Kaufmann is going cheap in Australia

Kaufmann is going cheap in Australia

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norman lebrecht

August 13, 2014

The greatest tenor on earth isn’t moving the potatoes off their couches in Melbourne. Tickets are being sold at 60% discount.

Click here.

Perhaps he should have offered duets with Kylie.

JonasKaufmann

Comments

  • GEll says:

    If Kaufmann can’t sell seats then the concert/operatic scene is truly hopeless.

    • sdReader says:

      Have you seen the prices?

      Melbourners are clearly wiser with their purses than fans in Sydney, where a second concert was added.

  • LJ says:

    nuts, you mean I could have flown to melbourne for that concert for cheaper than what I paid for the Sydney A reserve? Oh well, Sunday’s almost sold out concert in sydney was totally worth it. Although odds are OA are going to discount the 2nd sydney concert heavily as well. I saw lots of spare seats when I stupidly bought my 2nd ticket for full price… should have waited…

    oh well… when you’re on the antipodean continent, you go a little “talent” starved in the opera stakes you’re willing to just pay up.

  • Ulex Xane says:

    I saw Jonas Kaufmann perform his concert last night in Melbourne. The orchestra (Orchestra Victoria) was barely adequate, with Kaufmann’s good pal Rieder conducting. And it was almost like an orchestral concert with a few tenor bits thrown in. No end of preludes, overtures, intermezzi, after EVERY aria. Surely Kaufmann doesn’t need a rest after every single aria, and the audience is there for him, not to hear a second-rate orchestra play overtures! The tenor was excellent, as expected, but much of the repertoire did not suit him – no Wagner, unfortunately, just mainly Italian and French lirico-spinto arias in which a lighter and more flexible voice is preferable. His Chenier and Cav & Pag arias were very well sung, however, and those suit him better. He attempted some soft notes, but above the stave sometimes they were a little hollow and strained (he had been indisposed recently and perhaps was not fully recovered). His stage presence is a little awkward, almost nervous, and he doesn’t display a lot of personality. What’s lacking most is a ‘smile’ in the voice, and that indefinable charm and sense of communicative ease. One of the encores was Core n’grato, and for that kind of repertoire he just doesn’t have the caressing way with a phrase or the Italianate brightness that characterised the voices of Gigli, Di Stefano, Poggi, Anselmi et al. He should stop trying to sing everything and focus on what he’s best at; heldentenor and tenore drammatico roles, in my opinion.

    • Nick says:

      “Surely Kaufmann doesn’t need a rest after every single aria . . . ”

      Clearly following in the well-trodden paths of Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras in their solo concerts, only they would have a flute player or soprano instead of just orchestral items in between their contributions!

  • Charles says:

    “… treating us to arias by Verdi, Puccini, Bizet and more.”

    WHO in H’s name is more ?

  • Charles says:

    By the way next January you get V.I.P. treatment for a Dr. Who extravaganza for just $508.73 (VIP Package T Shirt )…

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