Xavier Edgardo's "Month of Mozart" continues with Cosi

Xavier Edgardo, an emerging Mozart specialist

After a huge success singing the Mozart Requiem Puerto Rican barihunk Xavier Edgardo will be sticking with Mozart, as he takes on Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte on April 26 and 27 at the Conservatorio de Música de Puerto Rico. We've heard him sing Guglielmo's aria "Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo" and it's worth a lot more than the meager $10.00 price of admission.

The Puerto Rican native is headed to San Francisco to complete his Masters in Voice at the Conservatory of Music under tutelage of the famed tenor and professor César Ulloa. He'll return to Puerto Rico in November to sing Schaunard in Puccini's La bohème at the Teatro de la Ópera. In 2013, he debuted with the company in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and participated in the world premiere of the Carlos Vázquez opera La mina de oro.

In between, he'll be headed to Opera on the Avalon in St. John's, Newfoundland, where he's also slated to appear in La bohème. Our main mission at Barihunks is to assist young singers in their careers and we're part of the campaign to help send Xavier Edgardo to this important training program. Please join us in making a pledge of any amount, as it will go a long way in supporting this talented young artist. Click HERE to give today. 

He has already participated in training programs such as the International Institute of Vocal Arts (IIVA) and the International Vocal Arts Institute (LRI) in Tel Aviv, where he has sung and taken masterclasses with artists such as Justino Díaz, Joan Dornemann, Denis Sedov, Sherrill Milnes, Mignon Dunn, Carlos Conde and Joel Prieto.

He is also a longtime member of the award-winning ensemble Coralia.

Queen Sonja Vocal Competition to be live streamed

Erik Anstine

The Queen Sonja Vocal Competition will be live streamed from Oslo on Thursday, Friday & Saturday. Many of our favorite barihunks, including Dawid Kimberg, Joseph KyungTeak Lim, Erik Anstine and Brandon Cedel will be competing.

Over 200 singers from 45 countries applied this year for the 41 slots. There is a maximum of four singers from each participating nation, and twelve of the contestants are nominated from their collaborating opera academies: The Lindemann Young Artists Program, Metropolitan Opera, New York; The Jette Parker Young Artists Program, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London; The Opera Studio, Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich; Internationales Operastudio, Opernhaus Zürich, Zürich; Young Artists Program, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow; The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Brandon Cedel

The panel of judges includes many of the greatest names in opera, including soprano Carol Vaness, mezzo-soprano Dame Felicity Palmer, baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden Kasper Holten. Although the final 41 is heavily weighted toward the sopranos, we are confident that one of the low voices will keep the baritone winning streak alive in international vocal competitions.

Watch the live stream HERE.

Reader Submission: Jason Forbach

Jason Forbach

We've said it so many times, but it bears repeating: We love our reader submissions of new talent. We still seem to remind people that this site is dedicated to baritones, bass-baritones and basses. In January, we received four tenor submissions, four countertenor submissions, two directors and a mezzo soprano!

Our latest submissions come from the United States where a reader saw Jason Forbach on stage.

Jason Forbach is a former Metropolitan Opera National Council regional semifinalist, who has been perfoming the role of Enjorlas in the national tour of the 25th Anniversary production of "Les Miserables." Previously he appeared in a Las Vegas production of "The Phantom of the Opera."

Jason Forbach sings Leonard Bernstein's "Somewhere":

Forbach was classically trained in opera as a lyric baritone and performed at The New York Festival of Song tribute to Hal Prince at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall. He has also performed with the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Abilene Philharmonic and Boston Lyric Opera. He holds a bachelor's degree in vocal performance from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master's in vocal performance from the New England Conservatory in Boston.

Jason Forbach

Forbach was also an apprentice artist with the Central City Opera and studied with John Moriarty.  He was named the Spencer Penrose Artist for 2003.

He recently self-produced his first solo album, "A New Leading Man" and a collection featuring his songwriting debut, "Remembering To Dream."

Hear the Ryan Opera Center Singers Online

Barihunk Paul La Rosa

Fans of this site know that our dedication to supporting young singers runs deep. We encourage readers to donate to young artist programs and our annual charity calendar benefits young artists. One of the best programs in the country is the Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and now you can hear their amazing singers even if you're not anywhere near the Windy City.

The Ryan Opera Center is performing a Rising Stars Concert that will be broadcast in the Chicago area on 98.7 WFMT and streamed online at www.wfmt.com on Sunday, April 1st 4 p.m. CST. If you're in the Chicago area, the concert is on Saturday, March 31, at 7:30 p.m CST at the Ardis Krainik Theatre of the Civic Opera House, but tickets are only available to Lyric Opera donors of $75 and above. You can (and should) donate at the Lyric Opera website.

Members of the 2012 Ryan Opera Center

One of this site's most popular young artists, Paul La Rosa, will be featured in the concert along with fellow baritones and basses Joseph Lim, Paul Scholten, David Govertsen and Evan Boyer. Other singers include sopranos Emily Birsan, Kiri Deonarine, and Jennifer Jakob (sopranos); mezzos Emily Fons and Cecelia Hall; and tenors René Barbera, Bernard Holcomb, and James Kryshak. The singers will be performing works by Adams, Bellini, Berlioz, Bernstein, Bizet, Delibes, Donizetti, Gounod, Mozart, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Rossini, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Verdi.

Participants in the program have performed principal and supporting roles during Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 57th season. They also served as understudies for major and minor roles throughout the season.

Another member of the program is Will Liverman who we recently predicted would win the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Unfortunately, the judges disagreed, but he is destined for a major career.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Announcing our First Beneficiary for our Barihunks Charity Calendar: The Portland Opera Studio

Portland Opera homepage

We’re pleased to announce that the Portland Opera Studio is our first recipient of a donation from our 2012 Barihunks charity calendar. We’ll announce the second recipient later this week. The final donation will depend on how many calendars we sell, which you can purchase HERE.

When we looked at the requests that we received, we were most moved by the requests from some of the smaller artist training programs. They work on shoestring budgets and still manage to develop some of the best young artists around today. Often they have to work more on commitment than cash, yet still deliver great results. The Portland Opera Studio has helped develop four singers who have appeared on this site: Jonathan Lasch, Jonathan Kimple, Jose Rubio and Nicholas Nelson. Portland Studio Artists also participated in a vocal masterclass with Daniel Mobbs, who performed the role of Figaro in Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” with the Portland Opera in November.

Portland Opera Studio participant Nicholas Nelson

Graduates of the Studio Artist program have performed worldwide, including roles with the New York City Opera and with young artist programs at Houston Grand Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. Nicholas Nelson will be appearing as the Commissioner in Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" opening on February 3rd and a number of small roles in Philip Glass' "Galileo Galilei" opening on March 30th.

In 2005, the Portland Opera established the Portland Opera Studio program, designed to train the next generation of opera singers by providing a "bridge" from the conservatory world to the professional stage.

Selected at auditions around the country, young singers fresh from some of the nation's finest vocal conservatories and music academies join the company for a rigorous nine-month training program during which they are featured in their own production. Their training also includes voice, language and movement lessons and supporting roles in Company mainstage productions. Studio Artists also give an intimate recital of Art Song at the Portland Art Museum, exploring the close relationship between composer, singer and accompianist.

Jose Rubio, Jonathan Kimple & Jonathan Lasch

The Studio Artists yearly production has become a highly-anticipated event in Portland, delighting audiences with rarely heard works and beautiful young voices. Previous productions include Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (2005), Monteverdi's The Return of Ulysses (2006), Britten's Albert Herring (2008), Cavalli's La Calisto (2009), Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti and Monteverdi's Il Ballo delle ingrate and Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (2010) and a Ravel double-bill of L'heure Espagnole and L'enfant et les Sortilèges (2011).

No matter where you live, we encourage you to buy a calendar to support this program, as you are likely to encounter one of their graduates at an opera house near you soon. You can also give an additional holiday donation directly to the Portland Opera Studio by contacting Hannah Gildea their Individual Giving Manager, at (503) 417-0601 or email her at hgildea@portlandopera.org.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Click HERE to buy your calendar.

Support Young Artists with the 2012 Barihunks Calendar

Actual Cover of Barihunks 2012 Calendar

People visit Barihunks for a variety of reasons, mostly to see some hot baritones showing off their vocal and physical gifts. However, the emails that matter most to us are the ones where we've learned that we've made a difference in a young artist's life. We often hear about singers being cast after someone saw and/or heard them on the site. Our favorite email of all-time was this, "Thanks to your site, my mom thinks I'm a big star in opera. Best of all, she doesn't complain about the all the money she's spent on my career anymore."

We strive to keep this site positive and about promoting both opera and careers. If you've written a bitchy post, you've probably noticed that it's been removed. We believe singers work too hard and make too many sacrifices to be attacked on a blog. Many singers know that we frequently show up to support them live in theaters throughout the world.

The most frequent request that we receive is for a Barihunks calendar and we've finally relented and put one together for 2012. We've collected lots of beautiful photos from the 33 of the hottest men in opera for your enjoyment. Many of the singers took the time to have exclusive photos taken just for the calendar.


Consistent with our desire to support young artists, all proceeds from the Barihunks 2012 calendar will go to support either young artist programs or young artists directly.  The only hitch is we haven't decided who will be the beneficiary. We'd like to hear from you. If you know of a training program that deserves our support, please write us at Barihunks@gmail.com and let us know why in 100 words or less. Click on the calendar image to the right to purchase a calendar now.

Wes Mason

Singers featured in our calendar include Aaron Agulay, Zach Altman, Dan Kempson, Jonathan Beyer, Brandon Cedel, Christopher Herbert, Christopher Temporelli, Craig Verm, David Adam Moore, David Krohn, Douglas Carpenter, Douglas Williams, Erik Anstine, Justin Hopkins, Jonathan Boehr, Jonathan Estabrooks, Michael Mayes, Michael Rice, Jordan Shanahan, Joseph Lattanzi, Matthew Trevino, Matthew Morris, Michael Kelly, Milos Galaz, Nick Parker-Pendree, Peter Brathwaite, Philip Kalmanovitch, Randal Turner, Remo Tobiaz, Seth Carico, Tom Forde, Wes Mason and Zachary Gordin. If you see any of these singers on a program, please buy a ticket and support their artistry.

Michael Mayes: Texapolitan Opera Show

We'd also like to thank all of the artists, agents, photographers and opera companies who graciously granted us rights to the images. In appreciation of the photographers, we are going to feature them and their sites throughout the year. Please support them, as well. Here are the photographers who contributed their work: Ellen Appel, J. David Levy, Bryan Estabrooks, Dirty Sugar Photography,  Chris Macke, Rozarii Lynch, Pierre-Etienne Bergeron, Gabriel Henningson, Taren Frazier, Kathy Whitman, Leah Brizard, Ron T. Ennis, Chris Miles, Moses Jones, Bill McClaren, Geoff Silver, Chisolm Photography, Nacho Guerrero and Ron Lindsay.

This calendar will make a great holiday gift!

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com