Matthew Worth and Samuel Ramey in New Orleans Opera "Barber of Seville""

Matthew Worth

American barihunk Matthew Worth, who recently garnered critical acclaim for his Curly in Oklahoma! with Central City Opera, is trading in his cowboy hat for a razor. He'll be opening as Figaro in Rossini's Barber of Seville at the New Orleans Opera on November 16th. You can listen to him singing the famous Largo al factotum on his website. There are only two performances of the opera, on Friday, November 16 and a matinee on Sunday, November 18. Tickets are available online.

Worth will next appear as Father Brendan Flynn at the Minnesota Opera in the world premiere of Douglas Cuomo's adaptation of "Doubt" starring mezzo Denyce Graves and soprano Christine Brewer. The opera is being directed by the Kevin Newbury, who will be directing another world premiere, Mark Adamo's The Gospel of Mary Magdelene at the San Francisco Opera with barihunk Nathan Gunn next summer. Performances of Doubt run from January 26th to Febraury 3rd. Visit The Minnesota Opera website for additional information. (If you're having impure thoughts about Matthew Worth as a priest, please visit your local parish).

Ramey's legendary Mefistofele

In a bit of luxury casting, one of the original barihunks, Sam Ramey, has been cast as Don Basilio alongside Worth in New Orleans. We love that Ramey is taking on new roles and extending his illustrious career. In January, he'll be singing Timur in Puccini's Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera in the famous Franco Zefferilli production. Visit the Met website for additional cast information and tickets. 

Enjoy your favorite barihunks year around with the 2013 Barihunks Charity Calendar. Once again, all proceeds will go to benefit young artists and young artist programs. For the price of lunch you can help keep opera alive and thriving!

Christian Van Horn takes on more Villains, Victims and Bearded, Unhappy Old Men

Christian Van Horn headed off to another role debut

The last time we featured American barihunk Christian Van Horn, he was all the buzz in Opera News. The running joke about Van Horn, is that despite his barihunk looks, he gets cast in roles that don't show off his assets. That's not changing any this summer, as he makes his role debut as Banquo at the Grand Theatre du Geneve opposite the unhappy and ambitious duo of Jennifer Larmore as Lady Macbeth and Davide Damiani as Macbeth. 

Performances of the new Christof Loy production will run from June 13-26. Additional cast and ticket information is available on the company's website. 

James Morris sings Banquo's aria "Come dal ciel precipita" from Macbeth: 

After Geneva, Van Horn will be singing with two of our favorite companies, the San Francisco Opera and the Dallas Opera. In San Francisco, he continues to show off his sinister side as he takes on the four villains in Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann" - Coppélius, Dapertutto, Dr. Miracle and Lindorf. The dream cast also includes Natalie Dessay as the four heroines Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta, Stella; Alice Coote as Nicklausse; and, Matthew Polenazni as Hoffmann. We have a feeling that this is a performance that should be added to any opera lover's travel calendar. Also, don't miss the San Francisco Opera's amazing summer season that includes Adam's Nixon in China, Verdi's Attila and Mozarts Magic Flute with Nathan Gunn.

In Dallas, he continues the trend of playing unattractive old men, as he takes on Timur in Puccini's Turandot. The production opens April 5, 2013 with the amazing Lise Lindstrom as Princess Turandot. The ubiquitous Nathan Gunn will also feature in the Dallas Opera season, as he is cast in Dominick Argento's "The Aspern Papers" in another all-star cast that features Susan Graham, Carol Vaness and the stunning young tenor Joseph Kaiser.

If you want to see and hear Van Horn out of make-up, you'll have to head to Los Angeles, where he's joining the L.A. Philharmonic as the bass soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The performance is on July 10, 2012 at the famed Hollywood Bowl and will be conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

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Christian Van Horn's Breakout Performance in Chicago

Christian Van Horn backstage as Raimondo

Andrew Patner of the Chicago Sun-Times has highlighted the performance of barihunk Christian Van Horn in the Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of Donizetti's "Lucia di Lammermoor." It's not often that the character of Raimondo gets singled out, but anyone who has seen the towering Van Horn or heard his incredible voice, knows that he has a way of standing out in a crowd. Here is what Patner wrote:

The breakout performance here was from another Lyric alum, bass-baritone Christian Van Horn, as the meddling tutor Raimondo who probably thinks that he’s truly helping Lucia. With both the restored Act 2 aria and especially later with the chilling “Dalle stanze ove Lucia,” announcing to the wedding party Lucia’s murder of the man she was forced to marry, Van Horn made good on the promise he showed during his Ryan years. [Read the entire review HERE].

There are seven performances remaining through November 5th. Visit the Lyric Opera of Chicago website for tickets and performance information.  

Here is Van Horn performing in "Romeo and Juliet" in Salzburg:



After his run of Lucia's, Van Horn heads west to the San Francisco Opera to sing Timur in the company's stunning David Hockney production of Turandot with another breakout performance, the Liu of soprano Leah Crocetto. 

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Ryan Kuster in 9/11 Tribute & SF Opera Fall Season; Hampson's 9/11 opera

Ryan Kuster (L) & Thomas Hampson (R)

One of the most gifted young barihunks on the operatic horizon Ryan Kuster, who we've featured previously on this site. He was a graduate of the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia before participating in San Francisco Opera's prestigious Adler Fellowship Program.

Kuster will be performing in the city of San Francisco's official tribute to the 10th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack. The city and the San Francisco Opera have teamed up for a performance of Mozart's Requiem at Sharon Meadow in Golden Gate Park at 2 PM today. Kuster will be joined by fellow singers Nadine Sierra, Maya Layhani and Daniel Montenegro along with maestro Nicola Luisotti.

The San Francisco Opera has wisely engaged the future star in a number of this season's operas. Kuster will perform Escamillo in Carmen, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Astolfo in Lucrezia Borgia and a Mandarin in Turandot. For performance and ticket information visit the San Francisco Opera website.



The San Francisco Opera is also premiering composer Christopher Theofanidis' "Heart of a Soldier," which opened last night. The opera tells the story of Rick Rescorla, a British-born adventurer who fought in Vietnam before settling in New York as head of security for a brokerage firm based in the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, his extraordinary courage and calmness in a crisis paid off: Rescorla led all of the 2,700 people under his care to safety—literally singing them down the stairs—before heading back into the burning building for one last check. He never emerged.

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Joshua Hopkins featured in Opera News

Joshua Hopkins (© Dario Acosta 2010)

Joshua Hopkins, who recently made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Ping in Turandot is featured in the current issue of Opera News. Here is the feature in its entirety:

Josuha Hopkins returns to Santa Fe Opera this month for a repeat of his cheeky, streetwise Papageno in Tim Albery's 2006 production of The Magic Flute, and for his first Sid in a new staging of Albert Herring. As eager as he is to revisit Mozart's bird-catcher — a role made to order for his firm, trim baritone and snappy, sure-footed comic style — Hopkins is especially hungry to explore the challenges of Britten's droll slice of life in an English village. Hopkins became a Britten enthusiast in 2007, when he studied the title role in Billy Budd in London, in preparation for covering it at Houston Grand Opera; he later was Junius in Central City's 2008 Rape of Lucretia.     "From a singer's standpoint, Britten is certainly challenging, but he's also incredibly helpful. Once you get to know the text and your own notes — no small thing — then you're free to explore the way Britten's music reflects the subtext of what his characters are singing. The psychology of the characters is laid out in the landscape of the music and in the way Britten sets the text. Billy's soliloquy, 'Look! through the port comes the moonshine,' is such an easy piece to connect to emotionally, because Britten gives his singer so much to work with."

Joshua Hopkins (© Dario Acosta 2010)

Hopkins hails from Pembroke, Ontario, a small town some ninety minutes west of Ottawa with a highly active amateur music scene. At sixteen, he sang in his first oratorio, Haydn's Creation. "I'm the first to admit that I was way too young to be delving into that at sixteen, but it got me and my parents to recognize that studying classical voice was the best choice for me." After studies at McGill University in Montreal, where he received his master's degree in 2003, Hopkins was accepted into the Houston Grand Opera studio; a particular highlight of his studio years was singing the Pilot in HGO's 2004 revival of Rachel Portman's The Little Prince, an experience he calls "a fantastic milestone."

Hopkins marked another milestone this past season, when he made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Ping in Turandot. On January 28, the night that Hopkins marked his sixteenth Met performance, tenor Charles Anthony made his farewell appearance with the company after a record-breaking fifty-six seasons as a Met artist. "Singing on that stage was a thrill, but to be part of a show with an artist who has been there so long — and who has done so much on that stage, and remained such a dear man — was humbling. Definitely."

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Gabriel Bermudez shows off more skin

Garbriel Bermudez almost shirtless

In terms of hits, Gabriel Bermudez remains the runaway favorite singer on this site. He still generates 2-3 more hits than any other barihunk. Of course, baring it all on stage certainly helped his popularity. We receive a lot of requests asking for more of this gorgeous Spaniard and finally we found some more skin shots. The photo is from a performance of Turandot in Barcelona where he sang Ping.

You can watch the entire clip HERE. Unfortunately, the embedding code for this video is not enabled.

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Matt Trevino Coast-to-Coast

Barihunk Matt Trevino

Barihunk Matthew Trevino singing "Ich Grolle Nicht" in Michael Nyman's opera "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat."

Matt Trevino

Trevino will next appear in "The Pirates of Penzance" with the Fresno Grand Opera on January 28 & 30. In what has become our pet peeve, the opera company does not list the cast on their website. We find this incredibly disrespectful to artists, as well as poor marketing and customer service.

He next appears on the opposite coast with the Pensacola Opera where he will portray Timur in Puccini's "Turandot" on March 11 & 13. He then heads north to the Syracuse Opera where he will perform Nourabad in the Pearl Fishers. Both opera companies list complete cast and production information.

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Emerging Barihunk Gabriel Preisser

Gabriel Preisser as a modern day Don Giovanni

Here are two videos of the emerging barihunk Gabriel Preisser, who is new to the site. The 26-year-old singer is currently at the Kentucky Opera singing Yamadori in Madama Butterfly and Figaro in the “Barber of Seville.” He then travels further south to the Pensacola Opera where he will be one of their studio artists. He is slated to sing John Brook in Mark Adamo’s “Little Women” and the Mandarin in Puccini’s “Turandot.” As an added bonus to Barihunks fans, one of our favorite singers, Matt Trevino, will be performing Timur. [Look to your right!]



This video is from Daron Hagen's “Broken Pieces,” his New York Stories trilogy. Gabriel Preisser is joined by soprano Andrea Shokery and pianist Lisa Hasson. The production is part of the Composer Workshop program, a collaboration with Kentucky Opera, the University of Louisville School of Music and the Academy of Music at St. Francis in the Fields.



Here is Gabriel Preisser as Riccardo in Bellini's I Puritani Act II Finale duet with Daniel Richardson as Giorgio.

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Barihunk Sings "Nessun Dorma" For Fun

We've had a few requests to post Mark Oswald on the site before, but passed only because he's basically retired and teaching. However, when were sent this video of him singing the famous tenor aria "Nessun Dorma" from Puccini's "Turandot," we couldn't resist. Keep in mind that this was done for fun. Click HERE to watch the video.

If you want to hear Oswald in his own fach, click HERE to hear him perform "Cheti, Cheti, Immantinente" from Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" with the great bass Paul Plishka.

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