Jonas Kaufmann: My marriage
is over
https://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2014/04/jonas-kaufmann-my-marriage-is-over.html
April 9, 2014 by Norman
Lebrecht 10 Comments
There had been rumours around
for a while that all was not well chez Kaufmann. Now he’s confirmed the split
on his site:
Separation
Margarete Joswig and Jonas
Kaufmann would like to communicate hereby that they have separated.
Very sad. Many thought them
the perfect pair.
They have three children.
Sicklist: Jonas Kaufmann has flu
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2014/02/sicklist-jonas-kaufmann-has-flu.html
February 3, 2014 by Norman
Lebrecht
Montreal, Saturday, February 1st, 2014 – The Opéra de Montréal
regrets to announce the cancellation, due to illness, of the concert by Jonas
Kaufmann scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 2, 2014 at 2 pm. The
entire Opéra de Montréal team joins you in wishing him a speedy recovery.
A Word from Jonas Kaufmann
«Dear Friends. It is with
great regret that I am forced to cancel my concert at L’Opéra de Montréal on
February 2. I am in New York
with influenza and a high fever and it is for this reason that I am unable to
perform at this time. I am extremely sad to not be able to appear in this
concert which was planned with such enthusiasm and with such precision and
professionalism thanks to the wonderful artistic team at L’Opera de Montreal.
This concert was to have been one of the highlights of my North American tour.
My management is in contact with the Artistic Director of L’Opéra de Montréal
to find a date in the near future when we can re-schedule the concert. Thank
you for your kind understanding and I hope to see you very soon “onstage” in Montreal. A très bientôt,
with my warmest greetings to you all. Jonas Kaufmann. »
Jonas Kaufmann cancels on
Bryn Terfel
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2014/04/jonas-kaufmann-cancels-on-bryn-terfel.html
April 4, 2014 by Norman
Lebrecht 5 Comments
The least capricious of
tenors has pulled out of a prestige date with Bryn Terfel in front of the
Zurich Opera House on April 26, marking the inauguration of the redesigned
Sechseläutenplatz. Jonas cited ‘personal reasons’ for the cancellation. Go
figure.
Bryn will have to make do
with Julie Fox, Anna Goryachova and Benjamin Bernheim, the Philharmonia Zurich
and conductor Alain Altinoglu.
Jonas Kaufmann: We cancel
less than footballers
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2014/03/jonas-kaufmann-we-cancel-less-than-footballers.html
March 14, 2014 by Norman
Lebrecht
The German tenor has defended
opera singers from charges that they go down too easily.
‘It always puzzles me why a
singer’s decision to cancel due to illness is not respected,’ he tells DPA. ‘If
a footballer tears a muscle, he is not expected to pump himself full of drugs
so that he can hobble around on the field.’
Be first to watch new Jonas
Kaufmann video
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/02/be-first-to-watch-new-jonas-kaufmann-video.html
With Anja Harteros in final
due from Verdi’s Don Carlo.
Kaufmann’s got his gun
http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/12/kaufmanns-got-his-gun.html
Kaufmann’s got his gun
December 20, 2013 by Norman
Lebrecht
Live from Munich on Saturday night: Verdi’s Forza with
hot tenor. Make a date of it.
On Saturday, December 28, the
Bayerische Staatsoper will be presenting the season’s third transmission on
STAATSOPER.TV. This time, Giuseppe Verdi’s La forza del
destino will be streamed live and free from Munich. Martin Kušej’s new production will be
featuring two singers in great demand: Munich
born tenor Jonas Kaufmann will sing Don Alvaro in his role debut. Anja
Harteros, who in 2009 and 2013 opened the Munich Opera Festival alongside Mr.
Kaufmann (Lohengrin and Il trovatore), will sing Donna Leonora (role debut).
The Bayerische Staatsorchester will be led by Maestro Asher Fisch.
The live audiovisual
broadcast will start at 6 p.m. (CET) at www.staatsoper.de/tv. The service is
free of charge to viewers.
Jonas Kaufmann Tenor
Helmut Deutsch Piano
http://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/calendar/details/17446/
“Kaufmann conjures up
miniature works of art – differentiated, thoughtful and highly intelligent,”
reported Kulturradio rbb following Jonas Kaufmann’s first recital at the
invitation of the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation in the main auditorium of
the Philharmonie in February 2012. His programme of songs by Franz Liszt,
Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and Henri Duparc delighted the audience so much
that seven encores were demanded from the tenor. Kaufmann is currently among
the most sought-after opera tenors internationally – the Berliner
Philharmoniker engaged him as Don José for their production of Carmen in 2012 –
yet the art song also has a special significance for him. The genre of song is
– according to the artist – the most sacred art, and at the same time, not the
easiest form of music making. From the beginning of his career, the tenor has
worked with pianist and accompanist Helmut Deutsch. While studying music,
Deutsch was Kaufmann’s teacher, and today the two form a close artistic
partnership. What does the pianist particularly appreciate in his former
student? “In song, he can show subtle shades, but the heroic is not in short
supply either.” In Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, it is not a hero who undertakes
the journey, but a profoundly hurt, introverted man – alone, abandoned, tired
of life. The mood of the cycle is of grief and pain, and for the singer and
pianist, the artistic challenge is to perform all 24 songs with different
variations of these emotions.
Photos,Jonas Kaufmann
https://www.google.hr/search?q=jonas+kaufmann&client=opera&hs=xzv&channel=suggest&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ZIRRU9T4Jcv8ygOax4GwBQ&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=592
Margarete Joswig
https://www.google.hr/search?q=margarete+joswig&client=opera&hs=HnG&channel=suggest&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=UIZRU_yxHon-ygPWgoGYCA&ved=0CCgQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=592
THE DIVINE TRANSFORMATION OF
JONAS KAUFMANN, TENOR OF THE MOMENT
http://www.jkaufmann.info/interview_english/juanAntonio_en.htm
There is no major opera
theater that does not wish to have him among its artists. He signs contracts
for performances and CDs five or more years in advance.
He started with roles for
light-lyric tenor and some Mozart roles, went on with Puccini, Verdi and
Massenet, and it has now become a usual sight to see him in Beethoven and
Wagner roles. Sigmund, Eneas, Othello and Tristan lie around the corner.
Juan Antonio Muñoz H.
From Bayreuth
The Jonas Kaufmann phenomenon
has caused a whirlwind in the operatic world. The 41-year old tenor from Munich has become a star
which no major theater can do without, who is adored by thousands of fans and
has critics at his feet. His is a rare case, for many reasons: possibly his
transformation from light-lyric tenor to dramatic tenor is unique in the
history of opera. No other great tenor since Franco Corelli has had the noble
bearing of Kaufmann. To which we may add rarely seen histrionic gifts and a
profound knowledge of the various styles he performs. He is a family man
(married to the mezzo, Margarete Joswig, with whom he has three children),
practices yoga, is a Protestant Christian and talking to him is just like
talking to an old friend.
His latest great triumphs
started in December 2009, when he opened the season of the Scala of Milan with
a staging of “Carmen” (Bizet) which seemed to focus itself more on the story of
Don José than on that of the gipsy girl. He throws the scene totally out of
balance without even intending to do so, as his performance is always
introverted, more inspired than histrionic. His “Werther” last January in Paris belonged to the
same style. There he delivered a devilish fiato and an obscure material which,
all the same, did not prevent him from transmitting poignant subtleties. His
last act was not only a masterpiece of technical control, but also a display of
emotion which almost causes neurovegetative disorders when describing the state
of a dying man who sings while expiring, with extreme modesty and shyness. A
lesson in moderation which some have compared to that of the legendary Georges
Thill in this role. And in August, he performed “Lohengrin” (Wagner) in
Bayreuth, where his character triumphed over a controversial staging (Hans
Neuenfels filled the stage with human rats), as he bewitched everyone by making
of the hero who invokes silence at once a bittersweet, intense, robust and
delicate potion.
The breadth of the crescendo,
the internal vibration of each uttered word, the multiple pitch, the torrid
sensuousness which becomes lyrical purity, the huge voice range and his
presence on the stage leads everyone to wonder whether there is anything that
Kaufmann is not capable of singing.
An art which is consistent
with that of Fritz Wunderlich (1930-1966), a tenor whom he admires and who died
prematurely three years before Kaufmann was born. There are some who sustain
that he is his reincarnation: Tamino (“The Magic Flute”), “Dichterliebe”
(Schumann) and “Die Schöne Müllerin” (Schubert) are some of his coincidences in
terms of repertoire.
“THE RISK IN SINGING IS VERY
GREAT”
—How did your arrival to
music produce itself? Were you encouraged by your family or did it happen spontaneously?
“Everyone loved classical music and opera at
home, but nobody was a musician. They all played the piano as a hobby, but not
professionally. I always sung at home and also in choirs. I always did that and
I can’t remember not doing it. When I was about 14 or 15 years old, I started
singing short solos; two or three phrases in a cantata or in an oratorio, but I
never thought of it as a profession. It was always a beautiful hobby. When this
started to take another shape, my father used to tell me: ‘You are a family man
and if you want to have a family of your own, you will also need a more
profound work...’ ’’.
—Was he right?
“Yes, indeed. The risk in singing is very
great. I notice it, for instance, in the people who studied with me; only a few
of them are able at least to survive. It is not a life of luxury. There are
many, besides, who after studying singing have had to start all over again to
obtain another profession. It is really risky.”
—Is that why you started
studying Mathematics?
“Yes. My father worked in an insurance company
and he started me off in that direction. But that was not for me, everything
was too theoretical and dry. In mathematics you talk about things but you never
do anything. During the time I studied I never once saw a figure. It was just
theory. I cannot sit still all day, theorizing. While studying Mathematics, I
went on with my singing lessons because I needed them.”
—How do you manage now that
your face is known to everyone, even to people who know nothing about opera?
“It is something special and a bit difficult
because people look at you, make comments and treat you in another way, above all
in places where I have sung a lot, like Zürich’’.
—Do you still live there?
“No, I was there for 7 years and now I have
returned to Bavaria.
From the next season on, I will no longer be doing things in Zürich, a place
which was very important for me as there I was able to test out titles that
have been key titles in my career. It is a small theater where everything works
perfectly. But now my schedule is so full and concentrated in a few places —the
MET, London, the Scala, Paris,
Vienna and
München, essentially— that I decided to reestablish myself back in my
country.’’
“I HAVE NOT MADE THESE
CHILDREN IN ORDER NOT TO BE WITH THEM”
—You were born in München
and, strangely enough, that is where, since a short while ago, you steadfastly
appear.
“It keeps happening in Germany that
first you have to make yourself known outside the country to be summoned by our
major theaters. It is true that during 15 years I did little in München, but
from now on many of my plans have changed. Since 2009 and in the future I will
often sing there. I will make each year a new production and retrieve another
one. Everyone tells me that, from a tax point of view, it is madness to return
to Germany!
But I love my country, its people … in short, I am German. Besides, I have many
things scheduled in Berlin, Bayreuth
and Salzburg…”.
—Are your children always
with you?
“Yes and no. Now they are with me because it
is summer, but when they are at school I cannot take them with me everywhere I
go. They are three, furthermore, and it is not easy. It is also hard to
schedule performances which do not require being away from home a long time.
But I have not made these children in order not to be with them. Family has
always been very important to me and also having an internal stability, a
foundation so as not to become wild with success. It gets harder and harder to
remain oneself, to keep on being the same without changing because something
around one is changing.”
—It is easy to take the other
road …
“Very much so. It is easy, but finally the
problem is, in my opinion, that everything gets spoiled. Because the singing
quality also depends on calmness, deepness and stability, of feeling content
with yourself. Once you get out of yourself to live something else, it is very
hard to get back. You no longer find the way.”
“IT IS DIFFERENT DRIVING A
TOPOLINO THAN A 40-TON TRUCK”
—How does one live through
such a radical change of voice as yours? You started singing some Mozart roles
and others like Flavio (“Norma”) and Cassio (“Othello”), and now we have you
singing “Lohengrin”, “Werther” and we may already think of you as Othello and,
why not, as Tristan.
“It is true. In 1995 I started to change my
technique completely. Until then I had sung as a very light tenor. It wasn’t
even a lyrical tenor, it was really very, very light...
—Luigi Alva...?
“Yes, yes, it was in that direction. And I had
great problems. I started to realize that my voice wasn’t able to stand that
lightness. It was very strange. I had problems and when I spoke with my
colleagues, they told me: ‘You are very young. Don’t stop, keep on singing very
light...’. I completely lost my starting point. Then I found a teacher who set
me on a completely different road. It was very important for me to discover my
real possibilities; he showed me an unknown route. All my colleagues of those
days thought that this would be the end, that my voice had been ruined, that it
was too dark... but I have been able to control that voice, which was at first
very hard to do. I could not take the line, the curves, everything was a bit
calante or very slow. One has to get used to it. It is different driving a
Topolino than a 40-ton truck...’’.
— Did you have to discover
that there was another voice or did your body become aware of it?
“My voice grew and became darker. It was the
voice itself that showed me the way, but it was only when I discovered what to
do with my body that I was able to set free that voice. I did not intend
becoming a tenor with body, a baritone... When I started singing, I was always
in the high notes, the in-between notes did not exist, but, all the same, I had
less than a two octave range … and now I have three!”
—Who was that teacher?
“He is Michael Rhodes, an American baritone
from Brooklyn, who studied with Giuseppe de
Luca, a great Italian baritone from Caruso’s time, who has a splendid
technique. De Luca immigrated to the States during the war and he was the
teacher of my teacher.”
—Have you developed any
method to approach any given character?
“It is always different. There are characters
for which the opera is your only source of information so that you must
concentrate all your attention on the libretto and have to read very well what
is written in it to create a more credible character as regards the emotional
part. There are cases in which there are many sources, as Lohengrin, for
instance, who is in so many legends. One can read a lot and realize that the
different sources point to different things that will enrich the character. But
one also has to be careful about this because you may head in a different
direction from that of the libretto which has to be taken into account. The
story of Lohengrin in the legends is a different story: he marries Elsa and has
children with her before making the famous question. Thank God that Wagner cut
all that... Imagine what that would be like with the whole family and the opera
lasting 10 hours! (Laughs). When you sing ‘Don Carlo’, you must know the real
story and read Schiller’s work where you can appreciate the character much
better. In the case of ‘Carmen’, Merimee’s story is quite different. Carmen is
different, but so is he. Don José is a character who has already gone wrong
once before and not the young, quiet and good man everybody thinks he is. He
wants to be good because this is his second chance, his second life after the
crime he has already committed. He has escaped from the criminal life he led
before by going to the military. This is something which makes much more
credible the change you notice in Bizet. There are many examples like this. It
is easier to discover interesting angles of a character if you know all the
different sources. I like to understand the human being that is in the role.”
—The “Carmen” which opened La
Scala in 2009 seemed to be telling the story of Don José rather than that of
Carmen.
“Yes, and it is the same with Merimée. It is
José who tells all that the night before his execution. He confesses all that
has happened, why it happened and tells Carmen’s story. But it is really about
his life. In Bizet you also notice that the one who really changes is Don José.
It is he who really develops. Carmen is a fixed character.”
LIEDER FOR YOUNG VOICES AND
MINDS
—You have a very wide
repertoire, which goes from Monteverdi to Wagner and Strauss, the Italians, the
French, as also the world of the Lied. It is remarkable that among your first
CDs you have one completely dedicated to Richard Strauss and another one with
Schubert’s “Die Schöne Müllerin” cycle.
“I love the Lied and want to record as much as
I can of it. I liked the idea of starting with the ones I believe need a young
voice, and above all, a young mind. I’m already 41! Both ‘Dichterliebe’
(Schumann) and ‘Die Schöne Müllerin’ (Schubert) have young, inexperienced
‘characters’. It’s the only way in which being in love with a woman to which
you haven’t even spoken to may work. Maybe they haven’t even touched their
hands once but she has already become for him the love of his life. This does
not work if you have already suffered two or three times and understood what
love really means. ‘Winterreise’ (Schubert) is a very different matter, but
here also the character is not an older man. He is a human being who
nonetheless has a life of his own. It is not so much a matter of age but of
suffering.”
—And what happens with these
works in the record market?
“In the case of the Lied we don’t even have to
take into account whether it is better or worse to record more popular things:
the CD market has become a mess. And the Lied does no longer exist at this
point, so it’s the same whether you record a well-known cycle or another that
is not so well-known. What is important here is the artistic point of view.
What I intend doing is to study a program thoroughly, record it and then make
tours during which the record can be sold. I would love to prepare a new
program of Lieder each year, but I’m not always able to do it because I have a
very complicated schedule.”
—You recently sang, under the
conduction of Claudio Abbado, a totally unknown cantata by Brahms, “Rinaldo”.
“The truth is that I myself also did not know
it. Claudio told me about it when we were recording the CD with opera arias. He
wanted at all costs to include an aria of ‘Rinaldo’ in the album, but I told
him that if we opened up this repertoire, we would also have to record, for
instance, something from ‘The Creation’ (Haydn) and things of that kind, so we
only included opera arias in that CD and we decided to do together the whole
cantata in a concert. It is very interesting, with a text by Goethe about the
story of Rinaldo and Armida, but only narrated by Rinaldo’’.
“ONE CANNOT FORESEE THE
FUTURE”
—How do you deal with the
issue of acquiring contracts for the next five years or more?
“It is complicated. One must program a
schedule a long time in advance. At first, this was very difficult for me and
even nowadays it is not an easy matter. One cannot foresee the future. You
can’t know whether your voice will be capable of doing this or the other. You
can’t know whether your voice will cease to develop itself or if it will make
further progress... But that is how the opera business works nowadays.”
—And how do you solve the
dilemma?
“The most important thing is the combination:
what we place immediately before or after a very difficult role, how much time
you will have left between one performance and the next one... Do we place
something that is in the same vein or something lighter to release the voice
and make it more flexible? Only time will tell if I was wrong or not. Up to now
this has worked very well. At the beginning, it was very difficult to convince
the theaters about this. I always try to have a mixed repertoire because,
personally, I don’t like to only dedicate myself to one thing and also because
I believe that it is not good for my voice to sing year-round the same
repertoire. For instance, after ‘Lohengrin’ I perform ‘Carmen’ in München, then
‘Tosca’ in December, ‘Adriana Lecouvreur’ in London,
then ‘Werther” in Vienna...
’’
“It was of great help in “Lohengrin” to have
sung before an Italian repertoire, which has the flexibility, the legato, the
long phrasing. German repertoire is different because it has one consonant
after the other, but one has to know that it is in the vowels that the language
is understood. ‘Lohengrin’ is Wagner’s most Italian opera, he used to say so
himself. Wagner always liked Italian opera and, particularly Italian technique.
In his letters he wrote that he wanted for this character the combination of a beautiful
legato with the phrases in German text. And it works! This is very interesting
for me.”
—Your option is for an open
repertoire. There are other singers who only perform a handful of roles
throughout their lives.
“Five or seven roles throughout your whole
life …! Some have managed it wonderfully well and their voice has been in a
perfect state almost to the end. (Alfredo) Kraus, for instance, had always a
young voice. It is fantastic, but I find it boring to do always the same
things. Not only to sing the same music but also playing the same roles. At the
end, everything stays set, without any evolution. It is true that it is not
always easy to be in new roles, memorizing such a lot of words, but it is what
I prefer. If I make a production and leave it for a year or a year and a half
and then return to it, it is like finding once more a friend that I haven’t
seen for a long time and to whom I have a lot of things to tell. If you see
your friend every day, after a while you no longer have anything left to talk
about, because you have already talked about everything. Instead, in this other
way, there is always something new to discover: look what I found here! This
also happens in music and with the personality of a character.”
PETER GRIMES, HOFFMANN,
OTHELLO AND TRISTAN: DREAMS IN THE HORIZON
—Can the character free
himself from the singer up to the point that one of them goes on a road that
you never even imagined?
“I always try to start from zero and to create
the character each time I appear on stage. It has happened that I have reached
the point when I can make a character act in a very different way from that
which I initially had in mind or which is very different from a first
production. I let myself be led by the emotion and the spontaneity of that
moment, and in this way the musical performance itself also becomes fresh and
credible, which is the most important issue. Thus I discover the joy of singing
on each occasion. It is something which, and forgive me for saying so, I really
do for myself.”
—The control over the voice
does not also end up by controlling the emotions that one wants to convey?
“Once you have attained total control over
your voice, you are free and able to involve yourself emotionally in the
interpretation, really feeling it.”
—Is there a character which
represents a dream for you?
“Yes, I am very interested in this Othello...
Also in Hoffmann and “Peter Grimes”. And Tristan! An impressive character. The
third act is a fantastic psychological study. It is very long... but only the
third act. The first act is nothing. The second act has that extraordinary duet
which may be sung in quite a lyrical way. But then comes the third act... phew....
almost an hour alone!”
—They will surely come …
“One has to wait and see how the voice makes
progress. In 2011 I will be Siegmund in ‘Die Walküre’, which is very demanding
in its low tones; it is a role that is almost for a baritenor. Very interesting
from a theatrical point of view. There is still some time left for Siegfried,
Tristan and Tannhäuser.”
SINGING ABOUT SUFFERING
—Your experience with the
French repertoire has been excellent in roles such as Romeo (Gounod), Don José
(Bizet) and Werther (Massenet). Werther, particularly, is a very complex role,
both as regards the voice and the dramatic part …
“I prepared myself for a long time before
singing it. Generally speaking, French operas allow one to play with emotions
and colors, and the vocal personality is not univocal. In Werther there is a
mixture between the typically French tenor, Mozart’s clear tenor, and
sometimes, the dramatic tenor. It is very demanding because you have to control
both the voice and the emotions.”
—In a certain sense, Werther
requires crying while singing.
“Yes, and crying on stage is one of the most
difficult things to do. It is possible for an actor, but if a singer cries, he
is no longer able to sing. This forces one to look for a color and an emission
for the crying, so that it insinuates itself. Once you have discovered this,
you sing over that color.”
—Always maintaining the
beauty of the singing?
“It does not seem so bad to me to lose for
some moments the beauty of the sound in order to create more credible
emotions.’’
—What happens when a
régisseur asks for things with which you do not agree?
“That happens every day! (Laughs) But,
generally speaking, I know that if I take things in hand, if I prepare things
adequately, I am well underway. If a singer arrives without knowing almost
anything about a character, without any ideas about what to do, a régisseur who
is also incapable of explaining well what he wants to do, starts doing strange
things. But if I am well prepared and say at once what I think and what I
propose, everything changes. One may see afterwards which idea is taken up, but
one is already able to work on a safer foundation. My way of doing things is to
propose something and to show it right away and it works in 90 % of the cases.
There are also more particular productions where the interest does not lie so
much in performing the story but rather in doing something totally different,
and that is really difficult. If I do not agree with it, I try to show my point
of view in a subtle way but I don’t run away and make a scandal. The best thing
to do is to be well prepared to respond.”
—What are for you the
characteristics of an ideal régisseur?
“The ideal régisseur is one who has a clear
idea about a character and the story in which he is inserted. But not a
physical idea. The physical aspects must be created by the performer. This is
the only way in which they are natural and credible. In short, a régisseur who
sees what I propose and responds to it: yes, I like that; I don’t like that
other thing; I want a bit more of this... In short, an arbitrator who observes
and cleans up what we, the singers, are offering him.”
—Is silence, internally
speaking, important for you?
“Yes, on some occasions. I seek to find that
inner calm. It is not a total silence, however. When I study, when I have to
memorize things, if I do it in total silence, I forget it almost at once. I
have so many things to think about at that moment that total vacuum is not good
for me. Instead, if the children are near, if the TV is on, it works at once.
It goes straight to my memory. My wife tells me: “Turn off the radio. Do the
children bother you...?’ No, no, why should they bother me? I do it this way.
That is how music and words start working inside me. I start talking internally
and discovering things amid all the noise. My mind starts working better,
memorizing. When I sing something for which I do not always have to be on
stage, I go to the dressing room to study another role. When I sang
‘Fierabras’, by Schubert, where I only sing in the first and third act, I spent
the whole second act preparing ‘Parsifal’. People asked me: ‘What are you
doing? Why are you not preparing yourself for the next act? Are you out of your
mind?’ But I had already prepared myself! In this way, I make the most of my
time. Of course, it all depends. Sometimes it is very difficult! As in ‘Lohengrin’,
for instance: although the second act is almost totally free for me, I am not
able to study anything else because you need total concentration in the third
act. It is long and the phrases are also complex so that one easily loses
oneself. When I sing ‘Tosca’ instead, I sing a lot but when I am not on stage,
I can memorize a Lied or anything else.”
“I CAN PERFECTLY SURVIVE
WITHOUT APPLAUSES”
—Is there any character which
you feel closer to your heart?
“It’s hard to say. I always love the character
I am performing at the time; I fall in love with it....! I think that it is a
beautiful thing that something like that happens: all my energy, happiness and
desires are dedicated to what I am doing that day. It is true that there are
characters that are out of this world, like Werther, which I sang for the first
time in January of this year. He is a being that is outside life itself. And
what about Don Carlo… it is beautiful both as singing and as a character.
Cavaradossi (“Tosca’’) as a character is not so interesting … But the music is
a marvel!”.
—You have highlighted in your
performances the vulnerability of male characters such as Lohengrin,
Cavaradossi, Don José. Is it an option of yours which also proceeds from the
music itself?
“The composer writes phrases where it is
understood that the character is a human being with doubts and weaknesses. I
love to discover things like that because it provides a much more interesting
character. It is common in Lohengrin to find very heroic interpretations: I say
this and you do it and don`t make any questions; I love you and that’s it...
I’m not interested in that sort of thing and neither is the audience. A
character like that is not only unpleasant, but is also boring and has little
credibility. What moves me is the human being within that character. And it can
be found because there are doubts in Lohengrin. The same thing happens with
Cavaradossi: he thinks that he has everything in his hands but in the third
act, he realizes that everything is going wrong; there is suffering to be shown
in that, a loss to be made. In Lohengrin everything is in A major, the clearest
of tones, the most heroic one, but when he appears on stage, he does not do it
like a hero, saying: ‘Look, here I am’… On the contrary, he is moved himself by
what is going on. It is a miracle for him, too, and in the first place, he
thanks the swan who has brought him there … ‘Thanks, my dear swan, for having
brought me here ….’ He is, therefore, not a common hero. He is finally sad,
depressed, and does not know what to do. He knows that everything will be lost.
Furthermore, he has fallen in love with a woman. In this production we have
tried to show that he doesn’t know what to do with this woman. He is a man who
is able to commit mistakes and to feel.”
—At the end of a performance,
is it difficult for you to return to your own self or do you go back home as if
nothing had happened?
“I quickly get inside the skin of a character
and step outside it also easily. It is very helpful in this matter knowing that
there is something outside that is waiting for me. If all my life were just
opera and being on stage, it would be very difficult. Success or failure also
changes with this in mind. If the performance has not been a success, maybe
through no fault of my own, I go home to my real life and don’t think about
other things. I can perfectly survive without applauses. However, the
adrenaline sometimes keeps me two or three hours awake after a performance. I
cannot fall asleep at once because I am wound up.”
—You have also sung
oratorios. Can one sing Bach keeping a distance from affections?
“With the Evangelist of Bach Passions, I do
not think that one has to take a distance to sing a phrase as long and painful
as: ‘and wept bitterly’. I don’t think Bach wrote it without feeling emotions.
On the contrary. If we speak about his orchestral music or a work such as ‘The
Well-Tempered Clavier’ and also his motets, his cantatas, his Passions…
Everything is written with emotion. They are, naturally, delicate emotions. The
same happens with Monteverdi. At first, the great orchestral apparatus seems to
be missing but each fragment is more intense than the other one. Each piece is
made with a fantastic simplicity and minimalism. I have performed ‘Il Ritorno
di Ulisse in Patria’ and Nero from ‘The coronation of Poppea’. I like
Monteverdi a lot. For me, he is almost the best there is.”
—You and your wife (mezzo
Margarete Joswig) are both singers. What do your children say about these
parents who make music all day long?
“It may be boring that we sing too much … For
them, music may be an enemy because making music means that their parents are
not at home. But they love and feel music and love going with us to the
concerts. The youngest one is full of energy and cannot sit still... The oldest
one does not feel much respect towards music... And the middle one is always
moved by it, he looks at the orchestra, observes and listens to everything.
They all play instruments and sing; the oldest one even sings very well... She
has some high notes...”.
—The new Callas?
“I hope not...’’.
—The family issue is worse
for women.
“Yes, because there is always this decision to
be made between family and career. The combination with the family is very
hard. Then one thing and another. The hormonal changes causing problems to the
voice and having to try a new technique, a new way in which to use the voice.
It is really not easy for women. But we need them! We cannot sing ‘Billy Budd’
(Britten) every night” (laughs).
BOX:
Recommendations to listen and
watch
Youtube.com allows you to see Jonas Kaufmann
in "La Traviata", almost dying together with Violetta (Christine
Schäfer); rendering inevitable the murder of Carmen performed by Anna Caterina
Antonacci (London),
and interpreting “Cantique de Nöel”, by Adam, in the Dresden Frauenkirche.
Those who have the "Bel sogno" CD, performed by Cristina
Gallardo-Domâs, may listen to Kaufmann as Alfredo. Apart from his
"Romantic arias" (Decca, 2008), which include “Pourquoi me réveiller”
from “Werther” (Massenet), one has to listen to his singing of Mozart,
Schubert, Beethoven and Wagner, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the
conduction of Claudio Abbado (Decca, 2009). He is not to be missed in "In
fernem Land" and "Mein lieber Schwann", from
"Lohengrin" (Wagner). And he is also unforgettable in the CD for
which he obtained the Gramophon Award: Lieder by Richard Strauss (Harmonia
Mundi, 2006), where he shows spirit and refinement in "Morgen",
"Die Nacht" and "Sehnsucht". In 2009, EMI launched “Madama
Butterfly” (Puccini), with Kaufmann as Pinkerton and Angela Gheorghiu as Cio
Cio San. This year Decca presented his youthful and intimate vision of the
cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” (Schubert) and the DVD of his first “Lohengrin” in
München. The launching of “Vicino a te”, an album dedicated to “verismo”
pieces, including arias from “I Pagliacci” (Leoncavallo) and “Cavalleria
Rusticana” (Mascagni) and the fragment which is one of Kaufmann’s favorites:
“Giulietta! Son io!”, from “Giulietta e Romeo”, by Zandonai, is expected at the
end of September.
At the start of the 2010 Bayreuth Festival,
Kaufmann presented a book about his life: “Meinen die wirklich mich?”, written by the
editor in chief of “Opernwelt”, Thomas Voigt.
During the next few months he will be adding
to his repertoire “Adriana Lecouvreur” (in Berlin
and London) and perform once more “Werther” (Vienna, in January). The New York MET is expecting him in April and May for his
first Siegmund in “Die Walküre” (Wagner), and from 2011-2012 onwards, he will
become Bacchus (“Ariadne auf Naxos”, by
Strauss) and Eneas (“The Trojans”, by Berlioz). During the following seasons he
will be seen as the lead character in operas such as “Andrea Chénier”
(Giordano), “Il Trovatore” (Verdi), “I Pagliacci” (Leoncavallo), “Cavalleria
Rusticana” (Mascagni) and “Manon Lescaut” (Puccini).
Official website: http://www.jonaskaufmann.com
Unofficial website (with more
and better information): http://www.jkaufmann.info