Zachary Gordin's hot pix from Dead Man Walking

Zachary Gordin preparing for Dead Man Walking

On April 23, Zachary Gordin reprised his successful performance of convicted killer Joseph De Rocher at the Shreveport Opera, which he performed the previous year at the Dayton Opera. We caught him to ask him about performing the role and got him to agree to share some amazingly hot pictures of him getting tattoed for the performance. He's not only got a killer body and amazing voice, but he proves himself to be smart, insightful and thoughful, as well.

Upcoming performances for Zachary Gordin include Orff's Carmina Burana on May 28th with Chora Nova in Berkeley and a recital of Schumann's Dichterliebe at St. Joseph's Basillica in Alameda, California.

Other upcoming performances of Dead Man Walking include David Adam Moore at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and Daniel Okulitch at the Vancouver Opera.

1. What does it mean for this to be performed in the state where the alleged crime actually happened? 

ZG: Louisiana, and specifically Caddo Parish (where Shreveport is) has been notorious for the death penalty, and executions. While there hasn’t been an execution carried out in Louisiana since 2010 (and before that, 2002), there is definitely a strong history for capital punishment there. What’s exciting as an opera singer, is that it’s almost impossible for us to be part of telling a story with local, living roots. There were people on both sides of this production being mounted in Shreveport: lots of excitement to support it, as well as the flip side… I heard a few remarks from local residents that there were people boycotting the production because they took personal issue with Sister Helen, and her political stance. It hadn’t crossed my mind, being from the San Francisco Bay Area, that there would be some strong opposition. You never encounter these personal, sometimes heated, stories when you’re doing operas composed by Verdi, or Mozart, wether or not the story/characters have a historical basis. That really increases the weight and stakes of the production, and ultimately adds to the work’s depth and power. 

Zachary Gordin in Dead Man Walking (Photos by Clint McCommon)

2. What does this role mean to you and how has it changed for you with subsequent performances? 

ZG: It started out as a daunting journey, January of 2015, when I got the eleventh-hour call from Dayton Opera to learn and perform it. Before that I never considered it, partly because of the darkness of the character, and partly because it’s incredibly intense for the voice. There’s a lot of shouting/screaming, having to do push-ups and go right into an aria, and so on… I read the story, looked over the score, and I was hooked! I knew it would be a good fit, and wanted the challenge of a character who had done some truly monstrous things. I had a month before staging rehearsals began in Dayton to learn the opera, and had the great opportunity to work with Jake Heggie to prepare it. A lot of energy in the first production I did was spent on getting it “right” - making sure I was faithful to the score (the music isn’t easy! Huge thanks to Maestro Jerome Shannon for getting me through it), and being as honest as I could about telling Joe’s story (with the help of Gary Briggle, our stage Director). Even that whirlwind first time left me with the sense that I was participating in something that was so much bigger than me. That was deeply meaningful, and made the weight of taking on that character a little lighter. 

The second time around, with the Shreveport Opera production, I knew the music inside-out and didn’t have to think pitches/counting as much. The amount of freedom THAT gives a singer is incredible. I knew “my Joe” already, and was prepared for what that head space would feel like. Everyone else in that cast was in the opera for the first time, so it felt great to be able to encourage and support my cast mates having been through it all and come out the other side changed for the better. It’s always a deeply emotional, and spiritually penetrating experience to work on this opera - no matter what role you’re in. Showing up for each other, and being present in the stories of these characters really bonds a cast. I’ve made some very dear friends through this process. 

Gillian Lynn Cotter and Zachary Gordin in Dead Man Walking
(Photos by Clint McCommon)

3. What is the core message of this opera for you. 

ZG: Love! There are so many aspects of love, and what love can make manifest in people: the young love of the two victims, the love of their parents who are experiencing such a tragic loss, the love of Joe’s mother for a son who did some horrific things and will die, the love Joe was seeking and not getting which drove him to the drugs/alcohol that influenced him in his heinous act, the love of Sister Helen for Joe and his soul, and God’s love for us all… There are big themes of forgiveness, redemption, and the value of human life.  

Zachary Gordin in Dead Man Walking
(Photos by Clint McCommon)

4. Did you have a chance to meet the real Sister Prejean? How do you play off of that character when performing?

ZG: Yes, several times. She’s one of those special people who raises the temperature of whatever room she walks into. To talk with her, and hear her stories first-hand is such a gift. A real, living, and down-to-earth example of someone who is living their purpose. Knowing how her first few meetings went with Patrick Sonnier gives a lot of info to use in the body language, inflection, and feel of the scenes we do in the opera. Again, in opera we almost NEVER get to talk to the source material. It takes the mystery away, but it also raises the stakes of your responsibility as an artist. I always want to be faithful to the story.

Zachary Gordin in Dead Man Walking
(Photos by Clint McCommon)

5. What aspects of your own personality come out in your portrayal of Joseph de Rocher?

ZG: The similarities in the story of Joe’s childhood and my own are a good starting point. It was a rough start for both of us, and I can see how with a series of different choices my path could look very similar to his. There’s a lot of sympathy for him in that realization. Joe had to cultivate a tough exterior in life, and in prison. For me, it was growing up in the ghetto of Oakland that toughened me up. Joe loved music, tried to stay groomed and presentable, what people thought of him must have mattered… I can relate. The white supremacist element of this character is probably the one thing I struggled with and gave up on. I couldn’t really let that in - so I left it in the hands of my makeup team to add that element. Keep in mind, Joseph De Rocher is based on a combination of people, so there’s wiggle room for interpretation. Every Joe I play will be slightly different based on the production. While I’ve never raped or murdered anyone offstage, we’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t… As an actor, or storyteller, we have to dig into the pain and discomfort of the situations we’re presented with, and be totally transparent about it. It’s a difficult edge to ride the wave of emotion while having to function vocally/physically. Taking it over the edge in rehearsals helps identify how far I can go as an actor without making the singing suffer.    

Zachary Gordin getting tattoed for Dead Man Walking

6. Do you like sporting tattoos? Do you find them sexy on others?

ZG: I don’t have any of my own, but these experiences with Joe have made me curious… It was fun being covered in “ink” (apart from their meaning) and getting reactions to it, but then being able to remove it with a team of two people and a pile of alcohol swabs (that was cold!). I think tattoos are hot on the right people… I wouldn’t say it’s a fetish, but they definitely catch my eye and draw me in. If I do go ahead and get some, I’ll be sure to have BARIHUNKS post the pics! ;-)

David Adam Moore featured in The Examiner

David Adam Moore from the 2012 Barihunks calendar (photo Moses Jones)

Barihunk David Adam Moore received an extensive feature in the Southeast Texas issue of The Examiner, which you can read below.

Moore can next be heard on January 15th with the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing Prior Walter in Eötvös' "Angels in America."The all-star cast also includes Brian Asawa, Measha Brueggergosman and Julia Migenes. Tickets are available online. In February and March, he'll be featured as Stanley Kowalski in Andre Previn's Streetcar Named Desire with Virginia Opera. On April 5th, he'll be featured in the same role with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The musical journey of Southeast Texas native  

David Adam Moore

From youth, people struggle to find their place in the world. They long to find their path, the road that leads them to the future. Students strive to decide what direction they want their lives to take. Once decided, obstacles in the path can cause people to choose to fork and leave completely the path they thought they wanted to follow, changing the course of their futures. Vidor native David Adam Moore faced obstacles and veered onto a path that would ultimately lead him to be a highly sought after operatic baritone.

The life of a performer, a life spent traveling, city to city, country to country, across continents, is a difficult yet rewarding one, according to Moore. He was raised in Vidor, born into a family with a musical background.

“I started making music from childhood because my family are all country and western musicians going back like five or six generations,” Moore said. “I think my grandfather, John Shirley Moore, actually had his own radio show as a teenager and started playing professionally locally in the nightclub scene from the time he was a teenager. My dad, John ‘Bubba’ Moore started working the nightclub scene in Southeast Texas when he was 13. Most of my aunts and uncles and my cousins play music…Most of them are nightclub musicians but some have played on the national level. My dad toured with Tracy Byrd for 15 years or so. So, I was around people making music.”

David Adam Moore pays homage to Leonard Bernstein

Moore said his interest was in electronic music, which had gained popularity at the time. He listened to bands like The Cure, The Smiths and Depeche Mode. He worked with synthesizers and learned about the technical side of music. He also started listening to classical music on KVLU while in high school. Moore said, at that time, he planned to go to college to study theology and possibly linguistics. A talent show at Vidor High School lead him to become a member of the choir, altering his course though he did not know it at the time. [Continue reading HERE]

Tattoo Parlor Features Teddy Tahu Rhodes Pictures

We've been covering Teddy Tahu Rhodes' tattoos since 2008 and the three posts have all been very popular with our readers. So we were thrilled when we learned that Shane Tattoos in Melbourne is now featuring these amazing photos of the New Zealand barihunk on their homepage.

According to their website, they specialize in Maori, Ta Moko, Kirituhi, Polynesian and Japanese tattoo designs, as well as graphic body designs. They can be reached at shanetattos@gmail.com.

By the way, if you're in to opera singers with tattoos, make sure to check out our post about the extremely sexy Vasil Garvanliev. He's currently performing Kaspar in Opera Atelier's Der Freischutz.

Of course, we've been covering "Teddy Bare" a lot lately for his sizzling performance in South Pacific and his torrid and very public romance with co-star Lisa McCune. The production is currently in Melbourne and will open in Brisbane on December 27th. Tickets are available online.

Old Cardiff video of Teddy Tahu Rhodes emerges

Teddy Tahu Rhodes and his famous tattoo

In a recent post, we mentioned the paucity of Teddy Tahu Rhodes videos that are available online. We were thrilled when someone pointed us to this new posting of "Teddy Bare" singing Finzi's "It was a lover and his lass" at the 1999 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

While working as an accountant in Christchurch, New Zealand, Rhodes maintained an association with Canterbury Opera, the local repertory opera company. In 1998 he made his international debut in an acclaimed performance of Dandini in Rossini's La Cenerentola at Opera Australia, and was launched on an international career. Following his Australian debut, Rhodes represented New Zealand at the 1999 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition.

Rhodes is currently on tour in South Pacific. 

REMINDER THAT 2013 CHARITY CALENDAR SUBMISSIONS ARE DUE BY AUGUST 31. Mail photos to Barihunks@gmail.com

Vasil Garvanliev gets a new tattoo

Vasil Garvanliev (© Shalan & Paul)

There are few singers who photograph better than Vasil Garvanliev, who we discovered while he was singing at Opera Atelier. Of course, Opera Atelier has become famous for their sexy, provocative marketing campaigns that often features models in various states of undress. Even though they use models, they seem to hire singers who could double as models in their ad campaigns. In addition to Garvanliev, we've featured Olivier Laquerre, Curtis Sullivan, Phillip Addis and João Fernandes from the company roster. 

Although most of our news is about singing, we couldn't resist telling readers about Garvanliev's new tattoo which he had placed on his arm above the LOVE tattoo that appears on the back of his wrist. The photo below shows the design, the procedure and the final tattoo. We think it's pretty HOT. 

The Macedonian barihunk is a young artist at the Glimmerglass Festival this summer, which of course is run by the "Mother of Barihunks," director Francesca Zambello. Future appearances include Caspar in Weber's Der Freischütz with Opera Atelier and Pistola in Verdi's Falstaff with Calgary Opera.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Teddy Tahu Rhodes' Tattoo Becomes a Popular Search

A tattooed Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Così fan tutte

We recently noticed that we were getting a lot of hits for a 2008 post about Teddy Tahu Rhodes showing off his tattoo to female reporter. When we explored why there was a sudden interest in his tattoo, we realized that he's been heavily tattooed for the current production of Mozart's "Così fan tutte" at the Washington National Opera.

Teddy Tahu Rhodes' actual tattoo

The Jonathan Miller production runs through March 15th with a cast that also includes Elizabeth Futral, Renata Pokupic, Joel Prieto, William Shimell, and Christine Brandes. Visit the opera company's website to purchase tickets. The 6' 5" New Zealand barihunk received a nice mention from Tim Smith in the Baltimore Sun:

As Guglielmo, Teddy Tahu Rhodes towers over his colleagues physically and reveals a beefy sound to match his animated delivery.

 CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Michael Mayes: From BariChunk to BariHunk

Michael Mayes: "Killer" body

We make no secret about Michael Mayes being one of our favorite people in opera. His Texapolitan Opera Roadshow podcast remains one of the most interesting and entertaining shows about classical music and opera anywhere. He's also a great guy, has an amazing stage presence and he's a wonderful singer. What's not to like? We're pretty sure that his performance as Joseph de Rocher in Jake Heggie's "Dead Man Walking" at Tulsa Opera is going to put him on the international opera map. Mayes was made for this role and took it so seriously that he dropped 50 pounds and hit the weights. As he puts it, he went from "barichunk to barihunk."

Here's an interview from his ADA artists website where he talks about the role.

How does one prepare to play a character that is convicted of murder?   

Joseph de Rocher is a composite character, meant to embody the spirit of the men that Sister Helen Prejean accompanied on their final walk. For an actor with my background, this is a perfect situation.  While I didn’t grow up a desperately impoverished white boy from Louisiana from a shattered home; I did grow up among some of the poorest people in our country~ what many people today would callously call ‘trailer trash’, an epithet of which I’ve often been on the receiving end.  In my hometown, Cut n Shoot, TX, I played football, went to school, family reunions, church, and got into trouble with countless Joseph de Rochers.  The archetypal scared white boy that grows into am angry white man is a story that sadly, I am more familiar with than I would like to be~ and the experience of living with these kinds of personalities has been key in developing my interpretation of Joseph. I had to do all the things you would expect one to do:  research prison life, pour through Helen’s books, countless seminars and lectures, watch as many documentaries as I could about men on death row so that I could try and grasp the physical and mental gauntlet that these men go through on the way to their demise, etc.  These are all the basics, and nothing surprising to anyone who really stops and thinks about the enormous amount of work and research that goes into a role like this~ but the essence of Joe, the distillation of his nature, the way he walks, talks, reacts to stimuli, what he feels deeply, his fears, his desires; these things came surprisingly easy to me.

It was surprising.  It was as if there was some place, deep in the recesses of my own consciousness that understood this man in ways with which I wasn’t comfortable when I first began.  It actually took me a while to begin the deeper work once I’d been offered the role.  I was unmanned by some of the feelings that would bubble up while I was in deep thought about him.  I would start, and then just leave the project all together~ preferring instead to plumb the ‘depths’ of Escamillo or Papageno’s psychological profile. (people that know opera know how ridiculous that is).  But as February began to loom on the horizon, I began to feel this presence.  My subconscious was doing the work for me, whether I liked it or not, and as I began to meld my work with Heggie’s music, McNally’s words, and Prejean’s material, Joseph began to emerge almost fully formed.  Even as I type this, I find myself unable to effectively articulate what it’s like to be him. It’s not something I feel like I’ve had to go out and find, rather its something deep down inside me, like the pieces of a horrifying weapon that, fortunately, I’ve never assembled.  When this thought occurred to me, I realized that but for a few lucky breaks in life, it very well could have been me in that roadhouse, taking the wrong kind of drugs, indulging the worse kind of vices, allowing the darkness in me to completely obliterate any humanity I had left.  I’ve been that angry.  I know what it feels like to walk right up to the edge of the abyss and look into nothingness and oblivion.  Luckily it usually terrified me so much that I would immediately run from whatever was pushing me in that direction, but just before I turned~ there was always this seductive pull, that made something inside of me want to jump, leap into the darkness and let it completely envelop me.

Michael Mayes and Kirstin Chavez

 When I heard actors talk about wrestling with a character, I honestly always thought it was pretentious bullshit, but Joseph taught me my lesson about hubris, and continues to do so everyday.  Developing this character has really felt like developing a form of schizophrenia.  I don’t feel this way with every character I work on, some of the more complex characters have given me a taste of what its like, but never have I felt so inhabited.  With Joseph, when I’m in the cut, and things are lining up, when I feel that groove~ I feel him…come upon me.  Its truly unsettling.  When the accent is just right, when I’m hitting all of the emotional targets, suddenly, I’m gone and he’s there.  All the anger, the hatred, the fear and bitterness, the rage and terror~ these things I normally have to show when I’m acting~ but with Joseph, its only necessary to be.  Wrestling? Yeah, that’s a good word for it.  I often feel like I have to fight to regain myself after rehearsals, and when I’m done, the residue clings to me like the remnants of a dust storm late into the evening.  I am usually just about back to normal when its time to let him back in for the next rehearsal.  This sounds all very heavy, but its not a unusual phenomenon in other theatrical arts.

One of the more practical aspects of playing Joseph has been the physical transformation that I’ve had to undergo.  Joseph works off his anger and frustration in a scene at the top of Act II by doing push-ups during his one hour of exercise a day.  This definitely changes the way you have to appear onstage~ so as Tulsa began to creep closer in my date book, I began a physical transformation into Joseph that was one of the most challenging I’ve ever encountered.  In order to really get Joseph right, I had to go from Bari-chunk to Barihunk, something that has not gone unnoticed by the popular opera blog that is behind the genesis of that term. (BARIHUNKS)

Michael Mayes: BariChunk to BariHunk

 I dropped 50 lbs, and started hitting the gym muscling up as much as I could and still be able to sing, and I traded in my long wavy auburn locks (a real source of vanity for me) for a skin close high and tight and a style of facial hair popular among white supremacists.  The physical transformation has had as much to do with this feeling of being inhabited by Joseph as the emotional and psychological.  With these physical attributes, I am immediately viewed by strangers as an anti-social individual~ and the looks of disdain, pity, anger, fear that I get just walking around in the world is a marvelous insight into the kinds of daily input that Joseph got from the world around him.

Preparing to play a rapist/murder is not for the faint of heart.  It’s taken it’s toll, just ask my fiance.  Joseph has wreaked havoc in my personal life, there is no denying it. He’s not one of these characters  you can put on at 7:30 and be ready by 8 for the performance.  You can’t put him away until after the last curtain goes down, and even then, I’m not sure I’ll be shut of him.  Despite the turmoil and tribulation that one has to endure when preparing for and performing one of these characters, at the end of the day its one of the most satisfying experiences an actor/singer can have on the stage, and for the first time in my career I can say that I am fully and without reservation doing that which drew me into this business in the first place.

What themes, ideas, or concepts do you wish the Tulsa audience will take with them to contemplate and discuss after the performance?  

This opera does not take a position on the death penalty.  You may get insight into Joseph’s mind, you may understand  the how and why of what he did, but the way the opera is crafted~ you never forget the absolute horror of his crimes, the absolute destruction that his actions have wreaked on the the lives of the families of his victims and of his own family.  Anytime you’re taking on a hot-button issue, the temptation is there to ram your own passionate political belief down the throats of those on the other side.  This temptation is not only resisted, but actively denied by the people behind this piece.  When you get beyond the political theatre, you realize that this opera is not about the death penalty. The death penalty, death row, prison, rape, murder, these things are all incredibly effective settings and plot devices;  but once you boil this piece down to its essence, its truly about forgiveness, grace, and shades of gray.  No matter what your position on the capital punishment, you will not be able to leave the theater without questioning your own stance… and that’s the point of Dead Man Walking, not the statement, but the question.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Teddy's Tattoo

Teddy Tahu Rhodes recently showed off his tattoo to a TV reporter in his native New Zealand. The female reporter was very funny and seemed genuinely disappointed to learn that he was marrying mezzo Isabel Leonard in December. But she perked up as he began to disrobe to show off the tattoo.

After all, who doesn't want to see Teddy Bare?

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