Isn't it romantic?
Jummy Jonas Kaufmann records his recital CD Romantic Arias
, due for release in March.
, due for release in March.Labels: hunkentenor, jonas kaufmann, youtube
POSTED at
3:33 PM
27 December 2007
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51 Comments:
Lots of eye candy here all around! Is it a coincidence that Michelangelo's David popped into my mind near the end?
WOW!! Giacomini anyone?
Be still, my heart. Plus, he's cute. Why is he only singing a few Alfredos at the Met? I understand that he had a huge success in "Koenigskinder" in Zurich, will sing Don Carlo in London production that will come to the Met. Hope he comes with it.
I love his voice but will somebody please buy the man a razor.
all this fuss and he doesn't bother to learn the arias in their original language? would that he sounded well in the theater. blustery top, no eveness at all. Don't know what I make of this one yet. He seems to like himself a lot. and it is all about looks these days, regrettably.
acutesenses: What are you talking about? Boheme in Italian, Manon in French, Martha in German. Presumably the other arias on the disc will also be in the original.
Well. Can anyone else imagine Teddy Tahu Rhodes and this guy together? And by together, I mean, well, you knowe what I mean. Yowza! Thie voice is pretty nice, too.
He could easily become my next first favourite alive tenor - particularly if he asked me to be his boyfriend.
Well at LAST a tenor who's actually a hunk, not a puffy-faced kid in long pants (who got them for him, Mame?). The Met has shown its infallible gift for casting in only tossing him a few seasons of Alfredo, while he sings Parsifal in Zurich.
(I have a DVD of him as Fierrabras there, but he has to wear glasses in that. And his being an imprisoned Muslim prince justifies the five-days' beard.)
Like the voice a whole lot too!
Once again Daniel---
according to your profile you are 58...Jonas Kaufman is not going to ask you to be his boyfriend...if he does, then the whole world is going to hell....if you have not found a boyfriend by the age of 58 you are going to find one...deal with baing alone and possibly unattractive
I have memories of him in his bike spandex arriving at rehearsals.....back in the 90s
I will look around and see if I or my friends have any old pics of him.
And yes like any good tenor he is into himself......
Best,
Drew
P.S. he was never big on shaving back then either.
A different Drew here.
My father heard Kaufmann in early November, and he said that Kaufmann was quite excellent.
He said nothing about Kaufmann not sounding "well" in the theater, or having a blustery top, or sounding uneven.
Sharon Graham, we're all just trying to have fun here.
Marta was not written in German, dear Cieca. and he was infantile and uneven in the Traviata at the Met cracking on almost every high note.
Parsifal? I heard the video, which was excellent, but again, who knows how it is without a producer, or he prefers german opera's. What I heard live I did not like. I LIVE to change my mind, so anything is possible.
I am afraid Flotow´s Martha has an original German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and was premièred in Vienna with this text. Maybe I am mistaken but it is true Ach, so fromm, the tenor aria, is a survivor from an early French work by the composer and later included in the opera.
Yea right, Cieca and RD, next thing you'll try to tell us that 'Die Macht des Schicksals' is actually an ITALIAN opera ;)
MARTA is an Italian translation of the German MARTHA.( "Why, Martha, your Sunday chapel dress!")
Kaufmann is an excellent artist and sings well in Italian and German both. TRAVIATA is not his current Fach, except at the laggard Met (after all, he didn't come as well recommended by Friends of Friend as Paul Charles Clarke or Dennis O'Neill). He is singing DON CARLO and BOHEME, with TOSCA to come. KOENIGSKINDER is ideal for him, as is Florestan.
Did anyone catch the telecast (not live) of the Royal Opera 'Carmen' with Kaufmann as José? He was generally fantastic, even though the lower part of the voice is a bit too baritonal to me.
I actually thought the voice resembled as very well-behaved José Cura. Blazing and easy top, though, and a very convincing actor.
Freniac
Yes, i caught the relay too. The top is more secure than Cura's these days, and I personally like the dark timbre. Even in Act 1 opera the final homicidal violence is there in the eyes.
I wonder if he will do the ROH first run of Don Carlo as Villazon is still listed. From what I've hear he will do the revival in the following season. I can't imagine he will drop his announced debut as Cavaradossi shortly before.
Sharon Graham - where exactly is your profile? Did it ever occur to you that perhaps daniel did have a bf and something sad or bad happened? Can we assume that you know Daniel well enough to make these sort of remarks or are you just being a bitch as seems to be the fashion on here these days?
I think Sharon Graham is the "Ghost of Christmas past" in the form of the Marschallin/Marshie/The Studer Troll. He he he.
Yniold, I got used to the timbre as the evening progressed. I was completely taken in by the end, given the completely convincing portrayal. I don't think I've ever seen as 'real' a Carmen as this one, with both principals so believable in their passions.
I agree that Cura, and especially his top, is variable these days. But I remeber him singing with the Concertgebouw Orchestra years ago, especially I Pagliacci, and was blown away by the voice: passion, somewhat raw, blazing and easy high notes and a magnetic stage presence. I think Kaufmann these days exhibits all the positive sides of the early Cura and seems to have a lot less mannerisms and vocal flaws.
Perhaps, if he uses the voice wisely for the coming years, he will sing Otello in a decade or so. Even if the instrument is still essentially lyrical, with the right, sympathetic conductor, he could be absolutely riveting in the role, vocally and, judging from the José, acting-wise as well...
Consider me a newly converted fan ;-)
whaddayaknow - while I am enjoying Mr. Jonas - aurally and visually.. what gorgeous curls & I love the stubbles - the cover of his cd flies by on the '...recommends' sidebox. But it's only coming out in March/April? As Mimi would say "il primo sole e mio, il primo bacio dell'aprile e mio'
According to the unofficial JK web site some enticing prospects:
Weitere Pläne (nicht in 2007/2008):
2008/2009 Tosca, Zürich (lt. Biographie, Klassikakzente)
2008/2009 (2008): Fidelio in Paris
2008: Manon in Chicago (with Natalie Dessay)
1.1.2009: Neunte Sinfonie, Gewandhausorchester, Barbican, London
September 2009: Don Carlo, ROH London
(die Aussage in der Dezember Ausgabe von GramophoneUK, Jonas Kaufmann wäre gefragt worden, den Don Carlo bereits dieses Jahr zu übernehmen, entspricht nicht den Tatsachen. Es handelt sich dabei lediglich um ein unzutreffendes Gerücht)
Lt. OperaUK und anderen Medien: Jonas Kaufmann will sing Siegmund in the Met's new Walküre in spring 2011.
2008/2009: Tosca, Wien
Lohengrin in München, Opernfestspiele 2009 und Wiederaufnahme 2009/2010
La Traviata; München 2009
Adriana Lecouvreur (ggf. London)
And who would sing Adriana? Gheorghiu... ;-)
The ROH Carmen certainly had one of the overall best looking casts in years. D'Arcangelo looked suitable stallionish astride the horse, and Imbraillo has potential in the bari-hunk stakes.
I did not know that carmen has been telecast but it always seemed to me be a dream cast. Is there any chance to see it on DVD?
Alex
The ROH now has its own in-house studio for making HD films and purchased OPUS ARTE last year so that they could control the distibrution. The recent house magazine is devoted to this subject and I'm sure the DVD is not far off but they may be waiting for the HD format issue to be sorted out - and for the Dessay La Fille as well.
speaking of hunks, i just found a clip on youtube of luca pisaroni singing gershwin at the berlin aids gala benefit. wow... what a cutie, and tall too. various clips from that gala are available (la bumbry sings the aria from herodiade, crider sings from tosca, JDF, villazon, etc.). quite a line up.
oops... sorry, no villazon. that was a different concert...
Luca Pisarini is adorable... but I hated his singing. I got through the intro and had to stop. He didn't get through any of the phrases in one breath, which kind of destroys the thought. he's not high on my list of cross-over artists.
Willym- thank you so much for coming to my defence- you are wonderful. It is strange but you were more right than you know - sadly I did lose my partner some time ago, but that really had nothing to do with it. I was only being silly- of course a nice young man like Jonas wouldn't be interested in an old queen like me.
Of course too, poor ol Sharon Graham wouldn't recognise an albeit poor attempt at big tongue in cheek humour- because she herself hasn't got any humour. She was stupid enough to take me seriously- then decided to use it as an excuse to be nasty to me by implying I was very ugly.
It just goes to prove no matter what you say, or what your intention, there is always someone who will choose (and I say "choose") to take you out of context. I guess it says more about them than it does about me.
Thank you so much for being decent enough to come to my defence. You can be my boyfriend anytime ;0)
And, Daniel, Sharon has been pretty nasty to me, as well, and also to others. And I would bet that, unlike some other people I could mention who have been nasty to me but were gracious enough to apologize later, she will never do that. We old opera queens need to stick together. I don't know why you would assume that Jonas wouldn't want you. Maybe he likes older (not old!) opera queens. He is hot, though. Here's a thought... the steam room at the West Side Club (insert bathhouse of your choice), filled with Jonas, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Simon Keenleyside, Stephen Costello, Juan Diego Florez, Christophe Dumaux, Nathan Gunn, and every other hunkentenor and barihunk. And us. And all of them into us. And all of us acting out what we think "Penetrating Richard Wagner" is really about.
I never used to like the more dramatic tenors much, but Kaufmann has really changed my mind. He can do it all! He sings with both romantic tenderness and heroic intensity. It doesn't hurt that he's a hottie, but the neckbeard needs to go.
Dear Sanford I cannot imagine who that might be- lets hope that wicked ol queen who did that choked on her humble pie and it really was just a rare aberration
Rumour has it, it wasn't like her- must have been something in her Christmas pudding.;0) How anyone could attack a man with such a brilliant "sauna plan" is beyond me.
As for poor old old old Sharon- getting "feedback" from her is rather like getting doggy doo doo on your shoe. You just know when you step outside it can happen anytime- so just be grateful you weren't left out.
The biggest difficulty I have with her, is that I'm frightened to respond to anything she says lest I inadvertently thrust significance on it.
The poor ol thing is probably going through serial menopauses- no wonder she's so nasty to everyone and hasn't a "funny" bone in her body.
Daniel, I think SHaron should star in "Penetrating Wagner's Ring" in the "pants" role of Wagner. Repeatedly.
That's fair enough- but it is doubtful that she could ever have an arsehole transplant...it would probably reject her!
Oh Sanford look what you've made me do... now I've gone too far...poor Sharon. I feel terrible ;0)
I've seen Kaufmann in theater just once (Alfredo at La Scala last July) and he was disappointing, shouting the whole evening and with a mezzavoce that was actually a falsetto voice. I see he's going to sing Fidelio under Claudio Abbado in Madrid, in the very same production that'll come to Italy... with Endrik Wottrich. Gott! welch' Dunkel hier! I've also seen the video of ROH Carmen: I think he tries to sing Don José like Vickers did, but Vickers had a quite different voice and, most of all, a quite different stage presence.
Well, that seems to indicate that the earlier poster is right - Alfredo is not his fach.
The ROH Carmen is well excerpted on YouTube. Nearly 10-minutes of the final scene is at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5ZSAHqsoeY
It's the most moving I've seen in a while, and I've always rather liked Antonacci. Kaufmann's Jose is vocally not so much like Vickers as like - well, Thomas Hampson. But he's a terrific stage actor.
This clip brings up other tidbits from the tenor - a Cosi "Un aura amorosa" that may be a bit robusto for Mozart purists, but I like it. And a gorgeous piece from a Brussels Damnation of Faust - his French diction is superb!
If Alfredo isn't his fach (and indeed it is not), why does he sing the Duke in Rigoletto or Gounod's Faust? Not to mention the upcoming Des Grieux... I'm afraid a lot of things aren't his fach.
I just spent some time listening to him on youtube. I thought his singing in the carmen was impressive but with his hair pulled back and his stubble shaved, I thought he looked a lot like Andy Kaufman. I liked his mezzavoce at the end, though. I adored his Florestan. I thought his acting was moving and his singing was terrific. I like the Faust and the Mignon, and I thought his Un Aura Amorosa was terrific. He sings with a lot of nuance and his French, GErman, and Italian are all uniformly good. To me, I think he's everything Jose Cura has been touted to be. And is it me, or is someone, who shall remain nameless (La Cieca) late with her podcast again?
And... His recordings of Strauss Lieder and Oberon (in English, with Hillevi Martinpelto) are on iTunes. They both sound wonderful.
I saw Kaufmann's first Traviata at the Met, and it really was the Kaufmann Traviata, he overshadowed Georghiu entirely in voice, legato and commitment. Hi plugged in a purely spectacular high C in the tenor's bits of Sempre libera and the voice, although being all plush scuro it is not one for the squillo queens, is even from top to bottom, beautifully produced and very large (wonder if all of him is so, um, appropriately sized. Would dearly and truly love to find out). In spite of his Michael Bolton called and wants his hair back do, he's a hottie in every sense of the word.
Thanks to LaCieca, Sanford et al., for pointing me to all the YouTube clips of Kaufmann! I'd never heard him, and in that promotional video on the original post he sort of turned me off in the spoken portions, but after listening to some singing clips, especially the Carmen and the Mozart, I'm now a fan! It's great to hear a full-voiced, manly tenor singing Mozart. Oh, and he's so handsome, too (not that that's important, but it doesn't hurt).
Well, he sings Parsifal in Zurich because the play is only half the size at the MET. My impressions from hearing him at the MET are that the voice is just not big enough to carry in a US house. And he blew the high C all 3 times I heard him as Alfredo at the MET.
That should have been "place" not "play."
I always like a baritonal tenor better than a squealy tenor. (Loved Bergonzi; loathed Corelli.) Jonas looks juicy and I'd love to see him as Don Jose or Don Carlos or Florestan (a thin Florestan! that would be new) or Lionel (based on this clip. Otello a few years down the road -- Cura sounded rather good in the broadcast from Barcelona with the ever-divine Stoyanova.
Heard Pisaroni as Leporello. To swoon. (And Kwiecien was the Don.) But Dennis O'Neill is a fine singer.
So Ach so fromm, bka M'appari, was originally composed to a French text -- as I thought. I also thought Moc Sudbine (which I last saw in Zagreb) was a Slavic opera... wasn't it composed for St. P? Don Carlos is certainly French.
(No one objects to David Daniels' whiskers. True, he's a bit more ... couth ... about them than Kaufmann.) (You'd want to be in a steam room with Gunn and Costello? Ick. That would be ... inactive. Kwiecien and Pisaroni and now you're talking.)
The reason M'appari was originbally in French is that it wasn't written for Martha, it was written for an earlier Flotow opera that was written for Paris, where he had his training. It was interpolated into Martha for a later production. I've never heard it sung in the original French, though. Ain't Wikipedia grand?
I have seen Kaufmann at Covent Garden both in Rondine (with Gheorghiu) and in the televised Carmen - and also went to Zurich to hear him in Don Carlo. He has very good stage presence (and loves himself a lot less than Cura does), a lovely voice, but his Italian is execrable. I am going to see him again in January in Traviata with Netrebko - should be interesting...
Anonymous Hans Lick said...
"I also thought Moc Sudbine (which I last saw in Zagreb) was a Slavic opera... wasn't it composed for St. P? "
It may have been "Moc Sudbine" in Zagreb but in St. Petersburg it was and is "Sila sud'by", though let me assure you when done in 1862 with
Enrico Tamberlick of Rome (Alvaro), Francesco
Graziani (Carlo), Gian-Francesco Angelini (Guardiano), Achille De Bassini ( Melitone) and Ignazio Marini ( the first Oberto and Attila!) as the Alcalde, it was not being given in Russian!
I saw his Alfredo at the Met (opposite Gherghiou's sole Violetta) last season. As someone has mentioned, the role's not really his fach and I don't find his baritonal timbre ideal in the part. However, despite all that, he was an excellent Alfredo and I liked him a great deal. I also liked him on the radio broadcast that I had heard the season prior. He's going to be one of the leading tenors of his generation, no doubt.
Daniel I think you're right not to want to respond to that Sharon Graham. Not really worth it. People like her just feed pathetically on any kind of attention.
Thanks Kashania- of course you are right. Life's too short eh?
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