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Concertonet
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Paul du Quenoy |
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Liederabend: New York, Carnegie Hall, 20. Januar 2018 |
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Kaufmann Returns!
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Jonas Kaufmann has attained superstar status – at least on one side of the
Atlantic. Following his appearances in the Metropolitan Opera’s new
production of Wagner’s Parsifal some years ago, he all but disappeared from
American stages. His most recent Met engagement, as Cavaradossi in the
company’s new Tosca, was cancelled months ahead of time. This followed
cancelled Met appearances in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut and Bizet’s Carmen.
Enraged arts administrators all over America have been loathe to hire him,
despite his remarkable talent, for fear of being left high and dry.
Disappointed fans with lowered expectations, and more than a few snarky
critics, have egged them on. But Kaufmann’s star power was irresistible this
evening as he took on the first real cycle of art songs, a Romantic era
innovation that reveals a deeply emotive story through component songs.
In twenty songs, Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin tells such a tale,
of a young journeyman’s delight as he embraces travel, explores nature, and
falls head over heels for a beautiful miller’s daughter. Once true love runs
its course, he discovers that she has betrayed him with a hunter, leaving
him to wallow in despair before finally taking comfort in the peacefulness
of life back home, benignly eased into recovery by the blessings of nature
rather than the usual cynical calculation that his faithless paramour was
not good enough for him. The cycle is at once earthy and transcendent,
deeply human yet profoundly spiritual.
And it was entirely well
suited to Kaufmann’s voice, lovingly accompanied by the finesse of the
virtuoso pianist Helmut Deutsch. New York audiophiles seemed divided into
two camps that cancelled each other out – those who found him too soft and
delicate and those who found him too forceful and vulgar. In fact he was
neither. Both parts of the evening unfolded with a grace and panache born of
near total control of Kaufmann’s instrument. The bright innocence of the
journeyman’s entry into the world radiated with clarion brilliance. It
darkened in mood as events of the songs exposed him to human failings of the
type that all mature people are cursed to know. Haunting airs memorably
inhabited his finale lullaby, sung as the young man is rocked to rest by the
universe itself, a comforting feeling for any breakup.
Some took
issue with Kaufmann’s four encores, all delightfully delivered Schubert
songs, arguing that they spoiled the emotional effect of the introspective
main fare. But this is not Parsifal and there was no need to file silently
out of Carnegie Hall in quasi-religious reverence. Hearing this wonderful
artist in such an intimate piece made one thirst for more. The encores did
their job, but the true fans will be there in April, when Kaufmann returns
to Carnegie for a concert performance of Act II of Wagner’s Tristan und
Isolde with the Boston Symphony. I will be there if he is.
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