Barihunk duo in Beijing's "Don Giovanni"

Vittorio Prato

Two of Europe's hottest barihunks will be singing Don Giovanni and Masetto at Beijing's National Centre for the Performing Arts. Italian Vittorio Prato will take on Mozart's title character alongside Austrian Thomas Tatzl's Masetto.

The theatre is rotating a European cast on November 27, 29 and December 1 with an all-Chinese cast on November 28 and 30. Tickets and additional cast information is available online. The Chinese cast includes the amazing bass-baritone Ao Li as Leporello, who won the 2014 Operalia competition and has become a fixture at the San Francisco Opera.

Ao Li performs at the Mt Fuji Vocal Competition:

The National Centre for the Performing Arts was founded in 2010 and features European and Chinese artists performing both Western and Chinese opera. Chinese operas have included  Guo Wenjing's Rickshaw Boy, Qing Yin's The Long March, Meng Weidong's FANG Zhimin, Lei Lei's The Jinsha River and Visitors from the Snow Mountain.

Barihunk Thomas Tatzl to make Vienna Opera debut

Thomas Tatzl

Austrian barihunk Thomas Tatzl will be making his Vienna State Opera debut this winter as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He'll be joined by fellow barihunk Rene Pape as Sarastro, Jörg Schneider as Tamino, Olga Bezsmertna as Pamina and Hila Fahima as the Queen of the Night.

Performances will run from December 22-29, including a performance on Christmas Day.

You don't have to wait to see him as Papageno, as he'll be performing in Die Zauberflöte at the Teatro Regio di Torino from May 16-18 with Ekaterina Sadovnikova as Pamina, Alessandro Scotto di Luzio as Tamino and Marigona Querkezi as the Queen of the Night.

Thomas Tatzl & Caterina di Tonno sing the duet from Die Zauberflöte:

This season, he's performed Ford in Verdi's Falstaff at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari and Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte in Ravenna, Novara and Piacenza. From September 22-October 1, he'll sing Count Almaviva in Jonathan Miller's production of Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari.

Thomas Tatzl's pa-pa-pa-passionate Papageno

Thomas Tatzl as Papageno (photos by Sandra Then)

Austrian barihunk Thomas Tatzl is one of the few singers who has performed Papageno by two different composers, having frequently sung Mozart's in Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), but also Peter von Winter’s in his production of Das Labyrith at the Salzburger Festspiele. Now he's also one of the few singers to have performed the role in a dress (topless with a chorus of transsexual nuns!) .

Tatzl, who has sung 10 Mozart roles in his young career, will perform Papageno through March 28th at the Theater Basel. He'll be singing some additional Mozart at Sage One in Newcastle, England on February 5th when he performs the composer's Mass in C-minor with an all-star cast that includes Sally Matthews, Rosemary Joshua and Stuart Jackson with the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Chorus.

Tickets for the Magic Flute are available online.

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Seth Carrico, Cyril Rovery & Patrick Egersborg

Vittorio Prato sports barihunk shirt in Rome

Italian barihunk Vittorio Prato is at the Rome Opera singing the Count in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro opposite fellow barihunks Markus Werba and Thomas Tatzl, who are rotating the role. Prato has two performances remaining. On May 29th, he'll perform with Tatzl along with Donata D'Annunzio Lombardi as the Countess, Anna Kasyan as Sussanna and Raffaela Lupinacci as Cherubino. On June 3rd, he'll join Werba in a cast with Eleonara Buratto as the Countess, Rosa Feola as Susanna and Michaela Selinger as Cherubino. Tickets and additional cast information is available online.

Prato also took some time out to pose in a barihunk tee shirt alongside one of Rome's 2,000 fountains. Prato is featured in this year's Viva, Italia! barihunk's calendar and we hope to have him back for our 2016 edition.

Vittorio Prato (Photo on right by © Yasuko Kageyama)

Prato next heads to Firenze where he will perform Figaro in the opera based on the first part of the Pierre Beaumarchais trilogy, Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia. Le nozze di Figaro is based on the second part of the Beaumarchais trilogy. Prato will rotate the role with the rising young Korean baritone Julian Kim. Also in the cast is fellow Italian barihunk Luca Dall'Amico. Additional information is available online. 

Thomas Tatzl to star in new opera based on Lorca play

Thomas Tatzl

Austrian barihunk Thomas Tatzl will star in composer Mauricio Sotelo's new opera El Público, commissioned  by the last Gerard Mortier for the Teatro Real in Madrid. The work was adapted by Andrés Ibáñez from a 1930 piece by Federico García Lorca, which he wrote in Cuba after the transcendent trip he made to New York, in the midst of a profound emotional crisis and creative spirit.

The play, which Lorca gave to his friend Martínez Nadal on the condition that he destroy it upon his death, was premiered in Milan in 1968. Librettist Andrés Ibáñez wrote this about keeping the two essential themes of the work:

“...homosexuality and contemporary theatre. They both come united in a central theme that relates to the appearance or the mask. A mask of “love that cannot be named”, and in the end a mask that reveals itself as the essence of the human being. (...) Obscenity, cruelty, and irreverence are basic elements of Lorca’s poetic language. They have not been emphasised nor avoided. The text explores sexual desire with an honesty and complexity that defies the more or less moralist well-meaning simplifications.”

Thomas Tatzl, who we briefly featured back in 2012, studied voice at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He was a member of the ensemble at the Zurich Opera House, and has also performed at the Salzburger Festspiele, Maggio Musicale Firenze, Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaat, the Music Society Steiermark and the “Amici della Musica” in Padua.

The opera runs from February 24-March 13 and it will be recorded on DVD with international distribution, as well as broadcast on television and on the web.

Watch the entire "Das Labyrinth" aka the "Other Magic Flute"

Phillipe Sly (L) & Thomas Tatzl

We recently ran a post about Philippe Sly singing in Peter von Winter's "Das Labyrinth" or the "Other Magic Flute," which was just performed at the Salzburg Festival. Sly sang the role of Sithos. The opera also included barihunk Thomas Tatzl as Papageno.

You can watch the entire opera below:

Tickets are already on sale for Sly's Guglielmo in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" at the San Francisco. Visit their website for tickets and additional performance information.

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