This is FRESH AIR. At 44, the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann may be the most popular tenor of his generation and one of the most versatile. Music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews two of his recordings this year, dedicated to both Verdi and Wagner, celebrating the bicentennials of their birth.
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LLOYD SCHWARTZ, BYLINE: I've never heard Jonas Kaufmann in person, though I've seen him in several leading roles in the Metropolitan Opera's live telecasts. I was especially moved by his Parsifal, the innocent who some five hours later finally achieves spiritual purification. Kaufmann has everything going for him - a ringing tone, striking good looks, and expressive power. I don't really know how big his voice is because I've heard it only through electronic amplification.
But from all other evidence, he's the real thing. This year he devoted two albums to the two major opposing forces of 19th century opera, both born 200 years ago: the earthy, political Verdi steeped in the tradition of Italian opera, whos
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npr music, February 16, 2013
Jonas Kaufmann On Wagner: 'It's Like A Drug Sometimes'
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Jonas Kaufmann On Wagner: 'It's Like A Drug Sometimes'
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
You're listening to WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And it's time now for music.
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LYDEN: This is - we'll say it here, building on considerable evidence - the greatest living Wagnerian tenor alive.
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JONAS KAUFMANN: (Singing in foreign language)
LYDEN: His name is Jonas Kaufmann, and he's currently in New York starring in the Metropolitan Opera's production of "Parsifal." This year is the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth, and Kaufmann is using that occasion to ask listeners who may have turned away from Wagner at some point to give his music another listen. Jonas Kaufmann's new album draws him across the composer's entire career, and it's simply entitled "Wagner."
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Movie Review: Rienzi
"Allmächt'ger Vater, blick herab…." The grave radiance of the hero's prayer from the twenty-seven-year-old Wagner's Rienzi, Last of the Tribuneshas found superstar champions from Lauritz Melchior to Jonas Kaufmann. For listeners who wish to seek no further, two excuses will serve: Wagner disowned the opera, and Hitler adored it. Then again, these might be reasons to take a hard look.
The third of the master's works to be completed, the second to be performed, and the first to survive its premiere, Rienzi mimics the blockbuster style then in vogue in Paris. Cheered to the rafters at its Dresden premiere in 1842, its pageantry, high-flown rhetoric and grand tragic design epitomized a fustian past the later Wagner meant his Artworks of the Future to sweep away. YetRienzi'spopularity endured into the early twentieth century. Its performance history since then has been sporadic but unbroken. A partial roll call, in chronological order, of heldentenors who have passed along the last tribune's torch runs from the now "historic" Max Lorenz, Wolfgang Windgas