Superstar tenor Jonas Kaufmann is riding the crest of a wave
at the moment. Tickets to see him on stage change hands for
a premium and his previous
recital discs, together with his DVDs of Carmen
and Lohengrin,
have won critical accolades from every corner. This latest album
of Verismo Arias showcasing all that he is good at will prove
every bit as popular.
The ace up Kaufmann’s sleeve is his utterly distinctive tenor
voice: dark and smoky so as to be almost baritonal, it seems
tailor-made to express uncontrollable passion. It is perfect
for an album of verismo material. Famously full-blooded and
reckless, the Italian verismo genre is full of heroes who stare
into the abyss and this Kaufmann does most convincingly. The
first track on the disc, Romeo finding Juliet’s body in Zandonai’s
opera, is his own desert-island track. He brilliantly taps into
the level of scarcely contained sorrow in the music. Throughout
Kaufmann conveys suffering through his inflection of each phrase
as well as through the musicality of his voice: Andrea Chenier
awaiting execution, for example, sings with extraordinary beauty,
but the portrayal gains its power from the sense of regret for
the good times lost. Likewise, Federico’s lament from L’Arlesiana
is powerful and controlled but it gains its power from the wistful
feeling of loss that comes through the pastoral simplicity of
the music.
Kaufmann is not above hell-for-leather passion, however: Canio’s
suffering feels titanic in Vesti la Giubba and we are
in no doubt that, in the final scene of Cavalleria Rusticana,
Turridu has never been more in love with the life he knows he
is about to lose. Likewise, Marcello’s aria from Leoncavallo’s
Bohème explodes off the page, throbbing with passion.
In an interpretation like this it would give anything by Puccini
a run for its money.
Happily, though, the more positive side of life is represented
here too, most successfully in the numbers from Boito’s Mefistofele
as Faust’s lovely reflections on life and nature bring out the
most tender aspects of Kaufmann’s voice. Amor ti vieta
burns with Italianate passion and Turridu’s drinking song crackles
with cheeky joie de vivre. Enzo’s Cielo e Mar
is also very beautiful, dark and searching where others find
only the lover’s passion.
There are rarities here too, most especially Corrado’s farewell
from Ponchielli’s Lituani and a song from Licinio Refice
which is wonderfully slushy and provides three minutes to wallow
in. It was also a lovely indulgence to finish with the great
Liebestod that ends Andrea Chenier. For this Kaufmann
is joined by Eva Maria Westbroek who takes a little longer to
find form than he does. The soaring climaxes are wonderfully
uplifting and make an exhilarating end to the disc.
Pappano and his orchestra make excellent collaborators, most
notably in the Mascagni numbers, enhancing their claim to be
the finest Italian orchestra playing at the moment. If I am
slightly less enthusiastic about this disc than Kaufmann’s previous
recitals then it’s only because the music represented here isn’t
on the same sustained level of greatness as, say, the German
music on his Sehnsucht
album and, for me, more than an hour of full-face verismo
is rather a lot to take at one sitting. That’s a personal preference
which not everyone will share and you have to take your hat
off to the tenor for pushing himself beyond his traditional
comfort zone. Kaufmann’s many fans need not hesitate, he is
on excellent form throughout.
Simon Thompson
See also review
by Ralph Moore
Riccardo ZANDONAI (1883-1944)
Giulietta e Romeo
1. Giulietta, son io
Umberto GIORDANO (1867-1948)
Andrea Chénier
2. Colpito qui m’avete…Un dì all’azzurro spazio (Improvviso)
3. Come un bel dì di maggio
Francesco CILEA (1866-1950)
L’Arlesiana
4. È la solita storia del pastore (Lamento di Federico)
Ruggero LEONCAVALLO (1857-1919)
La Bohème
5. Musette...Testa adorata
Pagliacci
6. Recitar...Vesti la giubba
Pietro MASCAGNI (1863-1945)
Cavalleria rusticana
7. Intanto, amici…Viva il vino spumeggiante (Brindisi)
8. Mamma! Mamma, quel vino è generoso
Arrigo BOITO (1842-1918)
Mefistofele
9. Dai campi, dai prati
10. Giunto sul passo estremo
Umberto GIORDANO
Fedora
11. Amor ti vieta
Francesco CILEA
Adriana Lecouvreur
12. L’anima ho stanca
13. La dolcissima effigie
Amilcare PONCHIELLI (1834-1886)
I Lituani
14. Sì, questa estrema grazia
La Gioconda
15. Cielo e mar!
Licinio REFICE (1883-1954)
16. Ombra di nube
Umberto GIORDANO
Andrea Chénier
17. Vicino a te
Jonas Kaufmann (tenor) 
