Shirtless Samuel Dundas Heats Up Cosi with Oz Opera

Samuel Dundas in Opera Australia's 'Cosi Fan Tutte' (©Branco Gaica)

Australian barihunk is singing Guglielmo in Opera Australia's visually stunning run of Mozart's Così fan tutte. Dundas who has played Masetto opposite the famously shirtless and ripped "Teddy Bare" a.k.a. Teddy Tahu Rhodes, appears to be the next generation of sexy barihunk from Down Under.

Dundas has been performing throughout Australia and New Zealand since 2005.  Since 2010, he has been a member of the Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist program at Opera Australia.  In 2010 his roles included Doctor/Inquisitor/Judge/Stanislaus in Candide, the appropriately named character Handsome in La Fanciulla del West, Starveling in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Ceprano in Rigoletto.  In 2011 his roles include Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Pish Tush in The Mikado, Cascada in Merry Widow and Masetto in Don Giovanni. 

Samuel Dundas in Opera Australia's 'Cosi Fan Tutte' (©Branco Gaica)

Other recent engagements have included Papageno The Magic Flute for Victorian Opera, the bass solos in Brahms Requiem with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus and his debut with Sydney Sinfonia in a Discovery series concert at the City Recital Hall in Sydney.

Dundas's 2012 roles include Fiorello in The Barber of Seville and Yamadori in Madama Butterfly for Opera Australia and the Title role in Opera Australia's tour of Don Giovanni. 

Watch a trailer of the production:

Performances of Così fan tutte are running through March 26. Get additional performance information or ticket on the Opera Australia website. In July 2012, Dundas will be reprising another Mozart role when he performs Don Giovanni in Michael Gow’s new production for Opera Australia.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Eugene Brancoveanu is Papageno in Re-imagined Magic Flute

Eugene Brancoveanu as Papageno and in The Machine

Some of you may remember West Edge Opera as the Berkeley Opera. They rebranded, but continue to produce some of the most interesting productions in the opera-rich San Francisco Bay Area. They re-imagine  opera classics with the goal of appealing to regular opera goers, as well as newer, younger audiences.

Their latest productions is Mozart's The Magic Flute by Mozart re-imagined as The Manga Flute. They commissioned David Scott Marley to create both a new English translation and new story inspired by the Japanese manga films of Hayao Miazaki, the noted creator of many popular films including Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. They also commissioned artist Megan Willis to create new manga art to be projected as scenery. 

 

Barihunk Eugene Brancoveanu, who we recently featured on this site in Machine at Oakland's Crucible, will be singing Papageno. The former Merola Opera student and Adler Fellow always brings 100% to every performance, whether dressed as a bird catcher or undressed in Machine.

There are performances remaining on Friday, March 9 and Sunday, March 11. You can click HERE for tickets or click HERE to make a donation to support this exciting company.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Catching up with Damien Pass in France

Damien Pass

When we last featured Aussie barihunk Damien Pass in 2007, he had recently graduated from Oberlin, had won and Encouragement Award from the Marilyn Horne Foundation Competition and was starting to get small roles in places like Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, Opera North and the Music Academy of the West. Somehow we lost track of him until we received an email recently asking why he wasn't included in our poll of sexiest Aussie barihunks.

We're pleased to announce that we found him in France, where he's been singing smaller roles at the Paris Opera.  He's performed Don Inigo (L’heure Espagnole, Ravel), Frank Maurrant (Street Scene, Weill), Lucas (Les Troqueurs, Dauvergne), and the Marquese (Mirandolina, Martinů) with the Atelier Lyrique at the Paris Opera.

Damien Pass sings Aaron Copland's "At the River":

In September 2001, Pass made his Parisian recital debut with the Fesival les journées romantiques with a program that included Aaron Copland, Franz Liszt, Cole Porter, Franz Schubert and Henri Duparc.

He's also made his mark outside of France, singing the title role in Handel’s Saul with the Britten-Pears Orchestra conducted by Richard Egarr in Aldeburgh.

 Damien Pass sings Aaron Copland's "Long Time Ago":

Pass will next be seen March 15th at the Palais Garnier in a program of Massenet with the Paris Opera Orchestra. A week later he'll be part of a concert of music by Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf et Richard Wagner at the Goethe Institute in Paris. We'll try to keep better tabs on this promising young talent in the future.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Dominik Köninger Dresses Down for Bach

Dominik Köninger as Jesus ( Foto: Johanna Sterner)

We love our readers for a million reasons, but mostly for the great photos that they send to us. Our best material comes from our readers, like this picture of Dominik Köninger perfoming Jesus in director Tobias Kratzer's current production of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. John Passion (Johannespassionen) at the Värmland Opera in Karlstad, Sweden. The production also includes barihunk Johan Rydh as Pilatus and runs every Saturday until April 8th.

Dominik Köninger as Jesus (Foto: Johanna Sterner)

Köninger's career has taken off since he won First Prize at the Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition last year. On April 15-16, he joins conductor Christopher Hogwood, the Limburg Cathedral Boys Choir and the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra for performances of Mozart’s version of Handel’s Ode to St. Cecilia.

This year, Köninger will join the ensemble of Komische Oper Berlin in Berlin, where he will perform Guglielmo, Il Conte, Orfeo and Orest in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride. In 2013, he makes his debut as Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at New National Theatre in Tokyo.

Dominik Köninger sings Mozart's "Hai gia vinta la causa":

Köninger also just released his first recording, a performance of Orff’s Carmina Burana in the version for two pianos and percussion on SONY Classical. We've also learned about another proposed recording project that we'll post when have additional information.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan in New Orleans

Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan (Photo: New Orleans Opera)

Check out the photo of barihunk Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan in Richard Strauss' Salome at the New Orleans Opera, which had its final performance today. We're not sure how we missed this performance!

McKinny's career has taken off since he was a Grand Finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was featured in the film tenor-laden film The Audition. He has performed regularly with the Houston Grand Opera and Los Angeles Opera and has begun establishing a reputation in Europe, singing in Berlin and Leipzig. In fact, his next performance will be with Oper Leipzig as Hercules in Gluck's Alceste (Alkestis). He returns to the United States on May 4th when he sings Lt. Ratcliffe opposite Nathan Gunn in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Metropolitan Opera.

 Ryan KcKinny as Jochanaan and Mlada Khudoley as Salome in the 

New Orleans Opera's production of Salome:

 Theodore P. Mahne of the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote:

As Jokanaan, baritone Ryan McKinny was simply amazing. Even from the depth of the cistern in which he is imprisoned, his rich voice soared. When he is brought to the surface, his prophetic warnings resonate with increased power and command. 

There is a savage beauty to McKinny’s acting, depicting a man of God who had removed himself from the ways of the world to live in the desert. Now chained in the palace of the Tetrarch, McKinny’s Jokanaan moves like a caged animal, carefully aware of his surroundings, easy to spook, yet knowing that he has a strength and power to overcome his captors.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Dead Man Walking Closes in Tulsa, Opens in Dresden

Michael Mayes (L) & John Packard (R) as Joseph de Rocher

Michael Mayes created quite a stir when we posted pictures of him on Barihunks as Joseph de Rocher in the Tulsa Opera production of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking. We followed it up with a post about his dramatic weight loss and workout routine that got him his "prison gym" body, which also generated intense interest. Mayes received rave reviews for his intense performance and became the talk of the opera world overnight even though he was performing in a city that is hardly considered an opera capital of the world. Such is the power of the internet.

Philip Cutlip (top) and Daniel Okulitch (bottom)

Heggie's opera has quickly become a mainstay of the operatic standard repertory, something that rarely happens this soon after a work's debut. The opera premiered at the San Francisco Opera in 2000 with an all-star cast led by John Packard as Joseph de Rocher, Frederick von Stade an his mother, Susan Graham as Sister Helen Prejean and Jay Hunter Morris as Father Grenville.

Mel Ulrich (L) & Teddy Tahu Rhodes (R)

Some of the hottest barihunks in the world have taken on the role of Joseph de Rocher including Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Mel Ulrich, Daniel Okulitch, Jordan Shanahan, Marcus DeLoach and Philip Cutlip.

Here is a promo piece from the Dresden Opera in German:

Dead Man Walking - Semperoper Dresden from Theater-TV on Vimeo.

Just over 5,000 miles from Tulsa, as the curtain comes down on the final performance of Dead Man Walking, another production is running at the Semperoper in Dresden with John Packard returning as the convicted killer. Remaining performance are on March 4, 9, 18 and 23 with Antigone Papoulkas as Sister Helen Prejean. Tickets are still available and can be purchased online. 

In related casting news about barihunks who played Joseph de Rocher, read our recent post about Daniel Okulitch, who is reprising Willy Wonka in Atlanta, a role that he created. Philip Cutlip opens two weeks from today as Guglielmo in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte at New York City Opera in a cast that includes fellow barihunk Rod Gilfry. Michael Mayes heads to the Ft. Worth Opera Festival to perform in Mark Adamo's Lysistrata, Jordan Shanahan will be performing in La boheme with the Green Mountain Cultural Festival, Marcus DeLoach will be performing in Of Mice and Men with the Utah Opera and Teddy Tahu Rhodes will be taking his famous Don Giovanni to Bordeaux opposite the Leporello of fellow barihunk Kostas Smoriginas

And we leave you with Jordan Shanahan:

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Opera Returns to Baltimore with Barihunk Nozze; Daniel Mobbs joins SFCM Staff

Daniel Mobbs performing Figaro in Baltimore (Photo by Julius Ahn)

When the economic collapse happened in 2008-2009, few things suffered more than the arts. Opera companies, small theaters and orchestras across the country shuttered their doors. One of the unfortunate victims was the creative Baltimore Opera, where many young singers launched their carees. We are pleased to announce that opera has returned with the Lyric Opera of Baltimore, which will be presenting Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro with barihunks Daniel Mobbs as Figaro and Marian Pop as the Count.

Opera in Baltimore has a long, rich history that dates back to the mid-18th century. Opera was initially influenced by the English and later by French refugees fleeing the Revolution. The first opera performed in Baltimore was John Gay's The Beggar's Opera in 1752. From 1883-1959, Baltimore was a regular stop for the Metropolitan Opera Tour and many of the biggest names in opera performed there.

Daniel Mobbs & Marian Pop bringing opera back to Baltimore (Photos by Julius Ahn)

Joining the two barihunks in Nozze will be Caitlin Lynch as the Countess, Janinah Burnett as Susanna and Kirsten Gunlogson as Cherubino. Performing in the pit will be the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joseph Rescigno. The production will be directed by Bernard Uzan in a production from  L’Opéra de Montréal. Click HERE for tickets and additional information.

In related news, opera students on the West Coast were thrilled to learn that Daniel Mobbs will be joining the voice faculty staff at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in the fall of 2012. Interested students should click HERE for additional information.

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