Elliot Madore makes U.K. debut at Glyndebourne

Elliot Madore (Photo: Kristin Hoebermann)

Out in the Sussex countryside away from the commotion of the Summer Olympics, the Glyndebourne festival is about to present it's sixth and final production of the season. On August 4th, the company will open the Ravel double-bill of L’heure espagnole and L’enfant et les sortilèges. Ravel’s two one-act operas will reunite director Laurent Pelly and conductor Kazushi Ono, who made their Glyndebourne debuts in 2008 with Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel.

Canadian barihunk Elliot Madore will make his U.K. and Glyndebourne debut as Ramiro in L’heure espagnole and as The Cat/Grandfather Clock in L’enfant et les sortilèges'. There are nine performances running through August 25th and the opera will be screened in theatres throughout the U.K. on Sunday, August 19th for those who didn't get their tuxedos pressed in time.

 The 1987 production from Glyndebourne with barihunk Francois LeRoux:

The former Lindemann Young Artist participant has also joined the ensemble of Opernhaus Zürich for the 2012-13 season. The company has cast him in a new production of Peter Eötvös’s 'Three Sisters', and revivals of 'Pagliacci' (Silvio), 'Un ballo in maschera' (Silvano), and 'La scala di seta' (Germano).

Readers of this site will recall that Madore created a sensation when he stepped in for Daniel Okulitch as Don Giovanni with the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He also appeared as Lysander at The Met in their Baroque pastiche The Enchanged Island.

Other operas that are still running at Glyndebourne include La bohème, Le nozze di Figaro and Purcell's The Fairy Queen. Visit their website for tickets and additional performance information.

West Edge Opera's "City of Sin"

Barihunk Daniel Cilli (shirtless) and Paul Murray

West Edge Opera is doing some of the more interesting and original programming in the American opera scene under Artistic Director Mark Streshinsky. The company, formerly known as Berkeley Opera, has moved to neighboring El Cerrito with a repertory geared to attracting a broader and younger opera audience. The revamped company is a key player in the rich San Francisco opera scene which includes the conservative San Jose Opera, internationally acclaimed San Francisco Opera, stunning baroque opera/oratorio from the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and dozens of regional companies. For opera lovers looking for a change of pace from the usual fare, West Edge Opera has become the company of choice.

West Edge Opera is pairing the Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht social satire “Mahagonny Songspiel” with another one-act opera, Daron Hagen's “Vera of Las Vegas.” Regular readers of this site will recall that Hagen debuted his opera "Amelia" at the Seattle Opera in May 2010 with a cast that included Nathan Gunn as Paul (and fellow barihunk David McFerrin in the second cast).

The productions include shirtless singers, modern day references, a world-famous countertenor in drag, musical mash-ups of jazz/cabaret/classical music and the famous "Alabama Song." 

Artistic Director Mark Streshinsky discusses "City of Sin":

In 1927, Mahagonny Songspiel became the first major hit for the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill collaboration. It was later expanded to become the full-length opera "The Rise and Rall of the City of Mahagonny."

Countertenor Brian Asawa and Tenor Thomas Glenn (giving barihunks a run for their money)

Composer Daron Hagen and poet Paul Muldoon have teamed up to create a quintessentially American dream-gone-wrong opera, set in the quintessential city of illusory hopes, Las Vegas. The story is about two former IRA operatives trying to escape their nightmares who become enmeshed in a surrealistic Vegas fantasy of sex- and identity- confusion. The score will is played by a 1920’s cabaret band.

Visit westedgeopera.org for additional information.

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo Wows Verona, Heads to L.A.

Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

Barihunk Ildebrando D'Arcangelo just completed his historic run in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Arena di Verona. The new Franco Zeffirelli production was the first performance of the opera at that venue in ninety years. We suspect that video will pop up over the next few months from the production. Most of what is available now is rehearsal footage. We promise to post it as it becomes available, because it was a production for the ages.

Video stills from Muica with Ildebrando D'Arcangelo

Musica did a wonderful video overview of the opera that features the Italian heartthrob shirtless most of the time. There's also an interview from RAI Radio 3 in Italy with the singer. Watch it at Euronews and D'Arcangelo's interview HERE (in Italian).

In the meantime, enjoy D'Arcangelo serenading some happy Italians with  "Deh vieni alla finestra."

 Ildebrando D'Arcangelo sings "Deh vieni alla finestra" from Verona:

D'Arcangelo now takes his seductive Don to Hollywood, as he opens as the title character with the Los Angeles Opera. The three week run begin on September 22 with the adorable Masetto of Joshua Bloom. Regular readers might recall that Bloom made his successful debut in the role last Fall with a cast that includes fellow barihunks Luca Pisaroni and Mariusz Kwiecien.

For additional cast and performance information visit the Los Angeles Opera website.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Keenlyside's Sexy ads for Met's "The Tempest"

Simon Keenlyside

If there was ever any doubt that sedxy men in opera are finally being recognized for having the same marketing potential as their female counterparts, it was firmly dispelled with the arrival of the new Metropolitan Opera 2012-13. In the past, one could count on Anna Netrebko, Kiri Te Kanawa or Elīna Garanča gracing the cover. Barihunk Simon Keenlyside graces the cover with a full body tattoo and have exposed torso. The British singer, who turns 53 on August 3rd, looks as stunning as singers half his age.

Composer Thomas Adès will conduct and Robert Lepage will direct the Met premiere of this modern masterpiece. Keenlyside will sing the role of Prospero, the banished Duke of Milan who practices his otherworldly arts. The entire cast could be out of Hollywood central casting. It includes Isabel Leonard as Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, Toby Spence as his brother Antonio and Audrey Luna as the spirit Ariel.

The cast also has other barihunk connections, as Leonard is the wife of barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Luna is the wife of barihunk Jordan Shanahan.

If you can't make it to New York City, you can watch the performance in the Met's Live in HD broadcast of Saturday, November 10, 2012.

Kyle Ketelsen to star in Carmen

Other barihunks performing at the Met his Fall include Dmitri Hvorostovsky in Un Ballo in Maschera and Don Carlo, Mariusz Kwiecien in L'Elisir d'Amore, Peter Mattei in Parsifal, Guido Loconsolo in Giolio Cesare, Kyle Ketelsen and Teddy Tahu Rhodes in Carmen, Nathan Gunn in Le Comte Ory, Ildar Abdrazakov and Erwin Schrott in Don Giovanni and John Relyea in Faust.

Visit the Met's website for additional performance and cast information.

Aubrey Allicock to star as boxer Emile Griffith

Aubrey Allicock and Emile Griffith

The Opera Theatre of St. Louis has announced that barihunk Aubrey Allicock will star as bisexual boxer Emile Griffith in the world premiere of Champion on June 15, 2013. The opera was written by jazz great Tereence Blanchard with a libretto by playwright Michael Cristofer and will also star mezzo Denyce Graves.

Aubrey Allicock has become an instant fan favorite at the Opera Theatre where he played Mamoud in The Death of Klinghoffer in 2011 and the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland in 2012. Local opera fans got to know him during his two year stint with the Gerdine Young Artist program where he performed the roles of Zaretsky in Eugene Onegin and the Customs Official in La bohème.

Terence Blanchard: Taxi Driver:

Emile Griffith was a three-time World Welterweight Champion and twice a World Middleweight Champion, fighting from the late 1950s into the 1970s. However, one of his greatest professional triumphs – winning back the Welterweight Championship from Benny “The Kid” Paret in 1962 – was also one of his greatest personal tragedies. The seventeen punches he landed on Paret in seven seconds resulted in not only a knockout, but also a coma from which Paret would never recover. Paret would die ten days later.

The end of the Griffith-Paret fight + Norman Mailer's commentary:

Before that life-changing televised fight, in a room full of press and officials, Paret mocked Griffith repeatedly with a derogatory term for homosexual. Years later, Griffith’s sexuality as a gay man was revealed to the public after he was nearly killed by a gang outside a gay bar in New York. “I kill a man,” Griffith was quoted to have said, “and most people understand and forgive me. I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgiveable sin.” In an inspiring, moving, and painful journey of self-discovery, Champion presents audiences with a great contemporary tragic hero – a man of strength and courage consumed ultimately by rage, regret, and the terrible consequences of his actions.

Today, Griffith requires full time care and suffers from pugilistic dementia.

Rocky Mountain High: 3 Barihunks in Crested Butte

Marcell Bakonyi

Yesterday we featured barihunks out in the English countryside, so it's only appropriate that we head up into the Colorado Rockies today. In beautiful Crested Butte, Colorado a trio of barihunks is also taking up Mozart. At the Crested Butte Music Festival, Philip Cutlip (Papageno), Keith Miller (Sarastro) and Marcell Bakonyi (Speaker) are performing the Magic Flute at the famed ski resort.

Keith Miller & Philip Cutlip

We've featured Cutlip and Miller extensively on this site in the past, but Bokonyi is a new singer for us. Bakonyi was born in 1980 in Győr, Hungary. He studied voice at the Leo-Weiner Conservatory of Music in Budapest, and later at the Hochschule für Musik, Stuttgart with Professor Julia Hamari where he also attended classes in Lieder singing. Since 2009 he has been a member of the ensemble of the Landestheater Salzburg where he sang the roles of Bartolo and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, as well as Kaspar in Der Freischütz, Angelotti in Tosca and Bacco in Arianna, Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore and Leporello in Don Giovanni.

Crested Butte is best known for their international film festival, skiing and as the birthplace of mountain biking. The Music Festival presents diverse array of music, dance and opera. This year's lineup includes Broadway tunes, bluegrass, jazz, sacred, chamber, symphonic and operatic fare. There is also a young artist training program headed by tenor Marcello Giordano. The Magic Flute will run from July 25-29. Visit their website for additional information.

In a sign that barihunks are being viewed as sex symbols more widely, Keith Miller was asked to model for this Suburu ad and we think he looks pretty hot.

 

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Barihunks in the English Countryside take on Figaro

Baritone Marc Callahan

American Marc Callahan and Brit Michael Davis opened as Figaro and the Count respectively in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro this weekend at the beautiful Winslow Hall in Buckinghamshire, England. The estate out in the glorious English countryside was designed by England’s greatest architect, Sir Christopher Wren. Performances run through Sunday, July 29th. To book tickets, call the Stowe Opera box office at 01280 848275 or download a booking form from www.stoweopera.com.

Winslow Hall

Now resident in the United Kingdom, Marc Callahan is a native of Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. His formal music studies began at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where he earned his Bachelor of Music Degree, and later at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, where he received his Masters Degree and is continuing his doctoral studies. A lover of French art song, Marc furthered his vocal studies in Paris, France at the Schola Cantorum and the École Normale de Musique Alfred Cortot.

Michael Davis

Born in London, Michael Davis studied at Oxford University and the Royal College of Music, where he was supported by the Constant and Kit Lambert Studentship. He furthered his studies on the English National Opera, Opera Works course. He also won first prize in the 2009-10 Bayreuth Bursary Competition.

 Simon Keenlyside sings "Hai gia vinta la causa" from Le nozze di Figaro:

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com