Showing posts with label ENO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ENO. Show all posts

Attitude magazine: "Get Your Rock Off"

Duncan Rock featured in Attitude
Aussie barihunk Duncan Rock generated international buzz when he recently appeared in "Don Giovanni: The Opera" at London's Heaven. The updated, gender bending version of the Mozart-Da Ponte classic rubbed some of the old-timers the wrong way, but young audiences ate it up.

Attitude, which bills itself as the U.K.'s largest LGBT magazine, recently did a feature on the ripped redhead with the great headline "Get Your Rock Off." We couldn't possibly improve on that! We also love that gave a nice shout out to Barihunks, writing:
Rock has featured heavily on the inspired website Barihunks (baritone hunks, obvs), which shows male opera singers in a state of undress. So what happened to opera's rep for the larger gentlemen? "A lot of the roles, particularly the ones for a young baritone voice, now require certain physical characteristics," Rock explains. "For certain roles, for dramatic credibility, people expect a certain look, but opera is an art form that is all about beautiful singing and that will never change."
Fortunately for Rock, his voice is as beautiful as his physique.

Check out a preview of the ENO's Billy Budd featuring Duncan Rock:

We first discovered Duncan Rock when he was in Britten's Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and he's back in the same opera at the English National Opera. Rock will be performing the role of Donald. Performance are running from June 12-July 12. He remains on the ENO roster for a run of Bizet's Carmen beginning in November where he takes on the role of Moralès. Visit the ENO website for tickets and additional information.

Duncan Rock: Master-OF-Arms
CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Leigh Melrose in Holocaust Opera




Leigh Melrose
British barihunk Leigh Melrose has never received the attention that he deserves on this site. We featured a video of him singing a selection from Britten's "Billy Budd" at the end of a feature on Alexander Tsymbalyuk. He certainly can't be ignored anymore, as Melrose has landed a key role at English National Opera in Mieczysław Weinberg’s 1968 opera The Passenger. 

The opera was banned in the Soviet Union and was first premiered last year at the Bregenz Festival. Weinberg, a Soviet composer of Jewish-Polish heritage who died in 1996, never saw a performance of this lost masterpiece in his lifetime. 


The opera revolves around an encounter between two women – one a former Auschwitz guard and the other a former prisoner. Melrose plays Tadeusz, a camp inmate and violinist who defies the Commandant byordered by performing some meloncholy music by Bach rather than a frolicking waltz. Needless to say, things don't end well for Tadeusz.



We continue to find the performances at ENO as some of the most innovative and interesting in all of opera right now. We loved Nic Muhly's "Two Boys" and look forward to seeing The Passenger. The opera runs from September 19-October 25. Additional cast and performance information is available HERE. If you're looking for more traditional operatic fare, ENO will be performing the highly acclaimed Jonathan Miller production of Donizetti's "The Elixir of Love" at the same time.

You can read an entire feature on Leigh Melrose and The Passenger in the Islington Tribune by clicking HERE

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com