Reader Submission: Dawid Kimberg

Dawid Kimberg (L - Cendrillon)

South African baritone Dawid Kimberg was born in Johannesburg and attended the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School. He moved to the United Kingdon in 2001 and trained at the Royal College of Music with Ryland Davies and the National Opera Studio. He attended the Aix-en-Provence Festival Academy in 2008.


He is currently performing in Massenet's "Cendrillon" at the Royal Opera House in London, which runs through July 16th. On July 17th, he will participate in the Jette Parker Young Artists programs. Click HERE for performance and ticket information for either show.

His operatic roles includes Count (Le nozze di Figaro) and Ottone (L’incoronazione di Poppea) for RCM, Duke (Roméo et Juliette) for British Youth Opera, Bruno (Parthenogenesis) at Canterbury Cathedral, Masetto (Don Giovanni) at the Purcell Room and Morales (Carmen) for Glyndebourne on Tour. 

He represented South Africa in the 2009 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.









He joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme in September 2009 and made his Royal Opera debut as Flemish Deputy (Don Carlo), followed by Steersman (Tristan und Isolde), Potapytch (The Gambler), Morales (Carmen) and Second Nazarene (Salome).
Upcoming performances include Jokanaan (Salome) in Singapore and Dr Falke (Die Fledermaus) at the Bolshoi.

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WSJ Bemoans Billy Budd Minus Sexual Tension

It looks like the American press wasn't quite as forgiving as the British press when it came to Michael Grandage's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne. Both the director and the Billy Budd - Jacques Ibrailo - talked openly before opening night about their desire to focus more on Billy's goodness than the sexual tension in the libretto. Howls erupted from some within the opera community, but the British press still gave the production polite if not favorable reviews. However, Paul Levy in the Wall Street Journal was pretty forthright in his criticism.

Mr. Grandage seems to have eliminated the homosexual theme from the piece. As Billy, who is so good-looking that he is nicknamed "Beauty," Jacques Imbrailo radiates goodness and innocence. Most productions rely on the dramatic tension created by the feelings both Captain Vere and the Master-at-Arms, Claggart, have for the handsome able seaman, Billy, who has been press-ganged from his passing merchant ship, Rights o' Man. Neither John Mark Ainsley's Vere nor Phillip Ens's Claggart seems to have any sexual desire for Billy. Though it feels deliberate, this could, of course, simply be a failing in their performances.

In any case, it exposes a real weakness in the work's first half, in which Billy, unjustly accused by Claggart of inciting mutiny, stammeringly fails to defend himself, and in frustration strikes him dead with a single blow. The only witness is the unfailingly just Captain Vere. As he wrote to literary critic Lionel Trilling, Forster was more interested in Vere's lapse from goodness than in Claggart's "natural depravity." The novelist thought he'd written Claggart's monologue along the lines of Iago's in Verdi's "Otello," but in the absence of the sexual chemistry that usually conceals the poverty of the text, Claggart's Act I aria is just a statement of an inexplicable hatred for Billy. Forster's words don't even support a Coleridgean analysis of Iago and Claggart's characters as pure, unmotivated evil.

Read the entire review HERE.

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Imbrailo's Billy Budd Well Received

The reviews are in for Jacques Imbrailo's much anticipated Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and it appears to have been a critical success. One of the criticisms before opening night was that the director and Imbrailo might take out some of the eroticism that both Hermnan Melville wrote into the original story and composer Benjamin Britten wrote into the opera. Despite the overall glowing reviews, The Guardian touched on the issue in their review:

The story-telling is pellucid, the characterisation focused down to the last rating. All I could have wished for was a little more imaginative playing-out of the repressed erotic tension – the essential queerness – between Billy, Claggart and Vere.

The Independent wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo’s slight but refreshingly modest Budd likewise had to dig deep – and did - to surmount the limitations of his bantam-weight voice and ultimately achieve real pathos through the strength of his conviction.

The entire review is HERE.



The Times of London wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo’s Billy, his fateful stammer intensified to epileptic proportions, has exactly the right mixture of puppyish naivety and physical prowess (his right hook would not disgrace Lennox Lewis), though in his superbly sung final soliloquy he tellingly hints that, beneath the jolly-Jack-Tar bravado, a terrified boy is trying desperately to hold it together.

The entire review is HERE.

The Guardian wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo's Billy is a total joy – slight, lithe and wonderfully guileless, singing his farewell to life with immense dignity and pathos.

Finally, The Stage wrote:

Jacques Imbrailo makes an important career step with his assumption of Billy. In imposing voice, he has the difficult task of presenting a character of natural goodness and entirely succeeds.

Imbrailo now heads to the Royal Opera House for performances of Le Nozze di Figaro and as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale. He will be alternating nights as Count Almaviva with fellow barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien in Nozze. He will reprise the role of Billy Budd at the Netherlands Opera in March 2011. Early reports are that this Billy Budd will be the more radical interpretation that starred Peter Mattei in Frankfurt.

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Two Anticipated Openings in the U.K and U.S.

[Photo courtesy of Ft. Worth Opera]

Early reports from Ft. Worth Opera point to a huge success for their Don Giovanni, led by Michael Todd Simpson. Not only is he joined by the sexy barihunk Tom Corbeil as his sidekick Leporello, but we hear that the singing is going to be incredible (and isn't that what opera is all about?). Of course, we don't mind when there is a litte extra beefcake on stage, as well, and from the looks of things Michael Todd Simpson is looking good.

Don Giovanni opens Saturday, May 22 and repeats on May 30 and June 4. Visit the Ft. Worth Opera website for additional information.

[Photo by Alastair Muir]


Jacques Imbrailo finally makes his long anticipated appearance at Glyndebourne in Billy Budd today. We'll have plenty of more coverage, but we wanted to share with you the first photo, which accompanied an article in The Independent about a long-running feued between composer Bemjamin Britten and Glyndebourne.

The new production at Glyndebourne will run through June 27th. Click HERE for performance and ticket information. The website also contains musical excerpts and a fascinating podcast about the production and opera.

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Jacques Imbrailo - Then & Now

South African barihunk Jacques Imbrailo started as a boy soprano and when we learned that there was a YouTube clip of him singing the Queen of the Night's aria we had to post it. Like Max Emanuel Cencic and Aled Jones, he managed to get through puberty and have a career as an adult.

Barihunks is eagerly awaiting his debut as Billy Budd at Glyndebourne opening on May 20th. This production promises to be one of the highlights of the 2010 opera season.





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