Breaking: Jonas Kaufmann tries another label
UncategorizedThe tenor has just messaged:
I have some exciting news to share: Warner Classics & Erato will be releasing a recording of “Turandot”! These past few weeks, Sondra Radvanovsky, Ermonela Jaho, Antonio Pappano and I have been hard at work as we recorded the entire opera. We look forward to sharing it with you soon!
Kaufmann is an exclusive Sony artist. There is no suggestion he is leaving Sony, but Pappano is tied to Warner and this may be an old-fashioned artist swap deal.
The Nilsson/Corelli recording is still available, yes? Then what is the point of this?
Totally in agreement. WHY?? The NILSSON/CORELLI can never ever be equalled! Not even close!
There are 11 Nilsson recordings of Turandot. (Want a list?) And 3 with Corelli.
The Nilsson/di Stefano live recording from Vienna 1961 is not too shabby.
Anything on your list would be far superior to what Kaufmann is peddling.
Music is a living art renewed by the contributions of living people.
Believe it or not: the Nilsson/Corelli set was deleted two years ago. The Sutherland/Pavarotti set too.
THIS is 2022, that’s why. Nilsson & Corelli are no longer accepting engagements.
Radvanovsky and Kaufmann aren’t accepting any Turandot _live engagements_ . This is a _studio_ recording. Studio = A dozen sound engineers only too willing to splice, amplify the sound, etc. In short, manipulate the multiple takes as much as the modern technique allows. Singing live, now this is something else. Live you are not allowed to correct any mistakes.
Tomorrow (March 12) they sing Turandot live. Get your facts straight, “guest”!
Honestly, you know not of what you speak. They are singing it live in Rome tomorrow evening at a concert performance.
@Giacomo & @Player
Tomorrow is the recording advertised in this post, to be released under the Warner label. Next time you check on operabase, pay attention to the venue. Accademia di Santa Cecilia, hint. Don’t harbor any illusions the recording won’t be “fixed” in studio afterward, they just want to kill two birds with one stone, have a studio recording to sell, and an “alibi” performance in order to be able to say “we have the roles in repertoire”, like Pavarotti did with Otello. Big P however did sing more than one concert performance.
Neither Radvanovsky nor Kaufmann have ever sung Turandot.
Oh dear me… they have ALREADY recorded it, in a STUDIO. Tonight they are singing it in a concert performance at the Parco della Musica:
https://concertisticlassica.com/en/roma-a-santa-cecilia-antonio-pappano-dirige-turandot-con-kaufmann-e-radvanovsky/
“[With] The label Warner Classics he will make a CD, recorded in the weeks preceding the concert, which will bring forward [precede] the centenary of Puccini’s death in 2024 by one year.”
They are singing it live tomorrow. Rome. So there!
But this is not about engagements. It’s about recordings.
Radvanovsky and Kaufmann have made a recording, which can’t possibly be anywhere near as good as the Nilsson/Corelli recording. Hence my question.
There are *4* Nilsson/Corelli recordings, made in 1961, 1964, 1965 and 1966!
Yep, nothing “Breaking” – simply an old-fashioned artist swap deal…
… and he did an Aida for Warner a few years ago.
No interest in hearing any of the principals in this opera…
Radvanovsky as Turandot?!? Jaho as Liu, at this stage of her career? And then “almighty” Kaufmann, once again singing yet another unsuitable role for him.
Warner Classics has become such a joke nowadays, such shame…
Cheers
“No interest.”
That’s a closed mind. Jaho, by the way, is 48 and in beautiful voice. Kaufmann, who sings Calaf tomorrow in Rome, is better qualified than you to decide what roles suit his voice.
Kaufmann doesn’t sing Turandot tomorrow in Rome, as in singing live. Tomorrow is the studio recording session. Next time you check on operabase, pay attention to the venue.
Look at this link, you muppet (and numpty)…
https://santacecilia.it/en/concerto/puccini-turandot/
Concert performance about to start. Buy your tickets here: https://santacecilia.it/concerto/puccini-turandot/?replica=373
No need to be rude, Jack…
Liu is a role for young sopranos, at the start of their career, to write that at 48 Jaho is in beautiful voice has nothing to do with her now singing a role that is definitely not for her at this stage of her career. And by the way, you won’t be able to “see” her extreme “sobbing” and overacting which she does on stage, so not sure how impressed one would really be now.
I also don’t care if Kaufmann is or isn’t better qualified than I am, I sure hope he is as I am not an opera singer… I first went to opera in 1968 so I believe I am qualified enough to express my opinion that Kaufmann is very overrated. His Aida and Otello recordings (also with Warner Classics) are a joke really… much ado about nothing.
Cheers
JK is best qualified to decide what fills his bank account faster, but as to what roles suit his voice, many other people are at least as qualified as he, if not better. Anyway this isn’t a “role” for him, as it wasn’t for Pavarotti, as Turandot wasn’t for Sutherland or Caballé. It’s just a studio recording jig with plenty of sound engineers to help him out of his singing difficulties, as they did for other singers who just recorded in studio but avoided singing the role live, with the exception of a few “alibi” performances. Bjorling didn’t bother with even one alibi performance.
See comments above. Wrong again – reviews coming out now of the live concert performance last Saturday. But I love the tacit and rather sneaky qualification you have now had to introduce – that of ‘alibi performances’. There was no mention of this when you started out… So: apology accepted.
Critics have long ago sold their soul to whomever pays better. Most of them are fans masquerading as critics anyway. In this case not even the fans disguised as critics bothered to review the “performance”. Warner hopes to ride on the coattails of the Puccini centenary, the recording will be released next year or the year after the next. No idea why you babble about apologies, unless you mean Warner and Pappano own Puccini and opera lovers an apology for recording Turandot with two singers two decades past their prime each, who never dared to sing Turandot in thirty years, one of them a constricted and mumbled baritone without dynamics, masquerading as tenor, and at his worst in Italian repertoire.
You claimed that they would not be singing it live, i.e. outside the studio. When it was pointed out you were wrong, almost to the day, you started to mention ‘alibi performances’. Busted. You’re welcome! (Be my guest! Lolz)
Pappano is certainly not the Golden Child in this situation.
Pappano ist like Arsenal in the 70s: boring.
Considering Putin s joke about Ukraine s rape, this opera about transgenerational trauma is quite relevant. But they should have chosen Berio s ambiguous ending .
I thought the whole point of the Berio ending was to remove any and all ambiguity (?)
Nonsemse as usual! Its not the first CD with Warner, as Pappano and Diana Damrau ae Warner-artists and Sony “allows” its Tenor to collaborate……
A few years ago, Kaufmann recorded a quite good Radames for Warner, conducted by Pappano and with the superb Harteros in the title-role. No news here then.
Can’t share his excitement.
Honestly, does it matter whether JK is going to leave Sony or not? I understand if he were to announce he is leaving opera “business”, in which case his and my reaction would be once again opposite. He won’t be excited by the news, I would be.
AND, as with the Rome Aida of 2015, having recorded it in the studio, they are giving a live performance of it tomorrow (12th) at Santa Cecilia*.
But…
*Audience access will be permitted exclusively for persons bearing Covid-19 green certification of vaccination or recovery (called the “Super Green Pass” or “reinforced Green Pass”). Therefore, access with the “basic” green Certification obtained following a negative swab test will not be permitted.
In the concert hall, higher-level masks (FFP2) must be worn for the entire duration of the concert.
I see the usual JK trolls are out and about again. Coming out of the darkness and venturing into the light.
The best recording is the Sutherland Pavarotti Caballe