Part II - Your Favorites: JONAS KAUFMANN

THIS PART IS FOR YOUR FAVORITES!
What´s your opinion about german tenor Jonas Kaufmann? Please give us your comment!

Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor (born 1969)

Georges Bizet - Carmen
La fleur que tu mavais jetée (The Flower-Song)
(Recorded live at Covent Garden 2006)

My personal opinion: He is the shooting-star among today´s tenors: "Bizet´s famous opera Carmen must be renamed, because with Jonas Kaufmann we have the ideal Don José at last!", wrote with enthusiastic words german critic Jürgen Kesting - and he compared Kaufmann in his best dramatic moments with "the great Jon Vickers". No doubt, Jonas Kaufmann´s voice is extraordinary and almost incomparable: A dark velvet masculine ground in combination with an attractive upper register. With 47 nominations he reached place position 18 - this is really a sensational result for a 1969 born singer, who came out in the mid-1990s. Kaufmann is the most versatile tenor of today with a repertory from baroque to modern music: He sings Verdi and Puccini, Wagner and french Operas, Songs from Schubert, Britten and Mahler and so on. For me, he´s a singer who gives new impulses in modern rendition of classical repertoire. His recital of "Die schöne Müllerin" is a welcome change in the dusty monotony of usual Schubert-singing. Kaufmann not only gives a rendition, he goes through the joy and sorrow of the young ingenuous wanderer. When he begins with "Winterstürme wichen dem Wonnemond" or "In fernem Land", we experience from the first line, we have an unusual Wagner-performance: A Heldentenor without false pathos - alive and within one´s reach. And so he´s an ideal Pinkerton: Quelling, demanding and romantic at once; probably the most interesting american Lieutenant since the days of Bjoerling and Bergonzi. Granted: He is no Tamino and Werther - Mozart and Massenet in sledgehammer-method. But in a crowd of overrated star-tenors he´s an outstanding phenomen. Critic Dr. Kevin Clarke charakterized Kaufmann´s timbré with the terms grainy and brown as coffee - and I like it. Kaufmann´s rise into public attention began with the predictable downfall of Villazon. I´m sure, with Jonas Kaufmann we have to expect still much.

THE COMPLETE OVERVIEW: GO TO ALL SINGERS IN THIS LIST
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBsScnQWVlU

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Jonas
• Kaufmann
• Carmen
• Tosca
• Don
• José
• Cavaradossi
• Wagner
• Lohengrin
• Jon
• Vickers

[ruffomaldito]

Excellent ! Jonas belongs to a generation that has produced outstanding singers. I hope he maintains his place among the modern greats. There´s some tough competition ahead. But he´s still maturing, and has it all - prescence, excitement, voice, feeling, power and looks, and greatly appeals to modern audiences.

[billyguns2]

What none of you realize is that Kaufmann is a baby Heldentenor! He is without question the most musical, artistic, dramatically believable and technically accomplished tenor before the public today.

[eurydike]

to put it short : the best tenor today

[Chazzan805]

A big thumbs down once again to Jonas Kaufman. He doesn't belong in the French or Italian repetory. I heard him sing excerpts from Die Walkuere recently, and he was great. Too great. He sounded so mature in the role it was as if he should have been singing Hans Sachs!

[MrJoel1499]

What a beautiful voice. I hope he will look after it and like Placido Domingo still be singing well at seventy. Such a talent should be treasured.

[dziady1]

@Maripudelmonaco Of past singers you might like to hear Jan Kiepura sing this work - he does not

"fuss" it to death as does Kaufmann -Kiepura singing it reminds one of the comment Berlioz made to a singer

who fussed for "deep " meaning "Just sing it as written " was the Berloz comment .

[Maripudelmonaco]

VA  DESENTONADO.

[Maripudelmonaco]

@dziady1 - totalmente de acuerdo .

[Lchen007]

Super and above excellence. Voice of the century .- a voice rich in color , sound and natural tone. His height and looks all combine to enhance his outstanding abilities

[dziady1]

johnehagen, you certainly have a right to your limited knowledge of the art,try not to second guess what others are about . There is a great difference between being

a great singer and being an opera star.

[johnehagen]

@dziady1 Wow - you throw around language about vocal technique when you have no idea what you are talking about. I hope you are not a voice teacher

[MegaCardel]

Hace algún tiempo dije que este tenor daría mucho de que hablar y no me equivoqué, sus éxitos lo han demostrado, ha brillado en los grandes escenarios,

incluyendo el Met. Con una voz muy peculiar, con muy buena técnica y mucho carisma, es hoy en día uno de los mas destacados tenores de la actualidad,

quizás el tiempo lo consagre aun mas, seguiremos sus pasos.