First interview with Jonas Kaufmann’s director
mainRupett Chistiansen in the Telegraph has scored the first interview with Christiane Lutz, wife of the international tenor, who is making her UK debut directing Rigoletto for the Glyndebourne Tour.
The intervew is behind a paywall, otherwise we might tell you more about the baby.
Jonas is elsewhere this week, doing promos for Sony.
Article can be read by short free registration……
Hello Waltraud, (nice name!)
Why suffering on stage as a domestic killer as Otello when you can “enjoy life” with a happy happy beautyful wife and a nice little happy happy baby at home?
It is human to prefere happiness but not very artistic, an artist longing to communicate with the public , actually to suffer and rejoy with the public, beeing together, not waiting for the final just to go home “enjoying life”,
The public is not there anymore,
Sorry
Angela
He sang 3 incredibly great performances Otello, has a few free (working in the background) days and spends them with his wife and little child. What else should he do; visitig You at home or what….?
Why are you so angry Waltraud?
She appreciates him as a father: ”He is a wonderful father.” I think that even J.Kaufmann is presenting himself primarily as a wonderful father now in the media and only secondly as a tenor. Singing is a hobby he is practicing now and then, but babysitting is his full time job.Well, bravo, but I terribly miss the wonderful tenor Kaufmann.
Was he ever truly wonderful? I cannot call wonderful a singer whom I can hear well only when I am sitting near a stage and Petrenko is conducting (or a few other conductors who take good care not to cover the singers). In other cases Kaufmann is sometimes audible, but often not, despite I do not have hearing problems. And I doubt that all booing audience members in Hamburg had hearing problems.
His vocal problems have worsened in the last years , something he and his groupies have rarely admitted. If ever. Very few professional critics dare to do it because he is still a huge name in the business and they all are interested in selling or buying various stuff, in signing contracts, getting publicity etc. (Yes, he was wonderful in his Zurich years and at the beginning of the Munich period. At the Roh in 2006-2010.Never a “big” ,perfect voice, but still very expressive and poetic.)
His fans claim to like his constricted, throaty overintellectualized whispering, when that is they can actually hear him.
I have heard him at the Met in Fanciulla, ROH in Otello & Forza, BSO in Tosca, Otello, Chenier and in concerts. Only twice have I heard him so covered by the orchestra that even his pianissimi were inaudible. His problems in Hamburg plagued other singers as well. When Gergiev did Das Lied shortly thereafter, he placed soloists in mid-stage and they were miced.
The 20th Century just called…. It wants you back ! Staying at home and looking after one’s own children is not called “babysitting”, it’s called parenting!
Right on . . .and parental love is deep and universal. And it is often pivotal in opera.
I admit that “parenting” is a better marketed term. It s for people who cannot just “sit” with their kids without anxiously consulting a parenting “specialist”(these crooks make a fortune out of it.).
Too bad he didn’t do that with his first family.
Isn’t he entitled to a private life we don’t own him, we that love his performances and i am just glad he is happy with a new wife ( sad about the first ) and baby .What is it you want a private performance ,Jonas to be on tap every week .No he needs rest, love and good food ,most of all he needs to be happy .So I say to you in finishing let him be ,enjoy when you see him and be kind.I’m sat watching Carmen right now .
Jonas is with her and the baby, as she told yesterday……
Yes, he comes to Glyndborne “when he can” between rehearsals for Die Todte Staat and Wien debut. Not relying on him for major babysitting, her mother is in UK and we all know Grandma is the best babysitter.
The international tenor has been singing worse since they got together. The lady director s skills might have improved since then nevertheless. ( Even if the idea that Rigoletto s “problems” could be solved with family therapy sounds rather vulgar. J.Kaufmann used to tell the same stupidity about Werther in 2014. Perhaps Mrs.Lutz was already counselling him in that direction.)
When do You thing did they come together? What a stupid idea……… He sings better then ever, but a repertory, fitting to hos mature voice.
Whatever ”therapy” she might have put him through, it was not good for his voice and for his art. He is a shadow of what he used to be before 2014. That s a very sad fact. Otherwise she may get successful as a director now when she enjoys much more media exposure , connections, promotion. And perhaps she is talented . Looking forward to watching one of her stagings.
”Therapy”. Mrs.Lutz tried to ”cure” him of the operatic madness innate in him. That is why he sounds so empty . She has ruined his artistic soul. She castrated him of his artistic passion and turned him into a ”wonderful father&husband” . The male version of housewife.Well, congratulations.
Dear Mister,
Mrs Lutz is not Lady Mac Beth, she is a young women with a very big confidence in her self , she is a little immature and she is regarding her husband as a trophy. With love I suppose!
BUT her husband chose to be that, he is 50 years , he is NOT a baby and he is NOT an innocent victim.
Good Night
I don t know Mrs.Lutz AT ALL, but I think that J.Kaufmann’s recent performances , no matter the particular stage concept implied, may reflect pretty well her restrictive influence on him. For instance, the annoying lack of chemistry with his stage partners , especially female partners . ( Also male partners in the ROH Forza.) Kaufmann s interpretations used to be very erotic, full of warmth, empathic, now the eroticism is below zero. No eroticism, no life. The realm of death and princess.
In the middle of the recent news in the international opera world the “below zero eroticism” might just be the safest option.
Dear Mister,
You express it very well. I have no personal knowledge either, but listening to opera I want to be moved not impressed. There is some sort of censorship over JK:s stageperformance. Why, I do not know, maybe it is the fame, maybe his wife, maybe his personality, dipping down in hard feelings make life not happy but more interesting, of course we all wish the couple all the happiness but we all know that life and parenthood is more complicated than that. It does simply not feel genuine , it is more of an instagramperformance, but we are all different, luckely!
We discuss two things ,private life and artistry but it is different to separate , when you are public and an artist it goes into each other.
Thank you.
This “happpppiness” /”enjoy life” rhetoric , very well marketed by Sony and quite popular among his , many of them, let s face it, very gullible, fans, became an essential part of Kaufmann’s public image 5 years ago or something like that (Mrs.Lutz was a fresh appearance by his side at that time and was starting her mediatic “career” as the international tenor s girlfriend/lifepartner/wife) . The phenomenon annoyed me then, it is annoying me now because it is usually associated with shameless advertising and with savage, brainwashed consumerism. And also, the “happier” he presented /is presenting himself in the media, the worse he sang/is singing. The emptier/more mannered he sounded/sounds. The lies about his singing go usually hand in hand with the advertising of this so called happiness. In the interval 2006-2013, I don’t know exactly how “happy” he was in his “private” life or how much he “enjoyed” life, but he sang wonderfully. That was all that mattered.
One, probably, should consider the bigger picture and avoid focusing on persons. And one should also accommodate oneself to the fact that artists are human and people change, consequently artists change, and some godly truth and beauty they once revealed through their art may suddenly hide from them , let them down or simply vanish from the world. I personally find that acceptance difficult to reach. It s been for me a constant source of stress and of uneaseful problematization( in opposition with the
mindless “happpinesss” promoted by Kaufmann s PR crew lately). Bye!
Bloom, are u kidding? His Don Jose at Orange was a very accurate portrayal of male sexual arousal/seduction. IOW: HOT. Partnerships with Opolais & Westerbroek have steamy moments.
His Tosca with Serafin (not Georghiu) is full of “enthusiastic affection”.
And he and Tezier in Forza (ROH) were electric in their rivalry.
His ”Tosca”with Serafin is pure plastic. I couldn t see that electricity in the ROH Forza, if you could, congratulations ( I could see it in BSO Forzas, whatsoever). The partnership with Opolais was not erotic, was rather pornographic, let us forget about it -we are talking about artistic eroticism here. And that Orange Don Jose s principal source of arousal is himself. There is no artistic eroticism without a empathic connection with the other -the female stage partner.
Every singer’s abilities lessen with age. Nothing gold can stay. But he has a second act and he’s clearly very hsppy. How wonderful, I say.
Here here Stacey ,I think he is magnificent and gorgeous to boot .
*emptiness Sorry.
After bad years he now is one of the happiest people on earth. He deserves it. He is still one of the most interesting singers, an artiste wirh intelligence and brain, with passion and deep expression. Those, who want the boy Jonas back are stupid. A 50 years ols matured man soud different to a 35 years young developing youngster.
He may be. In real life. But his singing suggests the opposite. Either he is losing interest in art or his art , the way he sings, betrays the falseness of this real life happiness.
And Sony and fans are infantilizing him much more now than in his youth. Some fans call him ” our golden boy” and Sony , one year ago, in a Dolce Vita promo, invited his fans to “warm a little bit with the young Jonas” . My goodness! Also the intense consumerism his public image is based upon infantilizes him.
I totally agree he is more rounded I feel mature yet still if not more gorgeous to the eye .I know we are focusing on the voice but he is the full package .
I have never read such a spurious and Vicious list of comments. So easy to criticise but who among us has the skills of this artist?