Bass-barihunk Keith Miller has just canceled the remainder of his performances of his role debut as Escamillo in Carmen at the Glimmerglass Festival, citing “health reasons.” His first performance was last Saturday. No replacement casting has yet been announced for the remaining 14 performances through August 23.
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La Cieca usually leaves the barihunks to, well, Barihunks, but thanks to a tip from a very loyal parterriano indeed, meet Edwin Crossley-Mercer, a lyric baritone who really does seem to have it all. (Is it fair, La Cieca asks, that besides everything else, he looks like a young(er) Anderson Cooper?)
And now, ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Maltman (among others) in Kasper Holten‘s Juan.
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,…
The annual Richard Tucker gala came and went at Avery Fisher Hall with the usual quota of gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions, no-shows, too-much-shows, substitutions and surprise guests (well, guest). And sandwiched between the routine, the egocentric and the just plain dull were moments of true dementia, the moments that we melomanes live and die for. Most…
Those of you escaping the summer heat this afternoon may want to gather ’round for a performance of Don Giovanni (featuring recent convert to the shaved-noggin lifestyle Bo Skovhus) live from the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, beginning at 3:30 New York time.
Remember “Toi et Moi,” the pectacular music video from which the above image is grabbed? Well, the terrific twosome who brought you that indelible
Bare-chested ere the world was young, ur-Barihunk Nathan Gunn continues to work the workout, currently in the Wall Street Journal.
“They’re known for their great bods and for breathless blogs written by devoted admirers. Bearers of great pecs and pipes, barihunks like Matthew Worth and Tom Forde are bringing high art to the masses in a universally appealing form. And the dark-haired Gunn, all 6 broadly muscled feet of him, is king of that particular…
La Cieca’s misnomered intime No Expert writes: The New Orleans Opera Association likes to describe New Orleans as “America’s First City of Opera,” and it’s true that opera performance has a long history in the Crescent City, dating back to at least 1796 when André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain was presented. Since then, New Orleans, and…
The day after opening the 2009-10 season with Hugo Weisgall’s Esther, New York City opera presented one of the most beloved operas in the entire repertoire, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, in a new production by Christopher Alden.
In the year and half that New York City Opera has been absent from the musical milieu of our metropolis, Tony Tommasini has been sadly deprived of one of his favorite topics of conversation.
Mean, moody, magnificent Mariusz Kwiecien gets the Regie treatment (including a buzzcut!) for a new Don Giovanni in Munich.
Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and Andrea Concetti get chummy in this scene from Don Giovanni. [via Barihunks]
Hot hot hot Erwin Schrott is obviously not not not allowing fatherhood and impending marriage to distract him from quality gym time. More photos of the Schrott gun show (as seen recently in the Vienna Volksoper Theater an der Wien production of Don Giovanni) after the jump.
Some songs just steadfastly repel the crossover treatment. Some years ago Karita Mattila came to grief on “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and now Anne Sofie von Otter doesn’t do much better. (Why does it always sound like they coached this number with The Opera Milf?)
La Cieca apologizes in advance to her dear colleague the Barihunks site, but she’s happy to unveil the latest of the barihunk breed. She first noticed this singer because he has an ideal barihunk name: Holger Falk. He’s appearing in L’incoranazione di Poppea at the Boston Early Music Festival, where he garnered a strongly positive review…
Andrea Bellissimo (Laetitia) and David Schmidt (Bob) star in Menotti’s The Old Maid and the Thief, a presentation of the New York Metro Arts Vocal Ensemble, a group whose name is longer than some of the operas they perform. The opera runs tonight through Saturday; here’s more information.
Peter Mattei in Le nozze di Figaro. (La Cieca thinks the production is pretty cool too.) [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rjEipadAxew” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Scott Cantrell has a brand new metaphor, and he’s not going to let it slip through his fingers. “Daniel Okulitch is hardly the libretto’s ‘scrawny little S.O.B.’ But, with a warmly oiled bass-baritone, he captures Joseph’s tenderness toward his mother as surely as his hostility and fear.” “Nathan Gunn is the cast’s standout, an Alec…
A layout (in the very nearly literal sense of the term) of “seven international opera stars who are putting to rest the ‘fat lady sings’ cliché” graces the current issue of Vanity Fair. Since nobody actually reads this magazine, La Cieca will link to the photo of the The Low BMI Septet. Click to embiggen
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