It is to be expected that Jonas Kaufmann, currently the ‘best-known’
tenor from Germany, would honour the Wagner anniversary year
with a recital CD of further excerpts from his operas. Though
not presented chronologically this current choice seems to be
attempting to illustrate how his compositional style developed
from the earlier ‘numbers’ operas to the later ones that meld
words and music in a way only Wagner can. Parsifal
is missing though has been included on a previous CD. Tristan
is only obliquely referred to in the unique – for a tenor -
rendition of the Wesendonck-Lieder that contains some
of the composer’s preliminary ideas for that opera.
Dass der mein Vater nicht ist from Siegfried
and Am stillen Herd from Die Meistersinger von
Nürnberg are not even ‘bleeding chunks’ in the common usage
but simply wrenched out of the complete works to give Kaufmann
something different to sing. It reminds me of the Reginald Goodall
Memorial Concert in 1991 when Britain’s last great heroic tenor,
Alberto Remedios, was initially asked to sing just the last
death throes of Siegfried’s Narration. Naturally, he considered
this ‘not on’ and by singing the whole thing left the audience
in the Royal Festival Hall with a reminder of how wonderful
he had been in that role. I mention this because Kaufmann’s
Siegmund and Lohengrin are relatively known quantities. Walther
from Die Meistersinger he has sung live once in Edinburgh
in 2006 (review),
but he has yet to sing Rienzi, Tannhäuser and Siegfried in the
complete operas … and possibly never will. Regarding Edinburgh,
I mentioned a lack of vocal weight and the use of a ‘crooning
falsetto’. I will come back to this later.
Mention of Remedios, the most Italianiate of recent Wagnerian
tenors, and of my obvious admiration for him, reminds me of
other types of Wagner heldentenors I have most admired over
the past decades from Jess Thomas, Peter Hoffmann, and Siegfried
Jerusalem to Robert Dean Smith and Klaus Florian Vogt. All these
singers have a brightness of sound that Kaufmann audibly resists.
It is as though he wants to present himself as the antithesis
of his compatriot, Vogt, who is little known outside Germany.
That singer’s luminous clarity of tone is at odds with Kaufmann’s
occasional darkly baritonal timbre that seems to be his impression
of what a Wagner tenor should sound like. This is never more
noticeable than in Siegmund’s Ein Schwert verhiess mir der
Vater that for me is so dark that I find it uneasy to listen
to. His cries of Wälse! Wälse! are not nearly as thrilling
as Robert Dean Smith’s should be on a forthcoming live Pentatone
recording from Berlin.
When Siegfried is reflecting under the linden tree about how
he longs to know what his mother was like, Kaufmann’s beautiful
brighter sound hints at what his true voice actually is and
heads upwards towards that ‘crooning falsetto’. His musical
intelligence and superb technique is not in question but I doubt
he would have the stamina for either of the Siegfrieds or the
relentlessly high Tannhäuser. Here with the Rome Narration Inbrunst
in Herzen, despite being well sung, it does not truly embody
the edge-of-insanity and full-on bitterness his character experiences
at this point in the opera. Some might suggest he lightens his
voice for Lohengrin’s In fernem Land which is here
given in the original version with the second verse that Wagner
cut before the première and is only rarely performed. I would
propound that this is his more natural sound. Even so, he never
approaches the vocal ease and exaltation Vogt achieves in what
is his Wagner rival’s signature role.
This CD is great for those more familiar with recorded Wagner
rather than as it is performed in the opera house. Perhaps the
best case to be made for this new release is the wonderful support
Kaufmann gets from Donald Runnicles and the Orchester der Deutschen
Oper Berlin. The orchestral playing has a compulsive spontaneity
that suggests there were not that many ‘takes’ to from which
to choose.
Another good reason to give this new Wagner selection a listen
is Kaufmann’s interpretation of the Wesendonck-Lieder
that strongly challenges the best female singers for exceptional
legato and beauty of tone.
As reported in the booklet accompanying the CD, when Kaufmann
was asked about singing these songs he quoted the following
lines from Im Treibhaus that in translation are:-
Well I know, poor plant,
we share the same fate:
though bathed in light and splendour,
our home is not here!
He suggests: ‘That is precisely Wagner’s situation in his Swiss
exile. Objectively things were going well for him, yet he didn’t
feel at home. Doesn’t that lend itself to being sung by a man?’
Admittedly it took repeated listenings before I was totally
won over by an interpretation that lacks the eroticism with
which a soprano or mezzo can imbue these songs. Kaufmann is
clearly a Lieder singer of great emotional range and vocal subtlety.
Unfortunately the world demands of him that he be the future
of Wagner singing and the Walther, Tristan and Parsifal of some
opera management’s dreams. It is to be hoped that Jonas Kaufmann
is intelligent enough to know his own limitations and leave
these and other intense, stamina-sapping and vocally demanding
roles to those born to sing them. Those singers are out there
somewhere - I am sure they are. People just need to look hard
enough.
Jim Pritchard
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Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)