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Watch Henk Neven in complete Dido & Aeneas

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Henk Neven & Vivica Geneaux in Dido & Aeneas at Rouen
You can watch an entire performance of Purcell's Dido & Aeneas from Opéra de Rouen Haute-Normandie with an all-star cast featuring barihunk Henk Neven as Aeneas, Vivica Genaux as Dido, Ana Quintans as Belinda and Marc Mauillon as the magician. The entire production was magically staged, directed and choreographed by the team of Cécile Roussat and Julien Lubek. You won't want want to miss the opportunity to watch this!


If you want to see the performance live, it will be reprised at Versailles with two performances daily on June 14 and 15. You can book online. From May 23-25, Versailles is also presenting the barihunk-laden performance of Lully's Persée that we recently featured starring Olivier Laquerre, Vasil Garanliev, Stephen Hegedus and Curtis Sullivan.



Rare Hunkentenor-Bass/Barihunk concert in East Bay

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Jonathan Blalock and Aaron Sørensen
One of the recipients of our proceeds from the Barihunks calendar was the team of hunkentenor Jonathan Blalock and Bass-Barihunk Aaron Sørensen, who came up with the novel idea for a concert with this rarely seen vocal combination.

The duo will perform music by George Gershwin, Ricky Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Glen Roven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gioacchino Rossini. The performance will be at Duende on Wed., May 21 at 7 PM  in the heart of Oakland's burgeoning arts district, The Uptown. Duende has become a popular destination for aficionados of alternative jazz and they've been eager to expand their musical offerings to include classical music. This will debut what we all hope is a regular feature on their calendar. A stones throw away from Duende is the restored Fox Theater, which features some of the biggest names in the music industry.  Tickets for the Blalock/Sørensen recital are available online.


This recital will also be the West Coast debut for two of the most talked about young artists in opera. Jonathan Blalock received rave notices from the New York Times and Alex Ross in the New Yorker for his riveting performance in Gregory Spears'Paul's Case, which featured barihunk Keith Phares. Aaron Sørensen is the bass voice that the opera world continuously clamors for and he recently appeared as the French General in Fort Worth Opera's production of Kevin Puts'Silent Night.

Efrain Solis in an ad for West Edge Opera
Blalock will be returning to the East Bay this summer in West Edge Opera's production of Philip Glass's Hydrogen Jukebox, featuring barihunk Efrain Solis and bass-barihunk Kenneth Kellogg. You can watch a preview of their exciting and innovative upcoming season above and get more information on their website. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you'll want to add their summer festival to calendar.

San Diego Opera Saved; Barihunks in all 3 Operas

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Alex Esposito is bringing his definitive Leporello to San Diego
Never underestimate the power of social media or the devotion of hard core opera lovers. On March 19, the San Diego Opera stunned the world when it voted to close the company at the end of the 2014 season. Social media exploded with employees, performers and orchestra members leading the charge. Questions were raised about the management of the company and the motives for closing.

Yesterday, Board President Carol Lazier, surrounded by fellow board members, opera staff, choristers and union members announced that the 2015 season will proceed after they raised over $2 million in crowd-funding campaigns. Lazier donated an additional $1 million to attain a goad requested by the Board to proceed with the new season.

Morgan Smith and Franco Pomponi
That season will include barihunks in each of their productions, which had already been planned under the old regime.  One opera was dropped due to the cost to produce it, which was Wagner’s Tannhäuser. The singers who were scheduled to perform in the opera have been invited to sing in one of two gala concerts, a recital, or come back and sing for the opera in a future season.

The scheduled operas include Puccini's La bohème with Morgan Smith as Marcello,  Mozart's Don Giovanni with  Ildebrando D’Arcangelo in the title role and Alex Esposito as Leporello, and the San Diego premiere of John Adams’ Nixon in China with Franco Pomponi.

You can still donate to the San Diego Opera fundraising campaign online or purchase tickets for the new season.

More Sexy Photos from LA Opera's "A Streetcar Named Desire"

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LA Opera Production of Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire. Stacey Tappan as Stella. Photo by Robert Milliard

Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny

Ryan McKinny and Stacey Tappen

Renée Fleming and Ryan McKinny

As a follow-up to our previous post about the Los Angeles Opera's beautifully sung and sexy performance of André Previn's A Streetcar Named Desire, here are some stunning photos from the production.

The opera featured bass-barithunk Ryan McKinny as the hotheaded Stanley Kowalski, soprano Renée Fleming as Blanche, Stacey Tappan as Stella, tenor Anthony Dean Griffey as Mitch.

Sometimes words aren't needed, so enjoy the pictures.

John Chest to debut as Billy Budd in Berlin

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John Chest as Billy Budd
Anyone who has ever seen or heard barihunk John Chest, with his golden locks and golden voice, immediately thinks of him as the perfect Billy Budd. Fortunately, conductor Donald Runnicles had a chance to hear and see Chest while they were both in San Francisco. The two are being reunited at the Deutsche Oper Berlin for five performances of Benjamin Britten's masterpiece running from May 22th-June 6th. Tickets are available online.

John Chest is a recent graduate of the Opera Studio at the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he sang over eighty performances including Fiorello in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Schaunard in Puccini's La Bohème with Anja Harteros, Dandiniin Rossini's La Cenerentola, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Lovec in Dvorak's Rusalka, Petrucci in Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia with Edita Gruberova, Bizet's Carmen with Jonas Kaufmann.

Chest is now part of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he has sung Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Il Conte Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Albert in Massenet's Werther.  In November, he'll return to the U.S. to perform Marcello in Puccini's La Bohème at the Washington National Opera with fellow barihunks Joshua Bloom as Colline and Steven LaBrie as Schaunard. 

Baritone turned tenor Sam Roberts-Smith, returns as a baritone

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Sam Roberts-Smith

We were devastated when Aussie barihunk Sam Roberts-Smith announced in 2011 that he was switching to tenor. We recently learned that he's now making the switch back to baritone and will compete in his lower fach at the Paris Opera Awards. 

The competition starts with 50 singers and ends with prizes for three male and three female singers. Ten singers will perform in a gala finale on November 19th. Each singer can place two video clips on their profile and the public can vote for their favorite singers. 

Make sure to check out the Paris Awards website and cast your vote. The site is in French, but many pages are translatable to other languages by clicking on the flags on the top right of the page. 

WE VOTED!!!
Sam Roberts-Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Diploma in Opera from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2008. After completing his studies he relocated to Sydney and joined Australia’s national company, Opera Australia.

Reader Submission: Takaoki Onishi

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Takaoki Onishi
Our latest Reader Submission is Japanese baritone Takaoki Onishi. He has won the Top Prize in the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, and the First Prize in both the Opera Index, Inc. Vocal Competition and the Licia Albanese - Puccini International Vocal Competition. He also received a prize in the 2013 Loren L. Zachary Competition, as well as two Grants from the Giulio Gari Foundation.

He made his Lincoln Center debut in the Juilliard Vocal Arts Honors Recital at Alice Tully Hall. He has been awarded a fellowship at the Aspen Music Festival and he received the Makiko Narumi Prize for Outstanding Singer by the Juilliard School.

In 2013, Onishi created the leading male role in the world premiere of Marty Regan’s The Memory Stone, which was presented by the Houston Grand Opera’s East/West program. This spring in New York, he sang in two concerts in the Schubert & Company series, as well as appearing as baritone soloist in Franz Schubert's Mass No. 2 in G major, D.167 at Rockefeller University and in Brahms Requiem with West Village Chorale in New York..

In February, he performed the title role in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Juilliard Opera and in March he performed Jesus in Bach's St. Matthew's Passion. He will also return to Japan to sing in several concerts of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, as well as a solo recital in Tokyo. On June 7th,  he sings at The Opera Ball at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Reader submissions are always welcome at Barihunks@gmail.com

Duncan Rock to make U.S. stage debut with Boston Lyric Opera

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The highly-anticipated U.S. stage debut of British Barihunk sensation Duncan Rock will occur not far from another rock, Plymouth Rock. The Boston Lyric Opera has snagged the charismatic fan favorite to portray the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni next season.

Fans will have to wait a year, as the opera runs from May 1-10, 2015, but we assure you it will be worth the wait. To order a tickets, call 617-542-6772 or email boxoffice@blo.org. The remainder of their upcoming season includes Verdi’s La Traviata, Frank Martin’s The Love Potion and Janáček’s Kátya Kabanová.

At rehearsals of La bohème at English National Opera
We first discovered Duncan Rock when he was in Britten's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and then as Moralès in a sexy production of Bizet's Carmen directed by Calixto Bieto at the English National Opera. In his young career, Rock has developed a reputation as both a gifted singer and riveting stage presence. His gender bending performance in Don Giovanni: The Opera at London's famous nightclub Heaven was a sensation. He followed that with an portrayal as an often shirtless Tarquinius in Benjmain Britten's The Rape of Lucretia at Glyndebourne, where Irish actress and theatre and opera director Fiona Shaw pushed him to new dramatic limits. His performance prompted Tim Ashley, of the Guardian to comment, "Rock undercuts Tarquinius's raffish allure with unnerving intimations of psychotic violence."
 
Duncan Rock recently finished a successful run as Marcello in Puccini's La bohème with the English National Opera in a production that was updated to 1950s Paris. European fans can catch him as the waiter in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice at the Teatro Real in Madrid from December 4-23. The cast also includes the amazing countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo as the voice of Apollo. Tickets are available online.

Sebastian Geyer in rare version of Orpheus myth

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Sebastian Geyer in The Elixir of Love
German barihunk Sebastian Geyer, who we first introduced to readers back in 2010, is starring in Telemann’s rarely performed opera "Orpheus oder Die Wunderbare Bestängigkeit Der Liebe" (Orpheus or The Wonderful Constancy of Love). The production opened last night at the Oper Frankfurt and runs through June 8th. Tickets and additional information are available online

The opera tells of the destructive power of love from Eurydice's point of view. The myth of Orpheus is one of the best loved stories in literary and operatic history, at its center the power of music and love between Orpheus and Eurydice. In Telemann's version,  Orasia the Queen of Trace, who is in love with Orpheus plays a larger role than in versions by other composers. There also is no happy ending, as the composer/librettist ban all three main characters to the underworld.

Telemann’s Orpheus has often been dismissed as a pastiche because it included some well known passages from Handel and Lully operas. But the opera was a brave experiment that broke musical and dramaturgical boundaries. Telemann combined his own, strongly protestant, cantata forms with the sensuality of Italian opera and the courtly glamor of France. 

Sebastian Geyer in Orpheus at the Frankfurt Oper
Sebastian Geyer has become a leading baritone at the Oper Frankfurt, where he has sung Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Conte Almaviva in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Dr. Falke in Strauß'Die Fledermaus and the title role in Handel's Giulio Cesare. He also has appeared on the company's recording of Richard Wagner's Die Feen.

On September 5th, he'll switch to Puccini as he sings Schaunard with the company in La bohème. He then travels to Wuppertal to sing the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni in a cast that includes fellow barihunk Damien Pass as Masetto. 

Photos from Zomeropera's sexy Don Giovanni

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Gianluca Margheri as Don Giovanni
We recently posted about the upcoming production at the Zomeropera in Belgium where barihunks Borja Quiza and Gianluca Margheri are alternating the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni. We've just gotten pictures of both casts and lovers of a sexy Don won't be disappointed.

The worst thing about this production would be deciding which cast to see. Fans of Margheri can catch him on May 27, 29, 31 and June 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19 and 21. Fans of Quiza can see him on May 25, 28, 30 and June 1, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18 and 20. Tickets are available online.
 
Borja Quiza as Don Giovanni

The Zomeropera, which is in its 17th season, was created to bring professional orchestra musicians together with students to perform work for a broader audience. The professionals occupy the concert master’s chair and the lead player positions for viola, cello, double bass, wood instruments and brass instruments. These masters coach the different instrumental groups and offer their assistance in recruiting talented students.

Thomas Rainer Schütz
On June 23 and 24, there will also be a gala concert featuring some of Europe's top opera studio opera artists. Included in the concert will be baritones Thomas Rainer Schütz and Owain Browne, tenors Denzil Delaere and João Terleira, sopranos Sarah Mc Court, Julia Rodriguez and Siân Winstanley, as well as mezzo-soprano Helene Bracke.

Reader Submission: Jens Søndergaard

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Jens Søndergaard
Our latest "Reader Submission" is Danish barihunk Jens Søndergaard, who a reader informed us will sing Aslak in the world premiere of composer Magnar Åm's Is-slottet (The Ice Castle). The opera, which is based on author Tarjei Vesaas' award-winning novel of the same name, opens on September 16 at Den Ny Opera.

The legendary Norwegian story tells the tale of two friends who despite having spent only one evening together, finds the life of one of them shattered when the other inexplicably disappears.

In 2003, Søndergaard graduated from the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen, and debuted in 2005 from the Royal Danish Academy of Music. From 2004-2007 he was a member of the ensemble at Das Deutsche Nationaltheater Weimar. His operatic repertoire has ranged from the baroque to contemporary Danish music.

In addition to Is-slottet, Søndergaard's current season includes his debut as Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca at the Aalborg Opera Festivaland Guglielmo in Mozart's Così fan tutte at Jyske Opera opening February 2015.

Sidney Outlaw's "Night on the "A-List" with Toni Braxton

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Toni Braxton and Sidney Outlaw
We make no secret about our love for Sidney Outlaw. He's not only an amazing singer, but one of the smartest and most interesting people in the business. When we saw him on Facebook posting pictures of himself serenading R&B icon Toni Braxton, we asked him to tell us the story. Here it is in his own words:
"Toni Braxton is one of the greatest contemporary R&B singers of our time. When I was a child, she was one of the singers I looked to for inspiration. So, when I learned she was to appear to do a signing for her memoir at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove in Los Angeles, I knew I had to be there.

I arrived early because I knew there would be a crowd gathered to see the iconic Ms. Braxton. I was right - not only were scores of her fans present, also at the store were several media outlets and the camera crew for her hit reality show, Braxton Family Values. I waited patiently in line for my turn to greet her. I watched as several fans attempted to impress her by singing their renditions of her songs.
Toni Braxton and Sidney Outlaw
When it was my turn to greet her, I told her about our mutual connection with the Lupus Foundation and of how she inspired me to become a singer. When she asked what I did, I informed her I was an opera singer and her eyes lit up. She asked me to sing for her. And she would not hear me sing any of her music. She wanted to hear opera! I sang the first verse of Mozart's "Deh vieni alla finestra" and she told me to keep going so I sang Stepfano Donaudy's "O del mio amato ben". Before I knew it, everyone in the bookstore was fixated on my voice - shoppers, fans, media, the camera crew, and, of course, Ms. Braxton.

She seemed to really enjoy my gift, and it was an honor to share it with her."

Thomas Oliemans in Amsterdam world premiere

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Laika and Thomas Oliemans
Dutch barihunk Thomas Oliemans is starring in the world premiere of Martijn Padding's new opera Laika at the Dutch National Opera in a co-production with the Holland Festival 2014.

Martijn Padding and librettist P.F. Thomése poke fun at the superficiality of ratings-obsessed television programs. Oliemans stars as Robbert, a famous TV personality who is tired of his fame and popularity and his superficial life.

Behind the scenes at Laika with Martijn Padding & Thomas Oliemans: 


Robbert still lives with his domineering mother, who keeps the embalmed body of his father on display in the living room. He dreams of abandoning TV and aspires to a more peaceful life with personal privacy.  Since his early youth he has immersed himself in the cosmos. After meeting astronaut Yuri Gagarin and a Laika, the first living animal to be sent into space, Robbert decides to embark on his own journey into space.

Performances run from June 3-8 and tickets are available online.

Franco Pomponi in open-air Don Giovanni

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Franco Pomponi and the Herod Atticus Theatre
Franco Pomponi, who recently created a rush in sales for opera glasses, when he appeared nude in Ambroise Thomas'Hamlet at La Monnaie in Brussels, is now taking on the title role in Mozart's Don Giovanni in Greece.  The performances will be in the open-air Herod Atticus Theatre as part of the Athens Fesitval. The opera is being staged by the Greek National Opera.

The production is directed by Yannis Houvardas, an acclaimed Greek director and until recently director of the Greek National Theatre. Pomponi will alternate the role with Greek baritone Dionyssis Sourbis. Pomponi performs on June 11 and 13. Tickets are available online.

Pomponi is back in the United States on Novemeber 14 and 16 with the Kentucky Opera as Jack Rance in Puccini's La Fanciulla del West.

Introducing two barihunks in Antheil double-bill

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Theater Lübeck and KongSeokChoi
Two young artists, who are both new to this site, will be featured in a double-bill of operas by George Antheil at the Theater Lübeck. Korean bass-barihunk KongSeokChoi and German bass-barihunk Christian Henneberg will be featured in The Brothers and Venus in Africa, running from June 5-19. 

KongSeokChoistudied singing at theYonseiUniversity,the Royal Academyof Music in Londonandat theMusikhochschule in Cologne. He was a winner or finalistin numerous international vocal competitions, including the Richard LewisSinging Competition, Blyth-Buesst Singing Competition London and the GiordanoInternationalSinging Competition.

He has performed as a Priest and as PapagenoinMozart's The Magic FluteinSeoul, King RenéinTchaikovsky's IolantaandBartoloandFigaroin Mozart's LenozzediFigaroin London.Heis a memberof theOpernelitestudios des Theater Lübeck. He performs the role of the ex-soldier Ran in The Brothers and the Innkeeper in Venus in Africa.

Christian Henneberg
28-year-old ChristianHennebergstudied at the Saxon StateSchoolof Music and with his father Matthias Henneberg. He performed with thechildren's choirof theDresden State Opera where he also appeared as the young Gottfried in Wagner's Lohengrin. He also studied oboeand piano.

As amember of the choirof the Schleswig-Holstein MusicFestival, hehas touredthe BodenseeFestival,the RheingauMusic Festival,the Handel Festivalin Halle andto Brazil.

In 2010,he furthered his studies atthe FolkwangUniversityin Essen with the noted bass Jan-Hendrik Rootering.
As an ensemble member at the Dortmund Opera he has performed the Prince in Kurt Schwertsik's Eisberg nach Sizilien, Figaro in Rossini's Barber of Seville and three roles in the German premiere of Marc-Anthony Turnage's Anna -Nicole. He performs the male lead of Charles in Venus in Africa.

The Brothers is one of three one-act operas that Antheil composed in 1954.The opera is the retelling of the story of Cain and Abel, set not long after World War II in a middle-class American kitchen. Venus in Africa, is one of Antheil's later operas.It's a comedy about the visit of two young lovers (Charles and Yvonne) to Tunisia where Charles asks an ancient statue of Venus to teach him about love.

Bay Area Reporter: "Hadleigh Adams sings out with pride"

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Hadleigh Adams: Headshot and in Castor & Pollux
New Zealand barihunk Hadleigh Adams is profiled by Jason Victor Serinus in this week in San Francisco's Bay Area Reporter:

Tall, rugged baritone Hadleigh Adams, 29, must be one of the straightest spined and proudest bearinged singers on the planet. Both his appearance and his lower-pitched, resonant voice make it hard to believe that during his youth in a small New Zealand farm town, two decades before he journeyed to San Francisco and was chosen for San Francisco Opera's prestigious Adler Fellow apprentice program, he was teased mercilessly for being gay.

"I acted very different," he explained during an hour-long chat in a cafe near the War Memorial Opera House. "I acted very effeminately. Not by choice; it's just how I was."

This didn't make life easy for him at an all-boys school.

"I wanted to fit in," he says. "I was two years ahead in my academic work because I was a smart kid. I played hockey and tennis, which were the gayer sports from a high-school boy point of view. I also did a lot of music, and I loved music. If you loved music, that meant you were gay.

"So it was horrible. I was teased a lot, and had very few friends. But I didn't really mind it or care, because while I loved my family and my country, which is the most beautiful place in the world, I always knew I was destined for more than a lot of my classmates. Not to say that more is better, or being on the stage or escaping is better, but I knew, from the age of 12 or 13, that I was destined for more in my life."

ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE

Barihunks debut opera at Ruislip's historic Great Barn

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James McOran-Campbell and Nicolas Dwyer
Barihunks James McOran-Campbell and Nicolas Dwyer will be part of the first cast to ever perform a professional opera at the 12th century Great Barn at Manor Farm in the U.K. A touring company from Opera Vera will perform Mozart's Don Giovanni on June 28 and 29

The production comes from the Actor's Church at Covent Garden where it was performed to great acclaim in November 2013. McOran-Campbell will take on the title role and Dwyer will play Masetto. 


Manor Farm has been described as a mini-Glyndebourne and patrons are encouraged to pack a picnic and enjoy refreshments on the grounds before the opera. The bar will open an hour before the 7 PM performance.
The remainder of the cast includes Susan Jiwey, Stefanie Kemball-Read, Peter Brooke, Rebecca Dale, Alexander Anderson-Hall and Will Kwiatkowski, Further information about the production or to purchase tickets, visit the Compass Theatre online.  

Trio of Barihunks in new Glyndebourne Don Giovanni

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Elliot Mador, Brandon Cedel and Edwin Crossley-Mercer
If you followed any of the press around Tara Eraught's treatment by British reviewers concerning her appearance as the Marschallin in Richard Strauss'Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne, you can rest assured that no such criticism will be hurled at director Jonathan Kent’s updated production of Mozart's Don Giovanni. The company has assembled an ensemble of great singers who also look like they were cast for a Baz Luhrmann blockbuster Hollywood film. 

Edwin Crossley-Mercer and Elliot Madore (photo: Robert Workman)
In the title role is the rising Canadian star barihunk Elliot Madore, who is joined by Edwin Crossley-Mercer as Leporello and Brandon Cedel as Masetto. Madore returns to Glyndebourne after his successful 2012 Festival debut in Ravel's L’heure espagnole. Madore joins a distinguished roster of Don's that dates back to the legendary performances of John Brownlee in the 1930s and includes Giuseppe Valdengo, Kim Borg, Enest Blanc, Ruggero Raimondi, Benjamin Luxon, Brent Ellis, Sir Thomas Allen, Richard Stilwell, Olaf Bar and Gerald Finley. 

The current cast also includes the sensational young British tenor Ben Johnson as Don Ottavio,  Canadian soprano Layla Claire reprising her 2012 appearance as Donna Anna, Italian soprano Serena Farnocchia as Donna Elvira, Lenka Máčiková as Zerlina and Andrés Orozco-Estrada making his Glyndebourne debut conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Lenka Máčiková, Elliot Madore and Brandon Cedel
If you can't make the performance, you can watch their 2010 production featuring Gerald Finley as Don Giovanni, Luca Pisaroni as Leporello and Guido Loconsolo as Masetto on July 6th. Later today, you can watch the aforementioned production of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier live from Glyndebourne, starring Kate Royal, Teodora Gheorghiu and Tara Erraught, and conducted by Robin Ticciati. The broadcast begins on Sunday June 8 at 4.30pm GST/11:30am EST/8:30am PST. Click HERE to watch. 

Douglas Williams in Baroque-back opera

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Sasha Waltz's Dido & Aeneas(left)& Douglas Williams
Choreographer Sasha Waltz is bringing her provocative and entertaining work back to opera when she takes on Monteverdi's Orfeo with the Dutch National Opera. Waltz had great success with Purcell's Dido & Aeneas in 2005 and 2011 with her brilliant combination of dancers and opera singers.

Orfeo promises to have a lot of singing and dancing and the cast is lead by one of the most popular barihunks on our site, Douglas Williams. Williams has made a specialty of baroque music, singing   Orcone in Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane, Purcell's Apollo e Dafne, Aeneas in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Polyphemus in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and  Purcell’s King Arthur.

We can't imagine a singer better suited to a Sasha Waltz production. Performances are on September 3, 5 and 6 and tickets are available online.

Silent Night to make European debut at Wexford; Canadian debut in Montreal; Continues in U.S. in Cincinnati

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Ian Beadle (right)
Kevin Puts' Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Silent Night is getting its long-awaited European debut at the Wexford Opera Festival from October 24-November 2. The cast is a mix of Europeans and Americans, with two singers who have been featured on this site, Matthew Worth as Lieutenant Audebart and Quirijn de Lang as the lovable Poncel. There are also a few singers in the cast new to this site. 

Ian Beadle, a graduate from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, performs William Dale on the Scottish side of the war. He recently finished a year in the English National Opera’s Opera Works program and performed as part of The Big Barber Bash at the London Coliseum.

His operatic roles have includes Belcore in Donizetti's Elisir d’amore at the Wexford Festival Opera, the Imperial Commissioner in Puccini's Madama Butterfly at Opera Holland Park, Crébillon in Puccini's La Rondine at Go Opera, Leporello in Mozart's Don Giovanni with Sinfonia D’amici, Guccio in Puccini's Gianni Schicchi at Opera Holland Park and Morales in Bizet's Carmen with Co-Opera Co.

Jamie Rock
Irish baritone Jamie Rock sings the role of Gueusselin on the French side of the war. He has performed the roles of Figaro in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Sid in Britten's Albert Herring, Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Schaunard in Puccini's La Boheme, Dancaire in Bizet's Carmen, Tarquinius in Britten's Rape of Lucretia and General Belliard in the world premiere of the original version of Prokofiev's epic masterpiece War and Peace. He has performed with the Wexford Festival Opera, Opera Theatre Company, Opera Ireland, Opera North, Grange Park Opera, Opera de Bauge and British Youth Opera.

He is also a member of the vocal ensemble Quartet. The group, under the patronage of Malcolm Martineau, is made up of graduates from the Alexander Gibson Opera School who draw on years of conservatoire training to explore a range of music and look for new ways of presenting the vocal repertoire.

Jamie began his studies at the Royal Irish Academy of Music and continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama . He is an alumnus of the OTC Young Artist Programme (Dublin), Wexford Festival Opera Young Artist Programme, Leeds Lieder+ Young Artists, Oxford Lieder Young Artists and Josephine Baker Trust. 

Tickets are available online.

Daniel Okulitch (left) and Joseph Lattanzi (right)
Silent Night, which has been performed to great acclaim in Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Fort Worth, now heads to the Cincinnati Opera and north of the border for its Canadian debut.

The Cincinnati cast includes many singers familiar to the piece, including the powerful voice of Craig Irvin as Lt. Horstmayer, Gabriel Preisser as Lt. Gordon and Andrew Wilkowske as Ponchel. New to the cast are Joseph Lattanzi as Gueusselin and Phillip Addis as Lt. Audebert. There are only two performances of the opera on July 10 and July 12. Tickets are available online.

Addis also will be performing Lt. Audebert in the Canadian premiere from May 16-23 at the Opéra de Montréal. The cast includes a barihunk favorite in the Lieutenant Horstmayer of Canadian Daniel Okulitch. Tickets go on sale in August 2014, so mark your calendars.
Gueusselin
Gueusselin and Phil
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