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Baritone Nathan Gunn excels in American repertoire in Cleveland recital
October 24, 27, and 30, and November 2, 2009
Title role in Billy Budd
Bilbao, Spain
"El barítono Nathan Gunn fue un Billy Budd de sobrecogedor lirismo dramático, con una voz perfecta para el papel, haciéndonos el regalo de su aria Look!. Throung [sic] the port."--diariovasco.com
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"An all-star cast from opera and Broadway comes together to present the World Premiere Two Act Concert Version of Ricky Ian Gordon and Michael Korie's beautiful rendering of Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Grapes of Wrath, on March 22, 2010 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Ted Sperling. Called by Musical America "The great American opera," Gordon's opera incorporates American popular musical styles of the 20s and 30s: song-and-dance, sweet and rousing love songs, ballads with banjos, jazz choruses, and a barbershop quartet. Just like the novel itself, the work is both heart-wrenching and uplifting. Gordon (music) and Korie (libretto) have collaborated with The Chorale to shorten the length of the original opera, while composing new material for the chorus. And if that starry cast - Victoria Clark, Christine Ebersole, Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Futral, Anthony Dean Griffey, Nathan Gunn, Peter Halverson, Steven Pasquale, Stephen Powell, Andrew Wilkowske and Matthew Worth - isn't enough inspiration to see the show, the role of Tom Joad's young daughter, Ruthie, will be sung by Nathan Gunn's daughter, Madeline Gunn. Directed by Eric Simonson with lighting design by Frances Aronson. Tickets are $25-$160 and will be available at 646-202-9623 or www.collegiatechorale.org."--Broadway World
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"Lawless's 'L'Elisir' is an ensemble piece, and everyone this time around appeared believable. But the production did tend to swallow up the young singers. Without large voices or over-sized personalities, they had trouble dominating the stage dramatically or vocally--hay (even fake hay) isn't a very good acoustical substance.
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"Gunn was an appealing Belcore, more suave than most if a little less funny."
--Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times
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"Gunn's baritone proved smooth, light and mellow as Belcore, perhaps a bit too much so for the part. One desired a little more meat there."--Timothy Mangan, Orange County Register
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August 27, 2009
New website, a work in progress: It's Unofficial:
A totally unofficial, unendorsed, fan supported website about Everyone's Favorite Baritone, Nathan Gunn
August 18, 2009
According to playbill.com:
Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth duets with Grammy Award-winning violinist Joshua Bell on his new CD, 'At Home with Friends,' which is due in stores on the Sony Classical label September 29.
The former Wicked star performs the classic Rodgers and Hart ballad 'My Funny Valentine,' accompanied by Bell.
The new disc of instrumental and vocal duets also features guest appearances by Sting, Marvin Hamlisch, Nathan Gunn and Josh Groban, among others.
According to the article, the song that Nathan Gunn sings is "O, Cease Thy Maiden Fair" [sic]. I guess they mean Rachmaninoff's song "O, Cease Thy Singing, Maiden Fair." You can hear Dmitri Hvorostovsky sing it at youtube .
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The DVD of the Paris Opera War and Peace was released in the United States on November 18, 2003, and can be ordered used from some sellers at amazon.com.
A re-release of that DVD is available from
amazon.com as of April 28, 2009, and from
amazon.co.uk as of June 1, 2009..
"Local taste dictates that Philadelphia may never see Prokofiev's operatic
adaptation of
War and Peace
at the Academy of Music. But it's almost better enjoyed on DVD in a moody,
visually arresting Paris production starring Opera Company of Philadelphia
regular Nathan Gunn," wrote David Patrick Stearns for the
Philadelphia
Inquirer
of September 26, 2004.
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May 15, 2007
"Gunn's first disc for Sony BMG, to be released this August, is titled
Just
Before
Sunrise;
it includes songs by, among others, Gene Scheer (the librettist of
An American
Tragedy),
Ben Moore, John Bucchino, Jimmy Van Heusen, Tom Waits, Billy Joel and Sting.
Among his collaborators on some tracks are the 20-year-old jazz piano
prodigy Eldar and Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth."--Matthew Westphal,
playbillarts.com
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"If people can't understand your words, you are not really singing."--Nathan Gunn, as quoted by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times of January 8, 2006.
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"It's a particularly lyrical voice and very beautiful. He's a consummate musician, a consummate artist, and he's also a very good actor. Because of all that, he can put across a song emotionally very well. I plan to cast him in my future operas whenever possible," said composer Tobias Picker about Nathan Gunn, as quoted at calendarlive.com.
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"The baritone Nathan Gunn has a robust voice as well as a keen musical intelligence, not to mention a hunky physique. Last year, in the title role of a riveting production of Britten's 'Billy Budd' at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, barefoot and often shirtless, Mr. Gunn climbed rigging, staved off fights with other sailors and sang the role poignantly, fully conveying Billy's winsome and, in the end, fatal innocence," wrote Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times of Sunday December 22, 2002.
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Nathan Gunn sang the
title role in performances in English of Thomas's opera
Hamlet
at the
Opera Theatre of Saint
Louis
in Missouri on June 19, 23, 25, 27, and 29, 2002.
In a
review at
riverfronttimes.com,
Lew Prince wrote: "Nathan Gunn, who unveiled his wonderful voice as Figaro
in OTSL's
Barber of Seville
back in 1996, is a magnificent singing Hamlet. He plays the part with
humanity and nuance. In his hands, Hamlet is a man torn and in trouble but
very much a man."
Martin Bernheimer, for
ft.com,
wrote that "Nathan Gunn,
barihunk du jour,
coped manfully as the Dane[.]"
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CD
Rossini:
Il Barbiere di
Siviglia
amazon.co.uk
"There have been funnier, earthier Barber s
than this, but few as spruce or as graceful of touch.
"The dapper overture sets the tone. And under Miguel G�mez-Mart�nez's alert
direction, the Munich orchestra is alive to every cajoling, conniving
inflection of Rossini's delicious score.
"Elegance, too, is the keynote of the singing. Nathan Gunn's baritone is on
the light side for the rambunctious Figaro.
"But if he underplays the swagger, his barber has plenty of quick-witted
charm."--Richard Wigmore,
telegraph.co.uk
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Just Before Sunrise
LINKS
NathanGunn.com
Yahoo! club: Fans of Nathan Gunn