Celebrating the anniversary of La clemenza di Tito

Alex Esposito as Publius

Today is the anniversary of the premiere of Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and we thought it deserved a mention, since we give a disproportionate amount of attention to the Big 3 - Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro and Cosi fan tutte. The opera doesn't really have much music for a baritone to show off. In fact, there is only one aria, "Tardi s'avede," which belongs to Publius and was written for a lyric bass.

Nonetheless, we found this beautiful version of the aria sung by bass-barihunk Luca Pisaroni, which is worth sharing. In the aria, Publius feels sorry for his Emperor and tries to get Tito to wake up to the fact that his best friend, Sesto, had tried to assassinate him.

The opera premiered on September 6, 1791 and was written as a commission to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor as King of Bohemia. The opera remained popular after Mozart's death and in 1806 became his first opera to be performed in London. It wasn't performed in the United States until 1952, when it was presented at Tanglewood in English.

There are a couple of all-star productions of the opera this year, led by barihunk Alex Esposito taking on Publius at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in October. The cast also includes Kurt Streit as Tito, Véronique Gens as Vitellia and Anna Bonitatibus as Sesto.

In November and December, the opera will be performed at the Paris Opera with Bálint Szabó as Publius and Saimir Pirgu as Tito.

Workshop of Borzoni's "Antinous and Hadrian" this weekend

Brian Mextorf

Composer Clint Borzoni and librettist Edward Ficklin have been workshopping their new opera Antinous and Hadrian at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea. You can attend the workshop of Act 2 this Saturday, September 7 at 4 PM. The church is located at 296 Ninth Avenue at 28th Street. Tickets are $10 and are available online. Jennifer Peterson will conduct the Queer Urban Orchestra.

The opera tells the story of the second century Roman emperor Hadrian and his love for the Greek youth Antinous. It examines the mystery behind the tragic death of the young Antinous. Upon his death, the distraught Emperor declared his beloved a god. Drawing on both historical sources and dramatic imagination the work has been written in the grand opera tradition.

The video is of baritone Brian Mextorf rehearsing the role of Marcus. We've heard pieces of this opera and encourage people to go check it out. 

Justin Hopkins part of "30 Days of Opera" at Opera Memphis

We have always maintained that some of the best opera happens away from the major houses at the second tier houses. One of the most innnovative opera companies is Opera Memphis, run by director Ned Canty, who won us over in Santa Fe with his brilliant work on Gian Carlo Menotti's “Last Savage.”

He is one of the leaders in bringing opera to the masses and attracting new audiences to the art form. His latest project is "30 Days of Opera," a month-long event of free opera performances performed at various public venues around the Memphis area. The 30 days will end in time for the company’s season-opening production of Verdi's Rigoletto on Oct. 3th and 5th.

During the first four days they performed at two parks, two libraries, Aldo's Pizza, City Hall, the Little Tea Shop and at the corner of South Main and Monroe.

 

As part of their promotion, Ned Canty appeared on WNEG Channel 3 with soprano Caitlin McKechney and barihunk calendar model Justin Hopkins, who walked onto the television set singing Escamillo's music from Bizet's Carmen. The Philadelphia native will be making his debut with the company as Ceprano in Rigoletto. Also in the cast is fellow barihunk Matthew Treviño as Monterone/Sparfucile, Michael Corvino as Rigoletto, Anya Matanovič as Gilda, Jason Slayden  as the Duke and Caitlin McKechney as Madellena. Tickets are available online.

Hopkins will be singing Nourabad in Bizet's Les Pecheurs de perles at the Fort Worth Opera Festival next spring with our favorite young director, John de los Santos.

L.A. Opera adds Streetcar with Ryan McKinny & Renée Fleming

Ryan McKinny in Der fliegende Holländer

The Los Angeles Opera has just announced that it is adding André Previn’s Streetcar Named Desire  to its 2013-14 season. Taking on the role of Stanley Kowalski will be Ryan McKinny, who just created a sensation in Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer at the Glimmerglass Festival. We didn't need much evidence, as our sexy photos of him almost doubled traffic to the site.

Joining the rising superstar barihunk will be Renée Fleming in the role of Blanche DuBois, instantly making this one of the hottest tickets in opera.  The performances are being presented in a semi-staged concert version on May 18, 21 and 24. 

Rounding out the cast are  soprano Stacey Tappan as Stella and tenor Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch Mitchell, a role he performed at the opera’s 1998 premiere. Tickets will be available online beginning on October 20th.

Morgan Smith's many upcoming debuts (mostly in Texas!)

Morgan Smith

Perhaps one of the most anticipated American premieres this year is that of exiled Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Holocaust opera The Passenger. We covered the opera two years ago when it was at the English National Opera with barihunk Leigh Melrose as Tadeusz. A year earlier the piece was done in Bregenz with Artur Rucinski in the baritone role.

In January 2014, the opera is coming to the Houston Grand Opera with barihunk Morgan Smith as Tadeusz, in a cast that also includes rising tenor sensation Joseph Kaiser, two of our favorite sopranos Kelly Kaduce and Melody Moore, as well as mezzo-soprano Michelle Breedt. David Pountney’s production and Johan Engels’s two-level set, which received critical acclaim at ENO and in Bregenz, will be brought to Houston.

Leigh Melrose in The Passenger

The libretto is based on the eponymous novel by Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz and is set in the late 1950s. It depicts a German couple, Liese and Walter, on board an ocean liner where former SS officer Liese thinks she recognizes an Auschwitz prisoner among their fellow passengers. Although Weinberg completed his score in 1968, the opera was not performed until 2006 and not fully staged until the 2010 Bregenz Festival.

The Houston Grand Opera will present a number of activities related to the opera. A series of three free concerts begins on November 10 with the world premiere of a new work by HGO Studio alumnus and composer David Hanlon, commemorating the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht and based on the story of his grandfather, one of the thousands of Jewish people arrested on that infamous night and sent to Dachau. On December 9, they will host a concert exploring the music, art, poetry, and philosophy that emerged from Terezín, a concentration camp located in the Czech Republic. The third and final performance on February 22 features music of memory and hope with world premieres of works by Lawrence Siegel and Paul English based on text and inspiration from Holocaust survivor Naomi Warren.

Morgan Smith

Morgan has a number of new roles besides Tadeusz that he is adding to his repertoire next season. In Novemeber 2013, he takes on Captain Brandt in Marvin David Levy's Mourning Becomes Electra at the Florida Grand Opera. In March 2014, he debuts the role of Fritz in Erich Korngold's Die Tode Stadt at the beautiful Winspear Opera House in Dallas. When he wraps up, he heads down Interstate 30 to the Fort Worth Opera where he performs Lt. Audebert in Kevin Puts' Silent Night in a cast full of his fellow barihunks.

If you've not had the chance to see Morgan Smith live, we highly recommend adding one of these performances to your opera travel calendar. He is one of the most compelling young artists to hit the scene in years.

Barihunk-laden Don Giovanni in bucolic setting

Gregory Gerbrandt and Nora Graham-Smith

Don Giovanni and his little black book are returning to Northern California, this time at the Hidden Valley Opera Ensemble. The burgeoning opera company is a little over 2 hours from San Francisco and just a half an hour from the beautiful resort of Monterey.

The title character will be sung by barihunk Gregory Gerbrandt, who has been a familiar singer on this site. Gerbrandt is returning to Hidden Valley Opera where he portrayed Jim in David Conte's The Gift of the Magi.  This is debut as Don Giovanni. Previous Mozart roles have included Count Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro, Papageno in the Magic Flute and Guglielmo in Così fan tutte. 

Gerbrandt earned his Master of Music degree from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music and his Bachelor of Music from the University of Northern Colorado, where he studied voice and opera with his late father, Dr. Carl Gerbrandt.

Ryan Bradford

New to this site is the Masetto, Ryan Bradford, who is a familiar face to Bay Area opera audiences. A first prize winner at the Chicago and San Francisco National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competitions, he was a memorable Guglielmo in both the San Francisco Conservatory’s production of Mozart's Così fan tutte and the teacher in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar at Opera Parallèle. He is a recipient of the Joan and David Traitel Vocal Scholarship. You can check out Bradford on YouTube singing Schumann's Wehmut.

Don Giovanni opens on September 12  and runs through September 22 at the 300 seat Hidden Valley Theater in Carmel Valley, California. Call (831) 659-3115 for tickets.

Featured Barihunks dominate St. Gallen's Don Giovanni

Thomas Oliemans

A loyal reader who is catching some opera in Switzerland next week alerted us to the Don Giovanni in St. Gallen, which features four singers who have appeared on this site. Of course, there are two casts, so one won't find them all on stage at once. Performances will be running throughout the remainder of the calendar year, so there is plenty of time to make your travel plans and catch both casts.

Rotating as the title character are Danish barihunk Palle Knudsen and Dutch barihunk Thomas Oliemans, who was first brought to our attention by the very same reader. Oliemans released a recording of Schubert's Schwanengesang in 2011 with Malcolm Martineau that is not to be missed.

Matt Boehler sings Leporello's Catalog aria:

Alternating as Leporello are Swedish baritone Gabriel Suovanen, who is new to this site, and American Matt Boehler, who we featured when he made his New York City Opera debut as the Hotel Manager in Thomas Ades’ Powder Her Face. Boehler is now part of the regular ensemble at St. Gallen. Upcoming performances include Daland in Wagner's Der fliegende Hollander, Sparafucile in Verdi's Rigoletto and Der Pfarrer in Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen.

Jordan Shanahan, as seen in the Barihunks charity calendar

Alternating as Masetto are American baritones Jordan Shanahan and David Maze. Shanahan, you may recall was featured in our Barihunks calendar in photos taken from Jake Heggies' Dead Man Walking. Shanahan is also part of the ensemble at St. Gallen where he will be featured as Harlekin in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Marullo in Verdi's Rigoletto, Harasta in Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen and Fritz in Korngold's Die tote Stadt.

Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani

For those of you who like a little tenor eye candy, as well, check out the Don Ottavio of Anicio Zorzi Giustiniani. If the owners of the Hunkentenors site ever decide to resurrect their site, Giustiniani should be their next post. The guy can sing, too.