Doesn’t get much better than this: The Times reviews a single note sung by Jonas Kaufmann

Jonas Kaufmann’s first note alone is a good reason to buy this new recording of Beethoven’s stirring opera. The note arrives early in Act II, when the hero Florestan, a political prisoner, is introduced chained in his underground dungeon. “Gott!” the wonder German tenor sings, unaccompanied, in a remarkably piercing and forceful crescendo, the musical equivalent of a widening chink of light suddenly thrown into the prisoner’s dank gloom. The effect makes your jaw drop, your pulse pause, your hairs stand on end. – Geoff Brown of The Times reviewing the new Fidelio recording with Kaufmann and Nina Stemme.

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano’) about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman’s Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia’ column for Dancing Times magazine.