The Times’ rave for Jonas Kaufmann at the Festival Hall

Neil Fisher loved Jonas Kaufmann's London 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. Four generous encores then swivelled beguilingly between more verismo and Richard Tauber's unashamedly schmaltzy Du bist die Welt für mich (You Are the World for Me), which many in the audience took as a direct message.

via The Times

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.