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guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19
August 2003 |
Tim Ashley |
Schubert: Die Winterreise, Edinburgh, 16 August 2003
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Jonas Kaufmann
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Queen's Hall |
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Glamorous German tenor Jonas Kaufmann became the
international festival's star two years ago when he sang Schumann and
Strauss at the Queen's Hall. Since then, Edinburgh has effectively become
the platform for his finest work in the UK - a place where he can develop
his career and where we can watch his remarkable progress.
This year found him and his regular accompanist, Helmut Deutsch, tackling
Schubert's gruelling Winterreise, a work that Kaufmann has avoided until
recently, claiming he was unwilling to sing it until he felt absolutely
ready. Now, it would seem, he is very much ready, though his performance
comes as something of a jolt, for this is Winterreise as we rarely hear it
nowadays. Kaufmann treats it very much as a high Romantic statement rather
than opting for the expressionist emoting that many interpreters prefer. His
isolated traveller stands very much in the aesthetic tradition that links
Byron with Wagner - haunted, self-lacerating, craving oblivion and
metaphysically rebellious.
Kaufmann consequently thinks his way through the work in extended
paragraphs, conveying its emotional agony more through the lyrical unfolding
of the vocal line rather than through ironic inflections of the text. His
voice has become weightier of late, and his dark tone, poised somewhere
between tenor and baritone, and ringing with astonishing fullness in its
upper registers, has an uncanny aptness throughout. This is already a
remarkable interpretation that may grow even more profound with time.
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