No tenor singing today is as versed as Kaufmann in the vanishing
art of light opera — he began his career with a long run in
Romberg’s The Student Prince — although he cites Rudolf Schock,
a German tenor in the 1950s, as this album’s inspiration, rather
than the better-known Richard Tauber or Fritz Wunderlich. Like
Schock, Kaufmann is also a lyric Wagnerian, and his singing of
Sieczynski’s Vienna, City of My Dreams lacks the easy charm of
Wunderlich, but he achieves with musicianship and artistry what
came naturally to his golden-voiced predecessor. He’s in fine
form seducing Willis-Sorensen’s Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) and
Hanna Glawari (The Merry Widow) with sweet nothings. And he
finds a Schubertian love of nature in the hymns to Vienna’s
leafy suburbs by Leopoldi, Benatzky and May. Fischer and the
Vienna Phil are deluxe accompanists.