Kevin Hanek recently joined the roster of Hubbard Levine Management in New York. Merle Hubbard and Scott Levine manage the careers of an extensive roster of artists for opera and concert performances in the United States and abroad. They will be representing the tenor as he makes his first forays into the Wagnerian repertoire on the professional stage.

Kevin Hanek performed the role of Radamés in Verdi’s Aïda onstage for the first time in July of 2006, in a production with Bulgaria’s Burgas Philharmonic and Chorus at the Burgas Opera House. He was invited back in 2007 to sing his first Riccardo in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera.

A new production concept of Wagner’s Die Walküre developed by Kevin Hanek is being considered for its premiere at the 2009 FAOT Internacional music festival in Sonora, Mexico. The production draws inspiration from some of the groundbreaking Wagner productions which began to appear throughout Germany and Austria prior to the Second World War. During the zenith of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s and 30s, Germany was a hothouse of theatrical innovation and experimentation. Its artists were actively clearing away the traditional, naturalistic production values of the previous century, and ushering in elements of the groundbreaking artistic movements that were taking place there at that time. Upon the ascendancy of the National Socialist movement to the national political scene, Adolf Hitler (a frustrated artist and passionate Wagnerite) began a systematic suppression of these artists and their work. By the end of the 1930s, many of them had been removed from their positions of influence, frequently exiled or worse, and replaced by traditionalist stage designers and directors who met with the approval of Hitler and his regime, significantly altering the course of theatrical development in Germany and the rest of the world for years to follow. Using the famous Act 1, Scene 3 duet between Siegmund and Sieglinde as a workshop vehicle for the concept, this production seeks to attract contemporary audiences into an intimate live theatrical setting to experience Wagner’s great masterpiece—with dramatic singing that is faithful to the lyric ideal of Wagner’s music, in a visceral and visually compelling theatrical concept synergizing cutting-edge video and lighting elements, and featuring Spanish-language surtitles from Metropolitan Opera tenor and diction coach Nico Castel’s critically acclaimed translation—stripping away the accumulated political connections in the process and acquainting new audiences with the brilliant music and enduring artistic truths of Wagner’s timeless mythology. Hanek will sing the role of Siegmund, with soprano Kathy Geary appearing as Sieglinde.

Preparations are underway for a recital program to be performed with renowned lieder pianist Norman Shetler, accompanist to such luminaries as Peter Schreier, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, and Hermann Prey. Shetler will accompany Hanek in a program featuring works by Loewe, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff, as well as Swedish concert songs by Hugo Alfven, and a group of songs by the early twentieth-century American Romantic composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes.

Hanek will also present a song recital featuring the works of the renowned Catalan composers who have made a significant impact on the classical music of the twentieth century, including Enrique Granados, Xavier Montsalvatge, Frederic Mompou, Joaquin Rodrigo, and Isaac Albéniz. This special lecture recital will be performed in conjunction with a symposium on Contemporary Trends in Catalan Music, to be held in New York in 2008. Visit aboutcatalunya.com for more information.