Reader Submission: Soloman Howard

Soloman Howard shows he has arms to match his voice

Our latest reader submission is Soloman Howard, affectionately known as SoHo to his friends. 

A native of Washington, D.C.,  Howard is in his second year of Washington National Opera’s Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program. This season he appears with the Washington National Opera as Il Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni, which runs from September 20-October 13. The Don Giovanni's will be barihunks Paulo Szot and Ildar Abdrazakov and the Leporello is Andrew Foster-Williams. Last season he was seen on stage as High Priest of Baal in Verdi's Nabucco.

Solomon Howard "Total Praise" at the 1:09 mark (Check out those low notes):

His recent credits include a debut with Washington Concert Opera as Leone in Verdi's Attila, and performances at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage with the Conservatory Project. Previous engagements include Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass with the Baltimore Choral Arts Society, and many concerts with the Morgan State University Choir, including the role of Porgy in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, under the baton of Paul Freeman.

Howard is a graduate of Morgan State University and the Manhattan School of Music.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Teddy Tahu Rhodes Set to Tour "South Pacific"

Lisa McCune & Teddy Tahu Rhodes

Another opera barihunk is about to take on the role of Emile de Becque in Rodgers & Hammerstein's timeless musical "South Pacific." Following in the successful footsteps of Ezio Pinza and Paulo Szot, New Zealand barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes will open the show in Sydney on August 8th and then in Melbourne on September 13th.

Tahu Rhodes will be joined by four-time Gold Logie award-winning actress Lisa McCune as Nellie Forbush, Kate Ceberano as Bloody Mary and Eddie Perfect as Luther Billis.

The production by Bartlett Sher, swept the 2008 Tony Awards® taking home seven statues. The show played to sold-out houses for two and a half years, making it one of the Lincoln Center Theatre’s most successful productions. Tickets for the Sydney performances are already on sale and tickets for Melbourne go on sale on Monday, May 7th. Click HERE to get more information or to purchase tickets.

Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com

Barihunk Paulo Szot Live in Theaters Worldwide Tomorrow

Paulo Szot as Don Giovanni at the Dallas Opera

The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Massenet’s Manon will be transmitted live to movie theaters around the world on Saturday, April 7 as part of The Met: Live in HD series. Barihunk Paulo Szot sings Manon’s cousin Lescaut in the performance.

Anna Netrebko will make her Met role debut as the tragic heroine Manon in the production directed by Laurent Pelly. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi will conduct the opera for the first time at the Met, and tenor Piotr Beczala makes his role debut as the ardent Chevalier des Grieux. The Met: Live in HD presentation of Manon will be hosted by soprano Natalie Dessay.

Visit the Met's website for more information on The Met: Live in HD series, now seen in more than 1,700 movie theaters in 54 countries around the world..

Szot starred as Kovalyov in the 2010 Met premiere of Shostakovich’s The Nose and returned last season as a sexy Escamillo in Bizet’s Carmen. He won a 2008 Tony Award for his portrayal of Emile de Becque in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

Classical Singer Coverboy: Paulo Szot

Paulo Szot

The "Barihunk as Coverboy" trend continues this month, as Paulo Szot is gracing the cover of Classical Singer magazine. Here is the article:

For some singers, the secret to a long and fruitful career is a one-track mind. It’s no surprise that more than a few stars—including Mary Costa and Joan Sutherland—have famously used the metaphor of being a horse with blinders on as a way of describing their forward drive and singular goals.

But the last half century has brought with it a staggering number of changes, particularly in how we receive and consume culture. The idea of being a singer who embraces duality between genres is perhaps not revolutionary—while Sutherland was taking the world by storm as Lucia and Norma, mezzo Risë Stevens was holding court both at the Met and on the Ed Sullivan Show—but the ability to embrace such a dichotomy has become much easier and fluid in the new millennium.

Exhibit A in that equation is baritone Paulo Szot, a singer who had gained momentum in the opera world starting with his professional debut in 1997 as Rossini’s Figaro in his native Brazil. It took a Tony-Award-winning Broadway debut in 2008 as Emile De Becque in South Pacific, however, to catapult Szot into the upper echelon of operatic stars. For Szot, such balance is just part of the game.

Born in São Paulo and raised in Ribeirão Pires, Szot was the son of two musically inclined Polish émigrés who settled in Brazil following World War II—an unlikely combination that the baritone nevertheless describes as “a very interesting mixture with many things in common . . . very interesting between the polonaises and Chopin and then bossa nova and Jobim.” Like his siblings, Szot was quickly indoctrinated into the music world, beginning his studies at age four on the piano, moving on to violin at eight, and never recalling a time in his childhood that wasn’t underscored by an LP or cassette tape of Polish folk music or Tchaikovsky.


[Read the entire article HERE.]

CONTACT US AT Barihunks@gmail.com

"South Pacific" Heads to the South Pacific

Teddy Tahu Rhodes to perform Emile de Becque

The Bartlett Sher-directed production of Broadway's "South Pacific," which won seven Tony Awards in 2008 and played to sold-out housed for two years is heading to the South Pacific. The successful show, which catapulted barihunk Paulo Szot to international prominence, will feature New Zealand barihunk Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Emile de Becque in the "down under" run.

The production will open in Sydney for a four week run on August 11, 2012 and then head on a nationwide tour of Australia.

Paulo Szot sings the classic "Some Enchanted Evening":

Also, don't forget that for the next two weeks we'll be taking submissions for our first-ever charity Barihunks calendar. Send High Res photos and bio to Barihunks@gmail.com.

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"Some Enchanted Evening"

Paulo Szot & Rodney Clarke

We thought that it would be fun to compare some versions of "Some Enchanted Evening" from the 1949 hit musical "South Pacific." Two baritones have scored huge successes as Emile de Becque almost 60 years apart, Ezio Pinza and Paulo Szot. We've mixed in emerging barihunk Rodney Clarke and the great Cesare Siepi for comparison purposes. We've also added the hit recording my Perry Como, a version by the legendary Frank Sinatra and a jazzed up version from Ray Charles.

Ezio Pinza, who made this famous with the original 1949 Broadway cast recording:



Paulo Szot, who became a mega-star barihunk with South Pacific:



Cesare Siepi, who shows he could have scored a it with this on Broadway, too:



Ray Charles, jazzing it up for TV:



Frank Sinatra in a classic version from 1949:



Rodney Clarke, one of our emerging barihunks:



Perry Como, who had a hit with this in 1949:



Giorgio Tozzi, who recorded his in 1958:


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Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com
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