The sexy barihunk Christopher Maltman in Juan (top)
First of all, let us apologize for not posting for a few days, but we decided to enjoy the holidays and to take a break from posting. During those days, we received a number of emails about our Christopher Maltman post and most wanted to know when his film "Juan" would be available in the United States. We've been trying to get that answer for months, but with no success.
Fortunately, one of our most loyal readers alerted us to this LINK where you can watch the movie online for free. It will direct you to a number of sites where you can chose options to stream the movie online or to download it. Some sites are free and some will charge you, so chose carefully.
Juan, which is an abbreviated and updated version of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" is directed by Kasper Holten, who is the new Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Enjoy the movie and we'll return to our regular posting schedule tomorrow.
Also, thank you to everyone who purchased a Barihunks 2012 charity calendar. The proceeds will be going to the Portland Opera Studio and Seagle Music Colony in New York. Your support of our site is greatly appreciated. We pledge to continue to maintain a positive site in 2012 that promotes opera companies and singers. Any money that we make from calendars or other merchandise gets donated to support singers and singers. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
We have a thousand reasons to love Christopher Maltman. We could start with his stunning lieder recitals and recordings, which currently include some of the best Schubert recordings on the market. Or we could love him for his dramatically intense portrayals on stage where he consistently taps into his emotional and psychological reservoirs to give us a complete portrayal of the character. Who could ever forget his Don Giovanni's at the Salzburg Festival or his portrayal of the same role in the movie Juan? We could love him for bringing elegance and grace to the world of opera both on stage or off stage. But Barihunks is equally about great musicianship and charismatic sexiness. Maltman has the latter in abundance.
Of course, there is nothing sexier than a sexy man who can carry it off without being pompous, arrogant or acting like a reject from Jersey Shore. Maltman wears his barihunk status as well as anyone in the business, along with guys like Erwin Schrott, Daniel Okulitch and Mariusz Kwiecien. One can always tell how comfortable a singer is in his skin by the way he answers a question about being a barihunk. We've seen singers make the ridiculous claim that they are completely unaware of their sex appeal or that they've never read articles (or looked at Barihunks) that discuss their sexiness. Of course, many of these same singers regularly send us photos and try desperately to get on the site!
That's why we loved this part of the profile on Maltman that appears in the Janauary 2012 edition of Opera Now magazine, where the British barihunk appears on the cover:
Opera needs its sexy poster boys and Maltman is claiming his billboard - not with Erwin Schrott-style Latin machismo or velvety Jonas Kaufmann looks, but a guy-impaling intensity that shatters surface veneer.
Does being considered a sex symbol bother him? 'No one's going to complain about being found desirable,' he laughs. 'And for Don Giovanni, it's crucial. He has to be dangerous, without that he's nothing. That's what I learnt when I was directed in the role by Sir Thomas Allen. He has to unbalance people, make them vulnerable and access their psyches at the same time. He's a chameleon, he changes from minute to minute but without personal contradiction; that's dangerous and sexy.'
Maltman will return to the role of Don Giovanni this summer with five performances at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. Performances will run from June 24-July 6 and tickets and additional cast information can be found HERE. The all-star cast is laden with barihunks, including Erwin Schrott as Leporello and Alexander Tsymbalyuk as the Commendatore. Anna Netrebko is the Donna Anna and this will undoubtedly be one of the hottest tickets in all of opera this year.
Maltman begins 2012 on the concert stage with a recital centering around Ravel and his contemporaries at Wigmore Hall on January 15. He then heads to San Francisco on January 19 for a recital at the Herbst Theater, which includes music by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Hahn and Faure. In February, he returns to the opera stage, singing Marcello at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. The cast at the Liceu includes the most visited barihunk on our site, Gabriel Bermudez, who will be singing Schaunard. Perhaps the most unusual performance for Maltman this year is his assayal of Kurwenal in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in a concert version with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra on August 24.
Christopher Maltman in Juan (top); Vienna's "From the House of the Dead" (bottom)
We've gone way too long without a post about Christopher Maltman, who tantalized us last year with his nude scene in Kasper Holten's movie "Juan." Unfortunately, the movie was never distributed widely in the United States and only played at a few art movie theaters. The DVD is only available in Region 2 format, but we promise to keep you informed when it is available worldwide.
Maltman is currently appearing in one of our favorite operas, Janacek's "From the House of the Dead." For those who haven't seen the opera it's non-stop feast of men from curtain to curtain. Maltman is singing the role of Šiškov at the Vienna State Opera. Šiškov brings the opera to a harrowing end when he sings a tale of murdering his love. There are four performances remaining between December 14-30. Click HERE for additional information or to purchase tickets.
Maltman talks about the role on his management website:
You’re rehearsing Janácek’s From the House of the Dead at the Vienna Staatsoper – an interesting piece to get your head around…Absolutely – but an amazing piece too. Its difficulty lies in the fact that there’s no real dramatic narrative; there isn’t a linear story to follow. But there are these four central monologues which are effectively studies in human psychology, each one becoming progressively more complicated.
Shower scene from Janacek's opera
Where do you fit in?My character Šiškov sings the final monologue. He’s a pretty ordinary, unassuming guy who through a series of awful events ends up doing something terrible, and my motto for the whole piece has been ‘there but for the grace of God go I’. It’s really about what people can do in very difficult circumstances and how those circumstances ultimately affect them. There’s this bunch of men trapped together in this prison; I feel the prison is a metaphor for those places in which people come express their emotions. It’s just a metaphor life.
Particularly when life means you’re thrown together with a large group of people away from home for a long and intense period of work – precisely the predicament of the modern opera singer…Very much so, and the similarities continue in that you’re with a bunch of people you don’t know very well. People very often take that opportunity to lay down their life story – to tell others about who they are and what they are, which is exactly what lies behind all the characters in From the House of the Dead. They’re people justifying why they are in the situation that they are in – why they did the things that they did.
And like them you’re on your own, too – away from your family…Well technology makes that far easier; I’ve just been able to talk to my two sons using Skype. But it’s always difficult and you have to balance the practicalities of having a career against the difficulties of having a family. It’s impossible to get it completely right, but there is nothing else that I could do to be at the level I hopefully sing and act at. Nor is there anything else I would want to do. But to go back to the prison idea, I am slightly trapped by my own profession!
Prison is exactly where your various vivid incarnations of Don Giovanni should probably be sent – you’re shortly to revive him in Berlin. How will that feel after your role in Kasper Holten’s explosive movie version?There are some constants that you take with you from production to production. Before I sang my very first big Don Giovanni I had lunch with Tom [Sir Thomas] Allen. He’s such a treasure trove. I asked him, look, is there any other advice you’d give me before playing the role? He told me, above all, to make Don Giovanni dangerous: he has to be dangerous, however that danger is achieved. There are sovereign requirements for Don Giovanni and that sense of danger about him is paramount I think.
And you’ll be re-united with Daniel Barenboim…He’s a very demanding man, a man with a lot of opinion and a man with a very clear vision of how things should be musically. But I’ve always found that kind of conductor much easier to work with than somebody who really lets you guess what it is that they want. For Daniel it’s all about the music – a desire to get the music right in his own head – and I can always live with that. He’s probably one of the greatest musical talents of the last 100 years – just a phenomenally, phenomenally gifted man. If you don’t listen to that kind of person, I think there’s something wrong.
Have you bought your 2012 Barihunks calendar? Buy one now before it's too late. Click HERE.
Holst songs with Christopher Maltman: A must for any collection
The English composer Gustav Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst) was born on this day in 1874. Most people know him from his extremely popular orchestral suite The Planets
Early in his career Holst was influenced by the works of Grieg, Wagner, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Richard Strauss. Later he was influenced by Maurice Ravel, Hindu spiritualism and English folk tunes. We’re going to highlight this period of his life with the Vedic Songs, which are a wonderful work that is not performed enough. The songs were translated from the Sanskrit text of the Rigveda by Holst himself. There is a wonderful CD with English barihunk Christopher Maltman, which we highly recommend. We found a sampling of a live performance of the songs from Thomas Allen on YouTube, which we hope you'll enjoy.
Usually when we're covering anything in Ft. Worth it involves our beloved Ft. Worth Opera. But tonight the Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra is opening their season with American barihunk Jonathan Beyer singing selections from Aaron Copland's "Old American Songs." If you're in the area, you won't want to miss Beyer, who is establishing a reputation as a leading interpreter of American music. Click HERE for concert and ticket information.
Andrew Garland & Liam Moran
The Annapolis Opera will be featuring two barihunks in their first-ever production of Gounod's "Romeo & Juliet." Andrew Garland will sing his first ever Mercutio and Liam Moran will be featured as Friar Lawrence. In the tenor role of Romeo is the equally adorable and talented Eric Margiore. There will be two performance on May 18 and 20 of next year. Click HERE for tickets and additional cast information.
Nathan Gunn
On August 31, barihunk Nathan Gunn will be teaming up with Broadway legend Mandy Patinkin at the Ravinia Festival for an evening of music from Broadway, opera, Americana, Yiddish and rock selections. Rumor has it that one of them will even appear in a bathtub. Click HERE for tickets.
Lastly, here is British barihunk Christopher Maltman talking about his recent live recording sessions of Schubert at Wigmore Hall and a clip of him at the 1997 "Cardiff Singer of the World" competition performing Schubert's "Ständchen." We think he's gotten sexier since his standout performance 14 years ago.
The great master Johann Sebastian Bach was born on this day in 1685, so Barihunks would like to celebrate with some of our favorite singers performing his music.
Gerard Souzay, Christopher Maltman & Michael Adair
Gerard Souzay sings music from the Bach Magnificat:
Christopher Maltman sings from Cantata BWV 61, BWV 147 and the Magnificat:
Michael Adair sings St. John's Passion (FYI, he uses the monikor Barihunks on Twitter, not us):
