Jonas Kaufmann at the Sydney Opera House

[sydneyboy]

I write to express my joy at having been last Sunday at a concert in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House by Jonas Kaufmann. It was a major coup by Opera Australia to entice such a star to Australia and his performance was electrifying. This will come as no surprise to opera buffs fortunate to see and hear him regularly in Europe and the United States and the many who contribute to this forum. He sang a wonderful eclectic mix of Italian and French arias to highlight his versatility.

 

This was a concert in a thousand and will not be forgotten quickly by full house in the Concert Hall who gave him a standing ovation and roared their approval. Truly a night to remember.

[TruHart1]

I write to express my joy at having been last Sunday at a concert in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House by Jonas Kaufmann. It was a major coup by Opera Australia to entice such a star to Australia and his performance was electrifying. This will come as no surprise to opera buffs fortunate to see and hear him regularly in Europe and the United States and the many who contribute to this forum. He sang a wonderful eclectic mix of Italian and French arias to highlight his versatility.

 

This was a concert in a thousand and will not be forgotten quickly by full house in the Concert Hall who gave him a standing ovation and roared their approval. Truly a night to remember.

 

I envy you sydneyboy. Mr. Kaufmann is a singer who can sing everything operatic from the Italian (Verdi,Puccini,) French (Massenet, Bizet,) and German (Wagner, Strauss) repertoire with defining role interpretations (he is quite an excellent operatic actor) in every performance. In addition, as you heard, he is completely at ease on the concert stage. It sounds as if you heard a concert with Italian and French operatic music but he is equally at home singing lieder, French art song and more intimate recital programs as well.

 

So many times, when I am watching or listening to a performance, he will add this or that slight nuance that lifts a phrase or even just a note to that level where a listener wonders why it hasn’t always been interpreted that way. Mr. Kaufmann is a man of high interpretive intellect who can also project the feeling in his singing to the last row in the house with no forcing of sound. I feel he compares quite favorably as an artist to the greatest tenors of the past…and he’s a very attractive man, too, at least to me!!!

 

TruHart1

[uwsman2]

His recordings of Schubert song cycles are marvelous! I've seen him in a few things at the Met (Faust, Werther) and I was always delighted by him.

[+ WilliamM]

I have seen several operas ("Lulu" and "Janufa") at the Sydney Opera House, and a truly wonderful production of the musical "Falsettos" in an another theater. Is the concert hall a third theater? The opera house is certainly big enough for three theaters.

[MscleLovr]

"This will come as no surprise to opera buffs fortunate to see and hear him regularly in Europe and the United States"

 

I'm very glad, Sydneyboy, that you got to hear him give a proper recital. I've seen him in opera and recital many times. I feel that he's a great performer (and not just because I met him when he was young and visiting London for the first time).

 

My only criticism is that some of his recitals in Europe have become 'marketing events'. It seems that when he has a new album to sell, he appears with a full orchestra, sings maybe 6-8 times, and goes off the stage as orchestral pieces are played. At the last such recital I attended in London, he sang for 21 minutes in a 2 hour recital, though he did then sing 3 encores in addition. This was in marked contrast to a recital I attended a week later, when Juan Diego Florez and his pianist performed a very generous programme and they were on stage for almost 2.5 hours (and I note that tickets for JD Florez's recital cost much less than for Kaufmann's).