Chest desserts
The Platonic ideal of the barihunk has arrived, and his name is John Chest. The 25-year-old dreamboat is the winner of the 2010 Stella Maris International Vocal Competition, where he sang music by Rossini, Korngold, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Britten. According to a charmingly phrased press release, “Chest was put forward by the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, where he is a member of the Opera Studio.” Another glimpse of Chest, after the jump.
John Chest as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte at the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera. (Photo: Kristen Loken Anstey)
Portraits: Kuba Swietlik.
Mr. Chest is ridiculously beautiful in person, but the director should not have been having him take his shirt off for that shitty production of “Cosi.” (I didn’t make it through the first act.) He’s got a normal, non-gym body, but we’re sort of used to the manufactured barihunk phenomenon, so it looks weird.
Yikes! What’s with the body fascism going on here? A guy like John Chest with healthy, average physique should keep his shirt on because he doesn’t have single digit body fat? It’s sad that our community is still so caught up in its body image issues that some of us need to hate on others for such superficial and unimportant reasons. Lighten up. As if a low BMI makes one a more valuable person.
Its kind of gross isn’t it? As if 95% of the audience can make out muscle definition from their seat anyway, whereas (hopefully) 100% can hear what kind of noise he’s making.
A couple of points here.
1) “Hunk” doesn’t necessarily mean a gym body; it means an attractive, masculine-looking guy. Chest is that, in my opinion at least.
2) Since that Cosi production it appears he has firmed up a bit: for a young guy a difference of 10 or 15 pounds, a month or two of healthy eating, can make a huge difference.
3) I think the Cosi photograph is cute because whether Guglielmo is super buff or not is irrelevant. The extravagant gesture of peeling off the shirt and drawing a heart on his bare chest is adorable and silly, which is the point here, not erotic stimulation of the audience. (That said, some of us find adorablness and silliness quite sexy indeed.)
Exhibit A:http://www.squarehippies.com/2010/12/eric-bana-in-the-time-travelers-wife/
Exhibit B: http://www.squarehippies.com/2010/11/brian-goodman-in-the-last-castle/
And if you didn’t know about squarehippies.com before today, you’re welcome.
Cara La Cieca -- there is a tight head shot of Chest on the Intermusica site.
He doth teach the torches to burn bright -- beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.