Vittorio Prato is risqué "Les Indes Galantes"

When we first saw these pictures, the naked body on the right was identified as baritone Nathan Berg. We've seen him perform and were confident that it wasn't him. A little further research revealed that he's a dancer in one of many nude scenes in Rameau's "Les Indes Galantes" at the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse. The scene pictured above is supposed to represent the Garden of Eden, which featured jocks and rap stars as symbols of our decaying society.

A shirtless Vittorio Prato

The opera goes on to deal with a number of topics that Rameau clearly never had to grapple with musically in his day, including consumerism, cocaine, illegal immigration and Islamic attitudes towards women (sexy women in lingerie are covered in burkas). We don't review operas and we weren't there, so we'll let you decide how you feel about the updated production concept by director Laura Scozzi.

Of course, what really caught our eye was one of our favorite barihunks, Vittorio Prato, prancing around shirtless on the "beach." Prato plays the role of Osman in the first act, but doesn't appear elsewhere in the opera. Prato can next be seen in Wolf-Ferrari's "Il segreto di Susanna" at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and then in the title role of Handel's "Imeneo" at the Théathe des Champs Elysées in Paris under Christopher Hogwood.

Nudity abounds in Théâtre du Capitole's latest production

Performances run through May 15 and additional information can be found at the Théâtre du Capitole website.

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Stéphane Degout Strips Hamlet Bare

Add Stéphane Degout to the growing list of barihunks who have appeared nude on stage. The amazing French singer bares all in the Theater an der Wien's production of Ambroise Thomas' "Hamlet." His dispair and self-mutilation manifests itself in stunning scene in Act 3 when he is bathed by Gertrude.

The production is by Olivier Py who transformed the stage into a cavern of human debauchery and misery.

Degout last appeared on this site when he appeared in a dreamy cast of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with fellow barihunk Jérôme Varnier. The two are reunited in this production, as Varnier appears the ghost. Stéphane Degout has become the leading lyric baritone in the French style since Francois Le Roux and Gerard Souzay, both of whom have appeared on this site.

The always intense and musically incisive Christine Schäfer portrays Ophelia, Phillip Ens is Claudius and Frédéric Antoun is Laërtein in this co-production with the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels. Now let's hope that someone brings it to the United States.

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Naked Barihunk Singing: Seph Stanek

Seph Stenak (seated front) in Naked Boys Singing

(Photograph: David Rosenzweig)

When we recently featured Seph Stanek on the site it created a mini-sensation. It turns out that the TV performer, off-Broadway star and opera singer has quite a posse of fans. One of them informed us that Stanek has joined the cast of the popular show Naked Boys Singing. The show is currently at the Kirk Theater on 42nd Street in New York City.

Seph Stanek in Naked Boys Singing promo photo

The 70-minute show originally opened at the Celebration Theater in Hollywood in 1998. The New York production opened a year later at the Actors Playhouse in the West Village. It closed after a 13-year run, but recently reopened at the current location. As the title states, the show features naked men who sing mostly gay-themed numbers about the male body and the love of the male form. We're not sure if Stanek is the first opera singer to appear in the cast, but we can tell you that the show has featured 71 performers, including two porn stars (Spencer Quest and Dean Markham). It's probably safe to say that's he's the first member of the Metropolitan Opera roster to appear in the show. Stanek made his Met debut in Aida last month.

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A Tribute to Gabriel Bermudez

Gabriel Bermudez in our all-time popular post

Every so often we have a post that goes viral, which happened the other day with Texas barihunk Michael Mayes. The post of him after a workout preparing him for "Dead Man Walking" at the Tulsa Opera has been generating five times the traffic of most posts. We often get asked who the most popular singers are on the site and Mayes' photo will catapult him into the Top 10 pretty quickly.

However, no one has ever managed to attract the traffic of the Spanish barihunk Gabriel Bermudez. His shower pictures from Poulenc's "Les Mamelles de Tirésias" [seen above] still generate quadruple the interest of any other singer. Regular readers know that we don't post gratuitous nudity and only feature pictures from actual productions. We have learned one thing about our readers, which is that you do like a little skin once in awhile. To answer a frequent question that we receive, singers who have appeared nude on this site include Laurent Alvaro, Daniel Okulitch, Gunther Papendell, Troy Cook, Christopher Maltman and Omar Ebrahim, whose post is now our second most popular feature.

Omar Ebrahim; Challenging Gabriel Bermudez for our most popular post

Our other popular feature was of Ildebrando D'Arcangelo and Andrea Concetti frolicking around half-naked in Don Giovanni.

All of this foreplay leads us back to Bermudez, who has a bit of a cult following on this site. With his increased popularity, Bermudez has developed a better website, schedule and plenty of new videos to enjoy. The latest being this scene from Carmen.

Gabriel Bermúdez was born in Madrid. He began his vocal studies at the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid, under the direction of his mother, Carmen Rodríguez Aragón.  He continued his vocal studies at Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía with the great mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza.

Gabriel Bermudez in La boheme

Bermudez first received major attention when he toured Europe with conductor William Christie and Les art florissants. He then went on to perform regularly with the opera houses in Zurich and Barcelona, as well as appearing in Madrid, Paris and Oviedo. His repertory includes many barihunk roles, including Orestes in Iphigenie en Tauride, Le Mari in Les mamelles de Tirisias, Borilee in Les Boreades, Guglielmo in Cos fan tutte and Papageno in the Magic Flute.

Inva Mula and Gabriel Bermúdez perform Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci" from the Liceu in Barcelona:

As much as he is regarding as a charismatic and intensely convincing performer on stage, he's becoming well regarded as a gifted lieder singer. In addition to the usual French and German repertory, Bermudez regularly includes Spanish language music on his programs by Rodrigo, de Falla, Abril, Toldra and Guridi.

Readers can't seem to get enough of Gabriel Bermudez

You can click HERE to wach the the famous nude scene from "Les Mamelles de Tirésias"

Bermudez is also featured on a number of DVDs and recordings, including Mozart's "La finta giardiniera," Mozart's "Die Zauberflote," Richard Strauss' "Ariade auf Naxos" and Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci."

His 2012 schedule includes a Schubert recital in Santiago on January 3, performances of the Merry Widow in Dortmund from January 5-February 9, an evening of German lieder on March 26 in Barcelona and a return to his signature role of Orestes in Iphigenie en Tauride in Leipzig in June.

Gabriel Bermudez

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Christopher Maltman's "Juan" available online

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!

Christopher Maltman in "From the House of the Dead"

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.

Omar Ebrahim Nude and Nude Again

Omar Ebrahim in Der Vampyr

We recently received an email asking us if we'd ever heard of the English baritone Omar Ebrahim, who were told was one of the first male opera singers to appear nude on stage.  Amazingly, he was completely unfamiliar to us, despite an impressive discography and successful career in opera. You can see the uncensored version of the picture HERE. Of course now he's very familiar to us.

 WARNING: NSFW below this point

Ebrahim was a regular with a small, innovative company in London called the Opera Factory in the late 80's and early 90's. According to our source, they often featured nudity in their productions.    Many of their performances were recorded and broadcast in the UK on Channel 4, but they have not yet been released on DVD.  Ebrahim also starred in a TV adaptation of Marschner's "The Vampyr" in 1992, in which he pioneered the nude baritone shower scene.  

With Opera Factory he also performed a version of Ligeti's Aventures, in which Ebrahim and two sopranos all appeared nude. Ligeti said of the piece, "Something happens, but I do not know what it is, and you do not know what it is."

Omar Ebrahim in Ligeti's Aventures

These screenshots are from Ligeti's "Nouvelles Aventures," which you can watch below.

Ebrahim studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, before joining the Glyndebourne Touring Opera in 1980. Although he developed a reputation for performing contemporary operas, he was a noted Don Giovanni, and performed in Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolante, Bizet's Carmen and Puccini's La boheme. Ebrahim currently teaches, but has sung opera premiere’s by Kris Defoort for La Monnaie Brussels, Liza Lim for Elision Ensemble and Eotvos at the Chatelet Theatre Paris. He has also sung with New Israeli Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera Theatre Company Dublin.




Ebrahim is on recordings of Philip Glass' "The Penal Colony," the vocal work of György Ligeti, Michael Tippett's "Omar and the Angel," Michael Nyman's "Facing Goya," "Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett - Words and Music," Enno Poppe's "Interzone," Chris Dench's "An Hypallage" Simon Holt's "Raju Raghuvanshi is a Ghost" and Harrison Birtwistle's "Gawain," in which fellow barihunk François Le Roux appeared nude. He also appears in the video of Michael Tippett's "King Priam," which is available on VHS, but not DVD.

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If you want to enjoy sexy singers all year, make sure to purchase our 2012 Barihunks charity calendar. Click HERE to order today. All proceeds will support young artist programs.

Video: Daniel Okulitch's Nude Scene from "The Fly"

Daniel Okulitch goes "The Full Okulitch" (Screenshot from Arte)

According to our Google Analytics, two of our most popular posts of all-time continue to be those of Gabriel Bermudez appearing nude in Poulenc's  "Les mamelles de Tirésias" and Daniel Okultich appearing nude in Howard Shore's "The Fly." Until now, we've only had pictures and no video. But thanks to a European broadcast of the opera, we now have some video to share of the scene that prompted fellow barihunks Michael Mayes and Michael Todd Simpson on the Texapolitan Opera podcast to coin the phrase "The Full Okulitch" to describe a full-frontal nude scene in opera.



The Canadian barihunk can next be heard in recital at the Glenn Gould Studio on December 4th in Toronto. You can check out his profile on the CBC website where you can also listen to him discuss his status as a barihunk.

We also highly recommend that you add Okulitch's wonderful recital "The New American Art Song" to your CD collection. You can purchase it at the GPR Records website. 

For the record, the only other barihunk to appear on this site other than Bermudez and Okulitch performing "The Full Okulitch" is Troy Cook. We should use this opportunity to point out that we only publish nudity if it was performed on stage. We have pictures of Leigh Melrose from "Riders to the Sea" and Laurent Alvaro from the French production of "The Fly," but felt the quality wasn't good enough to post. We also hear that there are photos of Eugene Brancoveanu from "Little Caesar," but we've never found them. 

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Laurent Alvaro's Iphigenie (and shirtless again!)

Laurent Alvaro in The Fly and Iphigenie

The last time we featured the 39-year-old French barihunk Laurent Alvaro he was nude in Howard Shore's operatic version of "The Fly" at the Théatre du Châtelet He's currently playing Thoas in "Iphigenie in Tauris" and Arcas in "Iphigenie in Aulis" at the Nederlandse Opera where he's still shirtless, but wearing pants.

Laurent Alvaro in the Iphigenie double-bill

One thing is certain, he's as sexy as ever. The double-bill of the underperformed Gluck operas runs through September 22. Click HERE for additional cast and performance information.

You can listen to him here perform Schubert.



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Don Giovanni back in Berlin

The amazing production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" directed by Roland Schwab at the Deutsche Oper Berlin is back for three performances on June 22, 26 & 29. Ildebrando D'Arcangelo is back in the title role, but David Bizic is replacing Alex Esposito, the reigning Leporello in the world. The Masetto is the polish barihunk Krzystof Szumanski, who also appeared naked as an apparition in Macbeth. A reader send us this photo, which is allegedly Szumanski.

Krzystof Szumanski nude?

 Here is Ildebrando D'Arcangelo talking about singing Mozart from an RAI 3 radio broadcast:



Here are a few other photos from the Berlin production taken by Marcus Lieberenz.

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Happy Birthday, Andrew Lloyd Webber

Ramin Karimloo poses nude for Testicular Cancer Ad

We're going to continue the birthday celebrations, even if it's a long trip from Bach to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Also, posting Ramin Karimloo as the singer honoring Webber is a bit of a stretch, but one that we think is worth it (because it's an excuse to re-post his picture). He has been called a "high baritone" in the press, even though he sounds like a tenor to us. All of that aside, we would like to wish Sir Andrew all the best on his 63rd birthday.

Here is Ramin Karimloo singing in the new official video of "Til I Hear You Sing" from "Love Never Dies":



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