Kaufmann’s cancellation: curse or conspiracy?

 music  No Responses »
Jun 032013
 

1957 UK The Curse of Frankenstein 500x382 Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?The Curse of  strikes again?

As already noted in this blog, the recital series at ’s has suffered from a great num­ber of can­cel­la­tions and post­pone­ments dur­ing the last year or so. The latest has been ’s recital on 1 June which, ‘due to a sud­den ill­ness’, has been post­poned until late Octo­ber. As he’s also slated to sing in the 2013–2014 series, this means that in less that six months he’ll be back… or will he?

Curse or con­spir­acy? Accord­ing to Nor­man Lebrecht’s blog Slipped Disc,

Back­stage, they are say­ing he needed more time to pre­pare for Trovatore in Munich.

…or did he? At the end of this month the Ger­man tenor will début as Man­rico at the Bay­erische Staat­soper, but that’s more than three weeks away. Can it really be an explan­a­tion for a one night can­cel­la­tion at the most pres­ti­gi­ous opera houses in the world? Maybe he just has a cold.

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  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Kaufmanns cancellation: curse or conspiracy?

The Times’ rave for Jonas Kaufmann at the Festival Hall

 music  No Responses »
Oct 252011
 

Jonas Kaufmann The Times rave for Jonas Kaufmann at the Festival HallNeil Fisher loved ’s con­cert, and so, it seems, did the rest of the audi­ence. Here’s part of review:

This wasn’t just a con­cert. It was a mani­festo. There is no other tenor today apart from Jonas Kaufmann who could pull off such a diverse pro­gramme of oper­atic arias, from Mas­cagni to Bizet to Wag­ner, and do it with such flair. When the offi­cial pro­gramme fin­ished, with the Grail Nar­ra­tion from Lohen­grin, it was almost as if divine approval had been bestowed not just on Wagner’s mes­si­anic swan knight but on the Ger­man singer too…

…What makes Kaufmann’s Wag­ner spe­cial is that he is able to main­tain the same Itali­anate warmth, a qual­ity that shone through Siegmund’s glor­i­ous hail­ing of the spring, Win­ter­stürme, as well as Lohengrin’s cli­mactic nar­ra­tion.… [con­tinue reading]

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Kaufmann, Netrebko and Schrott at the Royal Albert Hall

 opera  No Responses »
Sep 262011
 

Kaufmann Netrebko Schrott Kaufmann, Netrebko and Schrott at the Royal Albert Hall

Opera sing­ers , Anna Net­rebko and are to per­form together for a spe­cial con­cert per­form­ance at the Royal Albert Hall in June 2012.

The trio (“Opera’s Greatest Stars”) will be accom­pan­ied by the and will sing a selec­tion of arias and music by com­posers includ­ing Puccini, and Mozart.

The con­cert, which will be staged on June 6, 2012 is pro­moted by Ray­mond Gub­bay. He said: “I am delighted to have had the oppor­tun­ity to bring many lead­ing inter­na­tional artists to Brit­ish audi­ences over the years, and none more so than present­ing this unique oppor­tun­ity of see­ing Jonas Kaufmann, Anna Net­rebko and Erwin Schott per­form together for the first time in the UK. These super­lat­ive artists are the lead­ing lights of the inter­na­tional opera world and so I am look­ing for­ward to present­ing this excit­ing con­cert in 2012.”

via The Stage… [con­tinue reading]

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Jonas Kaufmann cancels Japan trip to make time for surgery to remove a node

 opera  No Responses »
Aug 302011
 

Jonas Kaufmann Jonas Kaufmann cancels Japan trip to make time for surgery to remove a nodeDue to has had to can­cel his trip to in Septem­ber. He was sched­uled to sing sev­eral per­form­ances of “Car­men” with the com­pany of the Teatro Comun­ale di Bologna and of “Lohen­grin” in the Bay­erische Staat­soper pro­duc­tion . His last appear­ance before the oper­a­tion will be in Stock­holm on Septem­ber 2 where he is sched­uled to sing in the Jussi Björling gala.

On his Web site Kaufmann explained to his Japan­ese fans that,

 I need to have an oper­a­tion to remove a node in my thoracic area. I do not wish any­one to become alarmed read­ing this, but my phys­i­cians have ordered me to have the sur­gery done as soon as possible.

His recital at The Met on Octo­ber 30 will go ahead as planned.… [con­tinue reading]

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Gramophone Magazine’s Classical Music Awards 2011 – shortlists

 awards, music, opera, recordings  No Responses »
Aug 172011
 

kaufmann verismo arias Gramophone Magazines Classical Music Awards 2011 – shortlists

Gramo­phone’s short­l­ists are out for this year’s awards. No real sur­prises, but then those Gramo­phone people have great taste! Here’s a sample:

Opera:

Die Zauber­flöte - René Jac­obs;  Akademie für Alte Musik

Ermi­one - David Parry; LPO

Verdi’s Otello - Colin Davis; LSO

Solo Vocal:

Richard Rod­ney Ben­nett, Songs before Sleep - Sophie Dane­man; Susan Bickley; Iain Burnside

Brit­ten, Songs & Pro­verbs of Wil­liam Blake - Ger­ald Fin­ley; Julius Drake

Wolf, Itali­en­isches Lieder­buch - Chris­toph Prégardien; Julia Kleiter

Recital:

“Né me refuse pas” French Opera Arias  - Marie-Nicole Lemieux

“Diva, Divo” Vari­ous - Joyce DiDonato

Ver­ismo Arias Vari­ous  - 

DVD Per­form­ance:

Brit­ten, Death in Venice - Teatro /Bruno Bar­to­letti

Mahler Sym­phony No 9 - Lucerne Fest­ival Orchestra/

Verdi, Don Carlo -  House, Cov­ent Garden/ Ant­o­nio Pappano

and the award for which read­ers can cast their vote:

Artist of the Year:

con­duct­ors Andris Nel­sons, and Iván Fischer

con­ductor and viol player Jordi Savall

pian­ists Mit­suko Uchida and Lang Lang

trum­peter Alison Balsom

viol­in­ist Alina Ibragimova

tenor Jonas Kaufmann

and the Ber­lin Phil­har­monic Orches­tra.… [con­tinue reading]

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Opera News honours Kaufmann, Racette, Te Kanawa, Terfel and Muti at its 6th edition of the Opera Awards

 awards, opera  No Responses »
Apr 212011
 

opera awards montage Opera News honours Kaufmann, Racette, Te Kanawa, Terfel and Muti at its 6th edition of the Opera Awards

Broad­way stars Patti LuPone and Bar­bara Cook joined dir­ector and play­wright John Guare on Sunday to present this year’s Opera News Awards.

Five artists were recog­nized for their inter­na­tional musical achieve­ments: Ger­man tenor , Amer­ican sop­rano Patri­cia Racette, New Zea­l­and sop­rano , Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Ter­fel and Italian con­ductor Ric­cardo Muti.

Cop­pola presen­ted the award to Muti who joked, “I look like a rel­at­ive of The Godfather.”

Also attend­ing the awards cere­mony at the Plaza Hotel was a robust-looking Michael Douglas, who fought throat can­cer last year and declared in Janu­ary that he is cancer-free after under­go­ing chemo­ther­apy and radi­ation. Asked what he would say to people who claim to hate opera, the actor and opera fan said, “They never went!” He said he goes reg­u­larly because the staged per­form­ances “are so broad and big — this kind of dra­matic art doesn’t exist anymore.”

The awards were cre­ated in 2005 by Opera News, whose cir­cu­la­tion of more than 100,000 makes it the world’s most pop­u­lar magazine in the field.… [con­tinue reading]

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Jonas Kaufmann and Justin Bieber? Per-lease!

 music  No Responses »
Mar 152011
 

Kaufmann Bieber Jonas Kaufmann and Justin Bieber? Per lease!

If the world of clas­sical music has a , it can only be tenor , who drove the Sunday night crowd in Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall into par­oxysms of fren­zied applause — all before he’d even opened his mouth.

So begins the San Fran­cisco Chron­icle’s review of Kaufmann’s début con­certs in Cali­for­nia. The Los Angeles Times com­men­ted in sim­ilar vein,

The latest swoon-worthy tenor is Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann, who drove the audi­ence nuts Fri­day at his U.S. recital debut sponsored by the Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chand­ler Pavil­ion. Fans deman­ded no fewer than five encores, includ­ing one played by accom­pan­ist Helmut Deutsch from an iPad. O brave new world.

Well, you can’t deny it, he is a good look­ing bloke.… [con­tinue reading]

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