The Herald - Glasgow

Stephen Strugnell

Edinburgh Festival, August 2002: Die schöne Müllerin

Music: Jonas Kaufmann/Helmut Deutsch

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Without a doubt, this has been Jonas Kaufmann's Festival. The German tenor with the golden voice and football-star looks, who last week wowed us in Liszt's Faust Symphony and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, finally took centre stage on Saturday night in a riveting account of Schubert's Die schone Mullerin. Kaufmann's full-blooded tenor sound is ideally suited to this great song cycle, and he seemed absorbed in the role of hapless lover. From the optimistic wanderer lad we meet at the outset, through the elation of discovered love and the anguish, jealousy, and final despair as he realises the beautiful miller's daughter loves not him but a rival, Kaufmann was never less that totally convincing.