Romantic Arias @ richardeward.com

Romantic Arias
by Jonas Kaufmann
from Decca

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• Interesting
  I've just received this highly vaulted recital album, which is more-or-less my introduction to Kaufmann and his voice. My first thought was that the voice is as baritonal as they say -- like listening to Robert Merrill try tenor roles, though Kaufmann is fully comfortable in the range. I found this particularly distracting in the Traviata excerpt, when I couldn't stop wondering why Germont is singing his son's lines. Some tenors (Del Monoco?) do also come to mind, but rarely his (and my) idol Fritz... more info

• Tenor Arias for Mediocre Baritone
  Some very distinguished tenors started out as baritones. Such was the case with the great Carlo Bergonzi who retained a warm Caruso like baritonal timbre in his voice while still hitting ringing, spinto high B-flats and singing in sweet head voice and mezza voce. Ramón Vinay also began his career as a baritone, becoming a gifted heroic tenor before returning to the baritone repetoire as his voice darkened with age.
  Unfortunately, Kaufmann is not cut from the same cloth. With some effort, he... more info

• A fine large-voiced tenor at work
  Jonas Kaufmann is what I would call a big voiced tenor--along the lines of Franco Corelli or Richard Tucker (I'm not saying he's that good yet--but his voice is powerful!). The liner notes begin by noting that many of us want to compartmentalize tenors--"He's a Puccini tenor," He's a Mozart tenor," "He's a Wagnerian tenor." The notes then say that ". . .Jonas Kaufmann resists [this tendency], uncompromisingly maintaining his remarkable versatility." Versatile indeed! This CD ranges from Puccini to Wagner,... more info

• A Promising, Committed Artist with a wonderful Voice
  Large-voiced tenors are in short supply today, a phenomenon that most likely traces its origin to the vocal education system that stresses importance on the purity of tone so favored in Mozart and Handel's operas that are in such a vogue in today's classical music scene. However beautiful and well-controlled many of today's tenor voices are, this does not produce the thrilling electricity that you can get from voices that once rang full and true in a manner similar to that of the singers from an earlier... more info

Tracks:

1. Puccini "Che gelida manina" from La Bohème
2. Bizet "La fleur que tu m'avais jetée" from Carmen
3. Flotow "Martha: Ach, so fromm" from Martha
4. Puccini "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca
5. Verdi "Lo l'ho perduta... Io la vidi, e il suo sorriso" from Don Carlos (Aria from Italian four act version)
6. Weber "Nein! Länger trag' ich nicht... Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen" from Der Freischütz
7. Verdi "Lunge da lei... De miei bollenti spiriti ...O mio rimorso" from La Traviata (with Jana Sibera - soprano)
8. Massenet "Je suis seul... Ah! Fuyez, douce image" from Manon
9. Verdi "Ella mi fu rapita...Parmi veder le lagrime" from Rigoletto
10. Gounod "Quel trouble inconnu me pénètre?...Salut! Demeure chaste et pure" from Faust
11. Wagner "Morgendlich leuchtend im rosigen Schein" from Die Meistersinger
12. Berlioz "Invocation à la nature" from Damnation of Faust
13. Massenet "Pourquoi me réveiller" from Werther

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