Kelly Markgraf and Paul La Rosa

[Top two photos of Paul La Rosa in Klinghoffer and Krenek's "Heavyweight, or the Pride of the Nation" by Nan Melville of the NY Times; Bottom two photos of Kelly Markgraf pictures from his personal site]

The Julliard School was recently graced with two of the hottest young barihunks to emerge on the scene, Kelly Markgraf and Paul La Rosa. Markgraf played Mamoud and La Rosa was Rambo in John Adams’ masterpiece The Death of Klinghoffer.

Markgraf is a native of Cedarburg, Wisconsin and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from Boston University and a Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. He continued his studies at the Opera Theatre of Lucca. In 2005, he completed his studies at the Pensacola Opera’s 2005 Resident Artist Program.

In 2010, he’ll sing Escamillo to Kate Aldrich’s sexy Carmen at the Pittsburgh Opera. Both are known as intense actors, so this should be a steamy, sexy performance of Carmen.

Baritone Paul LaRosa is a native of Union, New Jersey and a member of the renowned Juilliard Opera Center in New York City. In 2007, he was part of the esteemed Merola Opera Program in San Francisco where he stole the show as Dandini in Rossini’s comic masterpiece La Cenerentola.

La Rosa has already performed in some classic Barihunk operas, including Gluck’s Iphigenie en Aulide, The Rake’s Progress, Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni and Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.

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Another Emerging Barihunk: Alexander Vinogradov

[Photo of Vinogradov as Escamillo from the Washington Post]

As promised, this week is dedicated to the Barihunks bench. Meet Alexander Vinogradov a 32-year-old Russian barihunk who sings regularly at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. As with many bass-baritones, his barihunk roles are limited, but he's made Escamillo his calling card and performs both Masetto and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Vinogradov is known as a bit of a brainiac and studied at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology before embarking on a music career. In 2003, he was a finalist in Plácido Domingo's Operalia International Competition, having already won or placed in a number of vocal competitions. As you can see from this video of him in Tokyo, he has a rich, full sound that is wonderfully secure. More importantly, he's one hot bowl of barihunk borscht.

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Casting Coup at Michigan Opera; Bavarian State Opera Promises Eye Candy

[Top, John Relyea from his website; Center; Die Bassariden from Bavarian State Opera and bottom, photo of Paulo Szot]

The Michigan Opera Theater has announced the casting coup of the season. Paulo Szot, fresh off his hugely successful run in South Pacific on Broadway, will play the lead role in Don Giovanni next season. It's amazing that Barihunks even got this information as MOT is the worst opera company on the planet in listing complete casts. Even for their upcoming Carmen, they don't list the Escamillo!

Nonetheless, we're all going to be keeping our eye on this performance. Paulo Szot is one of the hottest singers in the world and sex appeal clearly reached the masses reprising the classic Ezio Pinza role of Emile De Becque. If anyone at MOT is reading this, who is playing Leporello and Masetto?

Also, I received an email from the Bavarian Opera informing us that Barihunks Lucas Meachem and John Relyea will perform together next season in Le Nozze di Figaro. Meachem will play the Count Almaviva and Relyea will be Figaro. Mrs. Teddy Tahu Rhodes, a.k.a. Isabel Leonard, will portray Cherubino. The opera company will also present Henze's Die Bassariden, which often gives us some great skin shots, as evidenced from the picture above. No cast list is available yet.

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Red-Headed Ryan de Ryke

My apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days, but my internet service was down. After the Hottest Barihunk competition, I figured it's time to start looking at the barihunk bench. There are a number of major hunks emerging on the operatic scene and I want to shere them with you over the next week.

I recently received an email from someone who heard Ryan de Ryke in recital. They called him "tall, red-headed and someone you can't take your eyes off of." Well that got me googling pretty quick, so you be the judge.

De Ryke has appeared in a number of barihunks standards including Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream and our beloved Monteverdi and Mozart operas, which supply us with numerous barihunk images. He's rapidly establishing himself as an early music specialist and lieder recitalist of note, as witnessed from this beautiful clip of Schubert lieder.

De Ryke studied at the Britten-Pears Institute and his teachers have included Ian Partridge at the Royal Academy of Music and John Shirley-Quirk at the Peabody Conservatory.

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Prize Winner Alexsander Tsymbalyuk

Aleksander Tsymbalyuk sings Aleko's aria by Raxmaninov



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Aleksander Tsymbalyuk has appeared on this site before and he's unquestionably one of the hottest barihunks to emerge on the scene. In 2006, he won first prize at the 5th annual Elena Obraztsova International Competition of Young Opera Singers in Moscow. Here is a video of his winning performance, singing the gorgeous aria from Aleko by Rachmaninov.

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Upcoming Barihunk Jacques Imbrailo

Now that the Hottest Barihunk competition is over it's time to dig through my emails and see what hotties I've missed. South African Jacques Imbrailo seems to have a lot of fans around the globe. He studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music with Ryland Davies and won a number of vocal competitions.

I have a feeling that we're going to see a number of hot pictures of Imbrailo, as he sings a number of barihunk operas including Rape of Lucretia, Carmen, Iphigenie en Tauride, Midsummer Night's Dream and a number of Mozart operas.

He's also scheduled to debut his Billy Budd at the Glyndebourne Festival in the summer of 2010. Let's hope it's shirtless.

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Tie for Hottest Barihunk: Nathan Gunn and David Adam Moore

[Top photo Nathan Gunn as Billy Budd; Bottom photo David Adam Moore in Seattle's Pearl Fishers]

In an age with a plethora of barihunks, it only seems appropriate that our Hottest Barihunk poll came down to a tie. Nathan Gunn and David Adam Moore both received 23% of the vote in a seven person race. It was an impressive showing for David Adam "More More" Moore who is much less well known than Nathan Gunn. Moore is clearly emerging as the new generation of singers frequenting opera stages. He can sing, act and he looks like the characters he plays. He also is a singer who takes risks with his repertoire, many of which appeal to younger audiences. By the way, notice the tattoo on Moore's ankle. Very hot!

The phrase barihunk was practically coined for Nathan "Top" Gunn and it's difficult to find an article where his looks aren't a key part of the reporting. He has also shown an amazing ability to reach crossover audiences singing show tunes and other non-operatic music. His sexy portrayals of Billy Budd, Pearl Fishers, Magic Flute and even the Barber of Seville have become operatic legend.

The only other serious contender in this competition was Erwin "Hot" Schrott, who finished well back at 16%.

The success of this site is a testament to the fact that people want to see singers who look believable on stage. With that said, I'm glad that every barihunk in this poll is ALSO an amazing singer. I want to thank the readership of this site for making this site fun for me, agents, singers, marketing departments and fans of hunky baritones around the globe.

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