Barihunks Andrew Garland and Craig Irvin in Bolcom world premiere

Craig Irvin and Andrew Garland

Minnesota Opera is presenting the world premiere of William Bolcom's Dinner at Eight as part of their New Works Initiative. The initiative was launched in 2008 with a goal of invigorating the opera repertoire with an infusion of new and contemporary works. The opera, which has a libretto by Mark Campbell is based on the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber. It will have its world premiere on Saturday, March 11, 2017.

Dinner at Eight caught our eye as it has six baritones and basses in the cast, including two of our regularly featured barihunks, Andrew Garland and Craig Irvin. They'll be joined by baritone Stephen Powell, soprano Brenda Harris, soprano Susannh Biller, tenor Richard Troxell, mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala, soprano Siena Forest, bass Benjamin Sieverding, baritone Thomas Glass II, baritone William Lee Bryan, mezzo-soprano Nadia Fayad, soprano Alexandra Razskazoff and soprano Mary Evelyn Hangley.

The opera is set in Manhattan during the Great Depression and centers on the tension between a husband coping with financial problems and his wife who is planning an elaborate dinner party for visiting British nobility.

Michael Weyandt to perform with Summer of Song Series

Michael Weyandt

Our most recent post about German barihunk Martin Häßler ended with a notice about his upcoming debut recital at Wigmore Hall in London. The concert features works by Schubert, Wolf and Finzi. So imagine our surprise when the next day our inbox included a notice for American barihunk Michael Weyandt's upcoming recital with the "Summer of Song Series" in New York featuring works by Schubert, Wolf and Finzi.

The recitals do feature mostly different works by the two singers, except for Wolf's Begegnung
and An eine Aeolsharfe. Häßler will be performing Mussorgsky and Weyandt will have music by Bolcom, Poulenc, Fujimoto and Lehrer.

Heinrich Schlusnus sings Hugo Wolf's "Begegnung":

Weyandt's recital will be on on Thursday, June 20 at 7pm at Opera America (330 7th Avenue) and will feature accompanist Thomas Muraco. Single tickets for the concert are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. Contact Blair Boone at ASPSNY@gmail.com regarding tickets. For all other tickets, visit, artsongpreservationsociety.org, call (646) 369-5247 or purchase directly at the door.

Nathan Wyatt as Bobby Kennedy in new opera

Nathan Wyatt as Bobby Kennedy and Caitlin Vincent as Jackie Kennedy (Photo: Britt Olsen-Ecker)

Nathan Wyatt is new to this site and we discovered him singing the role of Robert Kennedy in the world premiere of Joshua Bornfield's Camelot Requiem. The North Carolina native has been involved with a number of world premieres lately including, Jake Heggie’s “Epilogue: Under the Blessing of your Psyche Wings,” as part of the Opera America Songbook, and William Bolcom’s “Gettysburg, July 1, 1863,” a commission by SongFest.

Camelot Requiem was commissioned by Baltimore’s Figaro Project in honor of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The opera tells the story of Jackie Kennedy and the small group who surrounded her immediately after the President’s death in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Caitlin Vincent's libretto is drawn from the written history of the event, as well as the traditional requiem mass.

Nathan Wyatt sings William Bolcom’s “Gettysburg, July 1, 1863”

North Carolina native Nathan Wyatt is a recent graduate of the Peabody Conservatory. He was awarded a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellowship for the summer of 2013. In September, Wyatt was one of two invited soloists, along with soprano Elizabeth Futral, to perform new works in the official opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new Opera America National Opera Center in New York.

Nathan Wyatt

He received first place honors in the Maryland/DC chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and was a finalist in the Sylvia Green Competition in 2010.  Recent opera roles include Alexander Kerensky in the world premiere of Joshua Bornfield’s Strong like Bull, Le Directeur and Le Gendarme in Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Lescaut in Manon, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, and The Forester in The Adventures of Sharp-Ears the Vixen.  

In the fall of 2011, Mr. Wyatt made is Carnegie Hall debut under the direction of Marin Alsop in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s production of Arthur Honneger’s Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher.