Nathan Gunn

Erwin Schrott seems to be the runaway favorite on Barihunks so far, but I keep getting asked, "Where is Nathan Gunn?" I have a feeling that the term Barihunk was invented to refer to Nathan Gunn, so his inclusion on this site was inevitable. Of course, any posting of Nathan Gunn has to include lots of topless pictures of the hunky singer. After all, this is probably the only guy who can look totally hot singing the man-bird role of Papageno in Die Zauberflote.

Nathan Gunn also happens to have a beautiful voice to go along with his beautiful body. He has sung roles that span five centuries of music from Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" to Tobias Picker's "An American Tragedy." I hope that most of his future roles call for him to remain shirtless. He is undoubtedly the sexiest Billy Budd ever! I couldn't take my eyes off of him when I saw him sing the role.

He Can Sing With His Shirt On, Too

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/08/arts/music/he-can-sing-with-his-shirt-on-too.html

BY any measure, this is a breakout season for the American baritone Nathan Gunn at the Metropolitan Opera. On Dec. 28, he finished a demanding run of performances as Clyde Griffiths, the recklessly ambitious young protagonist in "An American Tragedy," by Tobias Picker. Winning the lead for this premiere of a major Met commission was an enviable achievement for a baritone whose largest roles at the house had been Guglielmo in Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte" (just two performances in 1997) and Demetrius, one of the four Athenian lovers in Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream" (a short run in 2002).

On Jan. 21, Mr. Gunn gives his first Met performance as Papageno, the beloved character in Mozart's "Zauberflöte," in a revival of the 2004 production by Julie Taymor. Though critical reaction to Ms. Taymor's work was mixed, this circuslike show was hugely popular. The forthcoming performance (with four to follow) will be broadcast live on the radio, which means that Mr. Gunn will have sung in two coveted Saturday matinee broadcasts in a single season.

Mr. Gunn, 35, has starred in productions at the Bastille Opera in Paris and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and dazzled audiences at Lyric Opera of Chicago in the title role of Britten's "Billy Budd" (a bold new production conceived for him). Now that he is finally getting high-profile work at the Met, his many fans in the New York area, some of whom tossed makeshift confetti of ripped-up programs from the balconies during his curtain calls for "An American Tragedy," are no doubt saying, "It's about time."

Why has it taken so long? After all, Mr. Gunn was a Met baby, a promising graduate of the company's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, who made his Met debut in 1995.

The Met, it would seem, like many traditional houses, most prizes singers with sizable voices who can take on the meaty major roles in the standard repertory. Mr. Gunn is a lyric baritone with a warm, resonant voice. Though his sound carries well, he is not one of those "tree-trunk Verdi baritones," as he calls them, who can send long Verdian lines to the back rows of the top balcony.

Mr. Gunn represents a new generation of college-trained American vocal artists: top-notch musicians who both sing with honesty and are adventurous actors who throw themselves into roles and care about their looks.

And Mr. Gunn looks exceptionally good. Stage directors search for any excuse to make his character bare-chested.

In "An American Tragedy," directed by Francesca Zambello, he had a steamy shirtless love scene with the soprano Patricia Racette, who plays the factory worker Roberta. Later he appeared in a Model T-era bathing suit with shoulder straps. Reviewing the performance, the Newsday critic Justin Davidson described Mr. Gunn as "a splendid actor with a mahogany baritone and the finest legs in opera."

And drama, Mr. Gunn said, is "the deciding factor for everything I do in music, every choice I make," including his large repertory of art songs. "The only reason I sing songs," he added, "is to get involved with the storytelling." Indeed, he credits his immersion in Schubert lieder during college with teaching him what it means to be an actor.

Mr. Gunn attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on scholarship as a voice major. He wanted his singing to feel right physically, but much of what he was told by teachers there seemed confusing and counterintuitive.

A fellow student, a piano major (Julie Jordan, who would become his wife), was studying with the acclaimed accompanist John Wustman, who recommended that Mr. Gunn take private voice lessons with William Miller. Miller, then 85 and a "cross between Yoda and Grampa Simpson," Mr. Gunn said, offered a holistic approach to singing that suited him ideally. So Mr. Gunn dropped out of the university's voice program and fashioned his own open-studies major, focusing on a comprehensive study of Schubert lieder.

In 1994 he was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Then came his three-year stint in the company's young artist program.

It has taken the Met a while to figure out how best to use Mr. Gunn. With a new regime coming, and a general manager, Peter Gelb, who aims to market opera as a vibrant genre of drama, Mr. Gunn senses that "the pendulum is swinging toward the kind of music I do best."

What kind is that? Do not expect to hear Mr. Gunn as, say, the Count di Luna in Verdi's "Trovatore." Why should he compete with the legacy of great Verdi baritones when he can immerse himself in the title role of Thomas's "Hamlet," a rare staging of this French opera at the Opera Theater of St. Louis in 2002? Or give, as he did, an arresting performance as Oreste in Gluck's "Iphigénie en Tauride," a role he sang to acclaim at the Glimmerglass Opera in 1997? Directed by Ms. Zambello, that production presented Oreste and his friend Pylade (William Burden) as intensely bonded (and presumably romantic) Greek companions, who had been imprisoned by the enemy Scythians. Both artists gave courageous performances and made pitiably beautiful figures onstage as they were beaten, chained together and stripped to loincloths.

Billy Budd, which Mr. Gunn sang most recently last season at the San Francisco Opera, remains central to his repertory. In the stunning 2001 production by David McVicar in Chicago, Mr. Gunn sang Britten's music eloquently. He also poignantly inhabited the character of the naïve and inarticulate Billy, who is pressed into service on a British merchant ship. His goodness and beauty rattle the ship's menacing master at arms, Claggart, who seethes with thwarted erotic desires.

"Billy's beauty is a metaphor for his simple goodness," Mr. Gunn said. "Beauty is something everyone responds to, even Claggart, and it destroys him." Mr. Gunn loves playing Billy Budd, he added, because "it makes me a better person for the few hours I'm onstage."

Billy Budd, which Mr. Gunn sang most recently last season at the San Francisco Opera, remains central to his repertory. In the stunning 2001 production by David McVicar in Chicago, Mr. Gunn sang Britten's music eloquently. He also poignantly inhabited the character of the naïve and inarticulate Billy, who is pressed into service on a British merchant ship. His goodness and beauty rattle the ship's menacing master at arms, Claggart, who seethes with thwarted erotic desires.