello. There is one performance remaining on January 29th, when the duo turns over the roles to Adam Plachetka and Jongmin Park. Performances are on March 2, 5 and 9.

Simon Keenlyside rings in the New Year with Broadway musicals

Simon Keenlyside as Macbeth and Hamlet

British barihunk Simon Keenlyside will spend New Year's Eve at the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman performing music from classic Broadway musicals. the concert will include songs from My Fair Lady, Kiss Me Kate, and Oklahoma!

Keenlyside will be joined on stage by the actress and singer Jodie Jacobs, along with the PKF-Prague Philhamonia under the baton of Charles David Abell. Tickets are available online.

Keenlyside is not new to the world of musicals.  In June of this year, he performed the role of Fagin in Lionel Bart’s Oliver! at the Grange Park Opera in England. He also released a CD titled Something’s Gotta Give on Chandos), which includes Cole Porter’s Night and Day, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’, and If I Were a Rich Man from Fiddler on the Roof.

After the New Year concert, he returns to the operatic stage at the Vienna State Opera in the title role of Mozart's Don Giovanni with barihunk Erwin Schrott as his sidekick Leporello. Tickets are available online.

FINAL CHANCE to order your 2017 Barihunks in Bed calendar before the New Year. 

Glen Seven Allen & Edwin Crossley-Mercer

Kyle Ketelsen's featured on cover of OPERA

American bass-barihunk Kyle Ketelsen is the cover boy on the October 2016 edition of OPERA magazine.

The article points out that Ketelsen has sung all four low-voiced roles in Mozart's Don Giovanni, but that Leporello has become his signature role. We've also called Ketelsen the "definitive Leporello" in previous posts. The magazine article quotes three famous Giovanni's on singing the title role next to Ketelsen's Leporello. Here's what they had to say:

Russel Braun said, "...there are so many ways in which he identifies with Leporello; his kind of patience, very useful onstage, gives strength to the character."

Rod Gilfy stated, "Kyle's Leporello was boyish, sprightly, troubled, playful; very modern...He's a rock-solid, handsome, athletic bass-baritone who sings beautifully; he could sing a myriad lyric bass and bass-baritone roles."

Kyle Ketelsen talks about singing Leporello:

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Finally, Simon Keenlyside added, "Kyle's voice is one of the most beautiful bass-baritone sounds around; he wields the instrument with consummate legato and artistry to match. On stage he is everything a colleague could want...When I know I have Kyle alongside me as Leporello, I know I will be in safe hands. Any Giovanni with a great Leporello alongside him will be so much more than he could ever have been on his own."

Kyle Ketelsen can next be seen at the Opernhaus Zürich in Gounod's Faust, which runs from September 20-October 7. The all-star cast includes Charles Castronovo in the title role, Anita Hartig as Marguerite, Lilly Jørstad as Siebel and Kyle Ketelsen as Méphistophélès.

Simon Keenlyside to "cross over" to sing Fagin

Simon Keenlyside as Fagin

The ageless barihunk Simon Keenlyside is crossing over from opera to musical theater this summer as he takes on the master thief Fagin in Lionel Bart's Oliver!.

Performances will run from June 2-July 2 at the Grange Park Festival. Other than his 2014 CD Something’s Gotta Give, Keenlyside has rarely waded into musical theater. The CD includes "Reviewing the Situation" from Oliver! The musical premiered in 1960 and became and instant hit, almost eclipsing Charles Dickens' original story of the workhouse orphan who falls into bad company.

The Festival will also present Verdi's Don Carlo with Clive Bayley, Stefano Secco, Virginia Tola, David Stout, Ruxandra Donose, Alastair Miles and Jihoon Kim; Puccini's La Fanciulla del West with Claire Rutter, Lorenzo Decaro, Stephen Gadd, Alberto Sousa and Michael de Souza; and, Wagner's Tristan & Isolde with Bryan Register, Anja Kampe, Clive Bayley, Sara Fulgoni and Stephen Gadd.

On June 10th, they'll present a recital with the amazing tenor Javier Camarena. Tickets and additional information is available online.

After his run in Oliver!, Keenlyside heads to the Munich Opera Festival to perform Giorgio Germont in Verdi's La traviata and Renato in the composer's Un Ballo in Maschera. 

You can also catch him in theaters in the MET Live in HD simulcasts on October 22nd when he sings the title role in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni. He'll be joined by Rolando Villazon as Don Ottavio, Adam Plachetka as Leporello, Malin Byström as Donna Elvira, Serena Malfi as Zerlina and Kwangchul Youn as The Commendatore.

David Adam Moore to make Salzburg Festival debut

David Adam Moore (far left in Dead Man Walking at DMMO) and Barihunk Calendar photos (center, right)

Barihunk David Adam Moore will be making his Salzburger Festpiele debut in the 2015-16 season. He will be creating the role of Colonel Alvaro in the world premiere of Adès’ The Exterminating Angel in a production by Tom Cairns.

The opera, which is a co-commission between the Met, the Salzburg Festival and the Royal Opera,  features a libretto by Tom Cairns who based the work on the 1962 Luis Bunuel film of the same name. The co-commission was originally announced in 2011, but was delayed for unspecified reasons. After Salzburg, it will be performed at London's Royal Opera in the Spring of 2017 and at New York's Metropolitan Opera in the Fall of 2017.

Hunkentenor Ed Lyon

Word has it that Moore will alternate the role with fellow barihunk Simon Keenlyside, who has been sidelined with an illness since withdrawing from Rigoletto in Vienna in December 2014. The remainder of the cast is rumored to include hunkentenor Ed Lyon, Alice Coote, Frederic Antoun, Amanda Echalaz and Audrey Luna. 

 Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel will be premiered in Salzburg next year, ahead of performances at the Royal Opera House, London and the Metropolitan Opera, New York.  

Simon Keenlyside cancelling all performances through April

Simon Keenlyside

Simon Keenlyside has posted a message on his fan site that he is cancelling all of his performances through April in order to rest his vocal cords. He is withdrawing from Verdi's Falstaff is Munich, his March concert at Avery Fisher Hall in New York, as well as Don Carlo at the Met and in Munich.

We wish him a speedy recover and look forward to his expected return for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin in Munich. 

Royal Opera takes barihunks on Japanese road show

Liudmyla Monastyrska and Simon Keenlyside (left, photo: Clive Barda); Alex Esposito (right)

 The Royal Opera House is taking three of the most popular barihunks in the works on a tour of Japan in September 2015. The company had a successful tour in 2010, the last time that they toured the island nation.

The company will perform Phyllida Lloyd's production of Verdi's Macbeth with Simon Keenlyside in the title role alongside soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska as Lady Macbeth, Greek tenor Dimitri Pittas as Macduff, and American bass Raymond Aceto as Banquo.  

Alex Esposito looking bari-hunky

Kasper Holten's production of Mozart's Don Giovanni will feature the Italian barihunk duo of Ildebrando D'Arcangelo in the title role and Alex Esposito as Leporello. They will be joined in the cast by mezzo-soprano (and honorary barihunk) Joyce DiDonato as Donna Elvira, tenor Rolando Villazón as Don Ottavio, soprano Albina Shagimuratova as Donna Anna, soprano Julia Lezhneva as Zerlina, and bass Matthew Rose as Masetto. 

Both productions will be conducted by ROH Music Director Antonio Pappano.  Macbeth runs for four performances in Japan beginning September 12th, with Don Giovanni running for three performances beginning September 13th. Information about tickets and venues will be announced shortly.

Listen to Simon Keenlyside's Edinburgh Recital

Simon Keenlyside at Edinburgh (right)

For the next four days one can enjoy Simon Keenlyside's amazing recital with Malcolm Martineau from the Edinburgh Festival on August 20th. The program contrasted English songs of regret and lost innocence in the first half with richly romantic German lieder in the second half.

Keenlyside and Martineau bring together songs from Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad, a touching evocation of a vanishing pastoral England, and Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel, which explore the innermost thoughts and longings for home of soldiers on the front line.

The rich melodies of Schumann’s gripping mini-drama Ballade des Harfners are a fine contrast to the touching pastoral evocations of Wolf’s Fussreise and Blumengruss. For an encore, Keenlyside performs Britten's The Fly from Songs and Proverbs of William Blake. Click HERE to listen to the recital.

You can next catch Keenlyside live at the Royal Opera House where he opens as the title character in Verdi's Rigoletto, in a cast that includes Saimir Pirgu as the Duke of Mantua, Aleksandra Kurzak as Gilda and fellow barihunk Duncan Rock as Marullo. The opera runs through October 6th and additional information is available online.

Here is the entire program for the Edinburgh recital:

Ireland: Sea Fever
Somervell: Into my heart an air that kills
Vaughan Williams: Youth and Love
Eisler: Spruch 1939
Somervell: There pass the careless people
Butterworth: When I was One and Twenty
Gurney: In Flanders
Butterworth: Think no more, Lad
Butterworth: The Lads in their hundreds
Butterworth: On the Idle Hill of Summer
Ireland: Vagabond
Trad: The three ravens
Eisler: Despite these miseries
Eisler: The only thing that consoles us
Finzi: Fear no more the heat o' the sun
Vaughan Williams: The Vagabond

11:40 (during the interval)
Wagner: Siegfried Idyll

12:00
Schumann: Ballade des Harfners
Wolf: Fussreise
Wolf: Denk es, o Seele
Wolf: Blumengruss
Wolf: Lied vom Winde
Wolf: Schlafendes Jesuskind
Wolf: Wie sollt ich heiter bleiben
Wolf: Christblume II
Wolf: Nimmersatte Lieve
Wolf: Lied eines Verliebten
Wolf: Storchenbotschaft

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Simon Keenlyside

Simon Keenlyside

On August 3rd, we're celebrating the 55th birthday of the seemingly ageless Simon Keenlyside, who continues to thrill audiences 27 years after his professional debut. 

Keenlyside began his singing career as a chorister at St John’s College, Cambridge. A keen ecologist, he returned to Cambridge to read Zoology, singing on a choral scholarship, and went on to study singing with John Cameron at the Royal Northern College of Music.

His career has taken him to the world’s major opera houses, singing repertory including Oreste in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, Figaro in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rigoletto, Hamlet, Ford in Verdi's Falstaff) Pelléas and Billy Budd.

A lover of German Lieder, Keenlyside also performs widely in recital, including regular appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall. His discography includes CDs of opera, operetta duets and Lieder and songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Richard Strauss and Vaughan Williams. Many of his performances with The Royal Opera are available on DVD.

Simon Keenlyside sings Richard Strauss' Cäcilie:

He can next be seen on August 20th at the Edinburgh International Festival with accompanist Malcolm Martineau. The program includes Butterworth's A Shropshire Lad, a touching evocation of a vanishing pastoral England, and Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel, which explore the innermost thoughts and longings for home of soldiers on the front line. The recital also includes works by Ireland, Somervell, Eisler, Gurney, Finzi, Schumann and Wolf. The concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 at 11am GMT/4am EST. 

Keenlyside lives on a farm in West Wales with his wife, Royal Ballet Principal Zenaida Yanowsky, and their children. His interests outside opera include planting trees, reading poetry and listening to a wide range of music including flamenco.

Simon Keenlyside: Opera Now coverboy

British barihunk Simon Keenlyside is like that bottle of fine wine that just keeps getting better with age. He has been seamlessly transitioning from a formidable Mozart singer into a world-class interpreter of the great Verdi roles. In fact his upcoming schedule, includes a run as Germont père in La traviata at Covent Garden in May and in Munich in July, as well as the title role in Macbeth, also in Munich.

He is the March cover boy for Opera Now magazine and he offers his usual intelligent and unfiltered thoughts on opera.  Perhaps the most eye-popping comments are about Richard Wagner:

Wagner, on the other hand, as much as Keenlyside admires him, paints with too broad a brushstroke. 'To my mind, the whole can never can be more than the sum of its parts.' the singer says. 'Wagner's stories are always about the bigger picture: right and wrong, punishment, reward. The Teutonic myths in Wagner tell the story of a great, deep, wonderful culture with which, ironically, I have a lifelong love affair. I just don't find his subjects very profound.'

He also provides a glimpse into his upcoming recording of American musicals from the 1940's and 1950's and Verdi's Macbeth. Of the latter, he says:

"Unfortunately, Macbeth is often played too loudly and sung too roughly. We know from Verdi's letters that in the first performance of Macbeth there was an interval of an hour-and-a-half, during which he rehearsed the singers because he was determined that they would sing piano and it the way he wanted. So he held the curtain until they got it right."

 The March issue of Opera Now is currently available on newsstands. 

Barihunks Simon Keenlyside and Chris Herbert nominated for Grammy Awards

Simon Keenlyside (L) and Christopher Dylan Herbert (R)

In case you missed the Grammy Award nominations on Friday or managed to overlook the Opera/Classical/Choral categories in all of the clutter around Jay Z with his nine nominations or Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Pharrell and Justin Timberlake with their seven nominations a piece, we have some nominations of interest.  

In the "Best Opera Recording" category, barihunk Simon Keenlyside was part of the cast on Thomas Adès' The Tempest recorded at the Metropolitan Opera, which also includes mezzo Isabel Leonard, soprano Audrey Luna and tenor Alan Oke.   

Also nominated was a recording of Britten's The Rape Of Lucretia, an opera that we feature regularly due to great barihunk casting opportunities.  This performance is conducted by Oliver Knussen and features tenor Ian Bostridge, baritone Peter Coleman-Wright and sopranos Susan Gritton and Angelika Kirchschlager. 

 

New York Polyphony, which features barihunk Chris Herbert as part of its quartet was nominated for "Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance" for their glorious CD Times Go By Turns. If you don't own this, buy it today. 

 

Also nominated was our Honorary Barihunk and MezzoSexual diva Joyce DiDonato for "Best Classical Vocal Solo" for Drama Queens featuring ll Complesso Barocco under Alan Curtis.

The Recording Academy announced the nominations Friday during a concert at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. The 56th Grammy Awards will be held on Jan. 26 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Click HERE for a complete list of nominations. 

Have you ordered your 2014 Barihunks Charity Calendar. Time is running out. Please remember that every penny of profit goes to help out young artists!

 

Baritones dominate Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition

Johnny Herford (L) and Aarne Pelkonen (R)

As we prepare to watch the finals of the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition, we're amazed at the consistently great baritone voices on the world scene. Five of the eleven singers in the September 1st finals are baritones. They include Johnny Herford, Morgan Pearse, Aarne Pelkonen, Ross Ramgobin and Gavan Ring. Pearse has appeared on this site a few times.

The Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition has been around for ten years and attracts some of the top young vocal and piano talent in the world. Singers compete in tandem with an accompanist. This Competition recognizes the song tradition as a whole and requires contestants to perform in at least three languages. At the same time it honors the Lied’s place at the heart of the song repertoire and celebrates the Shakespearean stature of Schubert in the genre.

Dominik Köninger's thrilling 2011 winning set at the Wigmore/Kohn Competition:

The semi-final round will be held from 3-7:30 PM on September 1 and the final round and award ceremony will begin at 6 PM on September 3 with a dinner break. Tickets are available online.

Fans of great baritones may want to hang around until September 7 when Simon Keenlyside and Bryn Terfel join accompanist Malcolm Martineau for an evening of Schumann and Schubert at Wigmore Hall. Tickets are available online.

Listen to Simon Keenlyside on BBC3 in Eugene Onegin

Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova in Eugene Onegin

Make sure to tune in to BBC Radio 3 all week to hear Simon Keenlyside in the title role of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. The performance was recorded earlier this year at the Royal Opera House and was Kasper Holten's first production for the company after taking over as Director of Opera. The cast includes Krassimira Stoyanova as Tatyana, Diana Montague as Madame Larina and Pavol Breslik as Lensky.

Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova in Eugene Onegin:

Keenlyside can currently be seen in Wozzeck at the Teatro Real in Madrid with Nadja Michael as Marie. Performances run from June 3-20 and tickets are available online.

Watch Simon Keenlyside in Eugene Onegin (if you live in UK)

Simon Keenlyside and Krassimira Stoyanova

If you're in the U.K., you can watch a new production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with the ageless barihunk Simon Keenlyside as Onegin and soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as Tatyana.  The opera from the Royal Opera House was broadcast yesterday under the baton of Robin Ticciati. The opera is introduced by Kasper Holten who makes his debut as stage director at the ROH. Because it's a BBC iPlayer telecast, it's only available in the United Kingdom. The broadcast is available until April 19th.

Regardless of where you are, you can always listen to the BBC radio online with their generous offering of opera.

Mariusz Kwiecien

Next up at the Royal Opera House is barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien as Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa in Verdi's Don Carlo. The cast also includes the riveting Ferruccio Furlanetto as Philip II and hunkentenor Jonas Kaufmann as Don Carlo. Most performances are sold out or nearly sold out, so order your tickets online today.

Dreamy Casting: Barihunks on the air

Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Don Giovanni

Thanks to a heads up from an alert reader, we've learned that Edwin Crossley-Mercer just performed his first Don Giovanni in Dijon, France. He was joined by fellow barihunk Damien Pass as Masetto. If you missed the performance, you're in luck, as it's temporarily available on Medici.tv. Click HERE to watch the entire performance.

Medici.tv has a number of current releases featuring barihunks, including Purcell's Dido and Æneas with Lucas Meachem, Gounod's Romeo and Juliet with François Le Roux, Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with Stéphane Degout and Messiaen's Saint-François d'Assise featuring both Henk Neven and Rod Gilfry.

Guido Loconsolo

On April 4th, Italian barihunk Guido Loconsolo makes his Met debut as the scheming Egyptian general Achilla in Handel's Giulio Cesare. He'll be part of a dream cast that includes David Daniels, Natalie Dessay, Alice Coote and the amazing Christophe Dumaux as Tolomeo.

You can watch the April 27th matinee as part of the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series which will be transmitted live around the world.

Guido Loconsolo previously sang the role of Achilla at Glyndebourne. Earlier this season, he sang the title role in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne, Publio in a new production of Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito at Madrid’s Teatro Real, Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Bolshoi in Moscow, and Plutone in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Freiburg and Essen, Germany.

Simon Keenlyside

Fans of Simon Keenlyside will get plenty of chances to hear the ageless barihunk online. On April 6th, Radio France will broadcast his performance of Berg's Wozzeck from the Vienna, Staatsoper under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst. On April 25, BBC 3 will rebroadcast his Macbeth opposite the riveting Lady Macbeth of Liudmyla Monastyrska from the Royal Opera House. This is a performance that is not to be missed! BBC 3 has also announced that they will be broadcasting Keenlyside's Eugene Onegin from the Royal Opera House. The date and time has not been announced, but we believe that it will be June 1st.

Morgan Smith

On Sunday, April 7th at 8:00 PM/PST San Francisco's KDFC will broadcast Jake Heggie's latest masterpiece Moby-Dick. The opera stars barihunk Morgan Smith along with Jay Hunter Morris, Stephen Costello, Jonathan Lemalu, Talise Trevigne, Matthew O'Neill and Robert Orth. The performance is a rebroadcast from last season.