ARTS & CULTURE Ingenues, Sirens, Matinee Idols and More

FRISKY BUSINESS Well, everybody knows a man is sexier stovsky, that is opera. He sang in a rock when he doesn’t try to be. Especially when band when he was a teenager in Kras- he’s got a voice like that. noyarsk, Siberia; he’s dabbled in fi lm (Don So let’s talk about the voice. It’s a Giovanni Unmasked, 2000) and is consid- creamy, thick baritone, produced in an ering more movie roles; but his real pas- even stream on what appear to be unlim- sion is reserved for the high arts. “This is ited reserves of breath. It is warm as well what is so good about theater, literature, as lyric—meaning it’s higher than some art,” he says. “They make you think. They male voices, indeed high enough that stick with you in your mind; they tease Hvorostovsky finds the part of Don and tickle your brain.” Culture never Giovanni a little low and has stopped sounded quite so alluring. singing it altogether. “I identifi ed myself There’s also something very appealing with this role too much,” he says. He no about a man who adores his family. Wher- longer wants to play the seducer. The role ever Hvorostovsky travels these days that most excites him these days is Ver- from his home base in London, his wife di’s Simon Boccanegra, who matures from and their two young children are with an ardent lover into a wise leader and him. This picture of family bliss is the fl ip father. “I don’t have much of a problem side of his Don Giovanni past—literally. Dmitri Hvorostovsky at New playing an older man,” the forty-five- One of the women in the 1999 Geneva York’s Carnegie Hall. year-old says. “Although to play a lover is production, Swiss soprano Florence Illa, even more fun, believe me or not.” And evidently wasn’t acting. Today she is Mrs. To sing Mozart’s Don Giovanni, a perform- yet he’s not worried about aging: “A good Hvorostovsky. It’s a real-life happy end- er has to make you believe he has seduced baritone is like a good wine. The older it ing that the Don never dreamed of. several thousand women—for most, no becomes, the better it becomes.” “It was extremely successful,” Hvoro- easy feat. But when Dmitri Hvorostovsky Nor does he want to play only heroes. stovsky says of that fateful foray into the first took the part, in Geneva in 1999, His dream role is Iago in Verdi’s Otello. role. “I’ve been so happy ever since.” he effortlessly closed the credibility gap. “Everyone has got a darker side to their Hvorostovsky will perform as the lead in All that the sultry, silver-haired Russian- character,” he says. “Obviously, I’ve got Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Chi- born baritone had to do was stride onstage plenty of it. I have to let it out somehow.” cago Lyric Opera from March 1 through 14; and look at the actress playing Donna El- You could argue that a man is sexiest he will appear as Renato in Verdi’s Ballo in vira’s maid, and she began taking off her when he’s talking animatedly about some- Maschera at New York’s Metropolitan Op- clothes. Many women in the audience thing that really interests him. For Hvoro- era from April 10 through 26. ANNE MIDGETTE would happily have followed suit. Virtually every article written about Hvorostovsky since 1989, when he burst DMITRI’S SEDUCTIVE SOUND onto the scene by winning the Cardiff ● Heroes and Villains (Delos; $15). Hvorostovsky’s recent solo album juxtaposes Singer of the World competition, trum- highlights from Russian opera, like Rubinstein’s Demon, with better-known fare from pets his sexiness. He’s been called a pin- the Western canon, like the “Toreador Song,” from Bizet’s Carmen. up, an operatic hunk, even one of People ● Dmitri Hvorostovsky: Portrait (Decca; $18). A two-disc compilation of the bari- magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People.” tone’s greatest hits from opera and song. Yet when asked about his appeal, he re- ● Where Are You, My Brothers? (Delos; $16). Featuring popular Soviet songs of acts with the equivalent of a squirm. the World War II era, this recording, evocative of Russia, is among the frequent “To be talking about ‘operatic hunk’ is collaborations of Hvorostovsky, conductor Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow such alien language to me,” he says, the Chamber Orchestra. It has also spawned a DVD, Russian Songs From the War Years resonance of his dark voice carrying across (Video Artists International; $25). the phone lines from Paris, where he is ● Verdi Arias (Delos; $16). There are few true Verdi baritones around today; performing, to New York. “Opera hunk— Hvorostovsky leads the pack. This release does not, alas, include Simon Boccanegra,

it’s not the way I consider myself.” but it does give him a chance to show off his interpretation of Iago in Otello. A.M. SHERMAN J. STEVE BY PHOTOGRAPH

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