Lauri Vasar as Billy Budd; Don Giovanni on the horizon

Lauri Vasar as Billy Budd

We think that one of our hottest posts was of Lauri Vasar in Luigi Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero. Vasar is definitely one of the hottest barihunks in the over 40 category and he consistently seems to perform in various states of undress. We thought about him again when a German fan of the site sent us this video of Vasar as Billy Budd at the Deutsche Opera am Rhein in Düsseldorf. We posted about this performance when it happened and it proved instantly popular with fans, which led to the Pigioniero post. 

We wondered what was up next for the Estonian singer and were thrilled to find out that he'll be portraying the hot Latin lover Don Giovianni in Mozart's classic opera. Director Doris Dörrie's production at the Hamburg opera explores the opera from a woman's point of view, wondering why women seemingly can't live with a man like Don Giovanni. To stress her point, each of the three main women is portrayed from a different period of history.

Nicola Ulivieri as Don Giovanni

Performances will run in October 2012 and May 13. Vasar will alternate in the title role with Nicola Ulivieri. Visit the Hamburg State Opera website for additional information.

Nicola Ulivieri sings the Catalog aria:

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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

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Nathan Gunn Names His "Top 5" Operas Where He Disrobed

Nathan Gunn as Billy Budd, at the Met on left (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) & in San Francisco (Darryl Bush SF Chronicle)

Nathan Gunn has become the über-barihunks of barihunks. Not only is he the reason that the phrase was first coined 15 years ago by director Francesca Zambeloo, but he has shown amazing staying power as one of opera's most popular sex symbols. After all, how many opera singers have had their workout routines featured in the Wall Street Journal?

WQXR 105 in New York City recently asked Nathan Gunn to name the "Top 5" operas in which he was asked to disrobe. Not only did he manage to come up with a great list and descriptions of each role, but he showed a great grasp of the history of the term "barihunk." Here is the list, followed by the video:

5. Daniel Catán - Florencia en el Amazonas (Riolobo)
4. Tobias Picker - An American Tragedy (Clive)
3. Péter Eötvös - Love and Other Demons (Father Delaura)
2. Benjamin Britten - Billy Budd (Billy Budd)
1. Gluck - Iphigénie en Tauride (Oreste)

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Choose Your Weapon: Gunn replaces Spear in Texas

Deborah Voigt (photo NYTimes) and Nathan Gunn as Billy Budd

Barihunk Nathan Gunn will replace one of the great spear carrying Brunnhilde's of all-time, Deborah Voigt, on March 20th in Ft. Worth. Gunn is stepping in for Voigt at the Cliburn Concerts at Bass Hall. Voigt withdrew because of illness. The performance also serves as a preview to local audiences, who will see Gunn in the Dallas Opera's production of Dominik Argento's The Aspern Papers  in 2013.

Accompanying Mr. Gunn in performance will be his wife, pianist Julie Gunn.

Single tickets are available from $15-$90, and can be purchased at Cliburn.org or by calling 817.212.4280. Tickets to Deborah Voigt's recital will be honored.

Gunn is currently wrapping up a highly acclaimed performance in Show Boat at Lyric Opera of Chicago. After the Ft. Worth recital, he heads back to the stage in two of his most heralded roles at two of America's greatest opera houses. On May 4th, he portrays the title character in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Metropolitan Opera. He then heads to the San Francisco Opera on June 13th, where he will portray Papageno in Mozart's The Magic Flute. The San Francisco Opera summer season also includes John Adams' Nixon in China and Verdi's Attila. 

Nathan Gunn as Papageno in Julie Taymor's famous production:

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Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan in New Orleans

Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan (Photo: New Orleans Opera)

Check out the photo of barihunk Ryan McKinny as Jochanaan in Richard Strauss' Salome at the New Orleans Opera, which had its final performance today. We're not sure how we missed this performance!

McKinny's career has taken off since he was a Grand Finalist in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was featured in the film tenor-laden film The Audition. He has performed regularly with the Houston Grand Opera and Los Angeles Opera and has begun establishing a reputation in Europe, singing in Berlin and Leipzig. In fact, his next performance will be with Oper Leipzig as Hercules in Gluck's Alceste (Alkestis). He returns to the United States on May 4th when he sings Lt. Ratcliffe opposite Nathan Gunn in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Metropolitan Opera.

 Ryan KcKinny as Jochanaan and Mlada Khudoley as Salome in the 

New Orleans Opera's production of Salome:

 Theodore P. Mahne of the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote:

As Jokanaan, baritone Ryan McKinny was simply amazing. Even from the depth of the cistern in which he is imprisoned, his rich voice soared. When he is brought to the surface, his prophetic warnings resonate with increased power and command. 

There is a savage beauty to McKinny’s acting, depicting a man of God who had removed himself from the ways of the world to live in the desert. Now chained in the palace of the Tetrarch, McKinny’s Jokanaan moves like a caged animal, carefully aware of his surroundings, easy to spook, yet knowing that he has a strength and power to overcome his captors.

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James Morris reveals John Claggart's Religion

James Morris reveals John Claggart's Religion

The blog Superconductor recently posted about Billy Budd in anticipation of the upcoming run at the Metropolitan Opera. They posted this picture of James Morris, which was revealing enough to even make us blush.

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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Lauri Vasar a Hit With Readers

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigioniero

We always love it when we post a barihunk on the site and he proves popular with the readers. The latest to have an instant following seems to be Estonian baritone Lauri Vasar whose pictures from Billy Budd attracted quite a bit of traffic.

Of course, we loved it when we received an email that began, "If you thought he was hot as Billy Budd, you should have seen him in Il Prigioniero." So we found some photos that we thought you'd enjoy and we're going to start keeping an eye on this hunky performer. In fact, he opens tomorrow at the Hamburgische Staatsoper (Hamburg State Opera) in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte.

Lauri Vasar in Il Prigioniero

The following month he heads to the Gran Theatre del Liceu singing Ottokar in Der Freischutz. We'll certainly be keeping an eye out for photos in the future.

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A Hot New Billy Budd: Lauri Vasar in Düsseldorf

Lauri Vasar as Billy Budd

There are some sexy Billy Budd's in the world and the opera remains a great vehicle for barihunks. Now you can add Estonian baritone Lauri Vasar to the ranks of great Billy Budds.  The 40-year-old singer comes from a musical family. His father Harri Vassar was a renowned tenor who sang mostly operetta. His mother Ülla Millistfer is a pianist and concert mistress at the Estonian National Opera in Tallinn.

Other roles in Vasar's repertory include Marcello, Papageno, Don Giovanni, Eugene Onegin, Escamillo, Belcore and Almaviva in the Marriage of Figaro. 

Billy Budd in Düsseldorf

Billy Budd opens at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf on March 31 and runs through April 24. Check out their website for additional cast and performance information.

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British Barihunk Rodney Clark as Billy Budd

British Barihunk Rodney Clarke

In a previous post we inadvertently stated that Rodney Clarke was Jamaican. He was actually born in London to Jamaican parents. We figured that setting the record straight was a great excuse to post this video of him performing Billy Budd's "Look! Through the port comes the moonshine astray" with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. 

Clarke will be performing the role of Guglielmo Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte at the Longborough Festival. He will then head to Valladolid, Spain to portray the Grand Pretre in Saint Saens’ Samson et Dalilahwith the Opera Proyect. In April, he heads to the warmer climes of Italy where he will portray Pasha Selim in Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail at Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, directed by Graham Vick

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Imbrailo back as Billy Budd (as Britten and Melville intended)

Jacques Imbrailo as Billy Budd

Jacques Imbrailo, who recently starred in a somewhat controversial production of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne, is tackling the title role in a different production. Imbrailo will perform in the heralded Richard Jones production that we previously saw Peter Mattei perform at Frankfurt.

Imbrailo created a bit of a tempest before the Glyndebourne run with some comments he made in the Sunday Times that suggested to some that he was trying to take the gay element out of the opera. Here is an excerpt;

Imbrailo features on a website called barihunks.blogspot.com, whose breathless preview of Billy Budd is: “Let’s hope the production is shirtless.”

“They’re going to be disappointed,” says Imbrailo. “That’s a lazy way to characterise; Billy swinging round pipes. He doesn’t have to be a gym bunny.” Never mind Billy’s biceps, Imbrailo would rather emphasise his goodness.

Barihunks was besieged with emails and comments not just from readers, but from people involved with the production who felt that "stuffy" Glyndebourne was trying to rewrite the story to make Claggart troubled with Billy's "goodness" and removing the gay attraction. Of course, the current production is in the Netherlands where they celebrate rather than run from gay themes in opera. This production's Claggart, Clive Bayley, makes it clear in the preview video that Claggart is clearly gay and attracted to Billy, but decides to destroy what he loves.

Jacques Imbrailo: Not afraid to disappoint Barihunks readers?

Assuming he needed to redeem himself, Imbrailo has clearly done it in this production. One Dutch reviewer described Imbrailo and "vigorous" and "charismatic" with just the right baritone sound. He clearly didn't shy away from portraying a sexy Billy Budd and he appears to have redeemed himself with those "disappointed" Barihunks readers he previously referenced.




The Netherlands Opera has added a Gay Date Night on March 25th for the current of the opera. Details can and ticket information are available on their website. We hope that Glyndebourne does the smae thing when they mount Billy Budd again.

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