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Edward Seckerson.com, 25 October 2011 |
Edward Seckerson |
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Konzert, London, Royal Festival Hall, 24. Oktober 2011 |
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Jonas Kaufmann, Royal Festival Hall
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Jonas Kaufmann has re-written the Rule Book on tenors. A lyric voice that
darkens to embrace the heroic repertoire, an occasional heldentenor who can
also sing Lehár with supreme elegance, a German who is utterly, completely,
and believably Italianate, there is really no one quite like Kaufmann on the
international scene right now. He’s a subtle actor, a commanding stage
presence, and impossibly good looking, too.
What else is there?
Artistry – that most precious of all commodities. There are things that
Kaufmann does instinctively that stop you in your tracks. Typically, he
began this his first London orchestral concert with a challenge. “Cielo e
Mar” from Ponchielli’s La Gioconda is no warm-up number but rather opens
cold and high in the voice on the word “cielo”. The placement must be
perfect, the sound his sweetest - dolce. It was. Soon those open, burnished,
tones poured out, swarthy and thrusting in the middle voice but with those
unexpected nuances, moments where the music is taken away on the breath to
effect a weightless mezza voce. The final high B-flat was a true piano
crescendoing excitingly to full-blooded fortissimo. A four-minute master
class.
And so it went on: from the fragrant enticements of the
Flower Song from Carmen, the high B-flat seductively caressed in head-voice,
to the no holds barred verismo of Turridu’s farewell to “mamma”, “Addio alla
Madre” from Cavalleria Rusticana, where beauty and brawn, not least in the
final a capella phrases, fleshed out not just the aria but the character,
too.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under a very safe pair of
hands, Jochen Rieder, dispensed the operatic “lollipops” very efficiently –
not least a rangy account of the Bacchanale from Samson et Delila – but then
things got serious with Kaufmann and his compatriot’s beloved Wagner.
“Winterstürme” from Die Walküre radiated Springtime warmth but with dark,
heroic, overtones. But it was the segue from the seraphic prelude to
Lohengrin into the final monologue “In fernem Land” that really took us to
another level. The atmosphere of the entire opera was contained in his rapt
narrative and with the revelation of his identity, the knight in shining
armour stood there before us.
Encores took us from Cilea’s Adriana
Lecouvreur to Pagliacci’s donning of the motley. But in between was Tauber’s
delicious “Du bist der welt für mich” sung with heart and soul and more.
Make no mistake, Kaufmann is an important artist.
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