On February 2nd, Dmitri Hvorostovsky made his role debut as Don Carlo in Giuseppe Verdi's "Ernani" at the Metropolitan Opera. You can watch the "Siberian Hunky" baritone’s Ernani performances in a Live in HD cinema broadcast on February 25. There will be encore performances in the U.S. on March 14 and in Canada on March 31. Click here to purchase tickets for the Live in HD broadcast nearest to you.
Also, make sure to read this wonderful article from Opera News, which talks about his increasing focus on Verdi and his approach to his career.
Verdi continues to be the focus of Hvorostovsky, as he heads to Vienna for a run as the title character in Simon Boccanegra from March 5-13. Marina Poplavskaya will perform Amelia and Ferruccio Furlanetto, who is de Silva in Ernani, will star as Fiesco. Limited tickets are available and can be purchased HERE.
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.
Eight days ago we reported that Adam Plachetka, an ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera, was stepping in for barihunk Bo Skovhus as Don Giovanni. We're happy to report that no one left the theatre disappointed that they didn't get their fill of bari-hunkiness. Here's a photo from the last act. There are still tickets for the remaining two performances.
We have covered the current production of Don Giovanni at the Vienna State Opera, due primarily to a rotating cast filled with barihunks. Much like Salzburg, they have filled the roles of Don Giovanni, Leporello and Masetto with certifiable hunks. The current production had featured the seemingly ageless Bo Skovhus in the title role, but he had to withdraw for the remaining four performances due to illness. He is being replaced by Adam Plachetka, a Czech native who has been a member of the Vienna State Opera.
Alex Esposito and Tae Joong Yang
The role of Leporello is being sung by our favorite exponent of the role, Alex Esposito (will someone please cast this guy in the U.S.). Masetto is being sung by Tae Joong Yang, who we recently introduced to readers. Tickets are still available for the remaining four performances online. Here is Adam Plachetka singing Leporello's "Catalogue Aria" at a recent gala concert: Contact us at Barihunks@gmail.com
We recently featured a post about all of the Mozart on Alex Esposito's schedule. We've posted often about his definitive Leporello, but we've never featured a video of his Papageno. Fortunately, it was recorded by RAI 5 from La Scala during its recent run in April 2011. Esposito's Papagena is Ailish Tynan.
Günther Groissböck
The cast also included barihunk Günther Groissböck as Sarastro. Here he is singing "In diesen heil'gen Hallen." You won't want to miss hearing his beautiful rolling bass. The Austrian bass is currently singing the role at the Vienna State Opera with the Papageno of fellow barihunk Markus Werba.
Korean born barihunk Tae Joong Yang first came to international attention after performing in the Neue Stimmen competition in Germany. He is another one of our reader submissions from Germany.
Yang resides in Germany, but is a member of the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera in Austria. Yang continued his studies in Germany with Siegfried Lorenz at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has performed in throughout Europe and the Far East. In 2007, he won first prize in Plácido Domingo’s famous OPERALIA competition in Paris.
He made his critically acclaimed debut with the Vienna State Opera as Figaro in Rossini's "Barber of Seville. " As a member of the ensemble he has also performed Schaunard (La Bohème), Christian (Un ballo in maschera), Masetto (Don Giovanni), Silvio (Pagliacci), Marullo (Rigoletto), Belcore (L’elisir d’amore) und Alessio (La sonnambula).
His video of "Largo al factotum" has received almost 200,000 hits on YouTube.
It's rare that we aren't the first site to post pictures of barihunks, but the above picture of Erwin Schrott as Mefistofeles in Faust from Vienna went viral on the internet as soon as the pictures appeared. Our contributor from Germany attended the opera and said it was one of the sexiest performances that she's ever seen.
For those of you who missed the performance, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Scrott is scheduled to reprise the role in October at the Liceu in Barcelona. The bad news is that because of severe budget cuts the performance is now in concert version. So to satisfy your appetite for more Schrott, here are some additional pictures.
Devilishly Hot
We are also accepting submissions for an upcoming post on reader suggestions of barihunks who haven't appeared on this site before. You can send them to Barihunks@gmail.com.
