Various Composers - Wien (Jonas Kaufmann)

Information

1. Robert Stolz - Wien wird bei Nacht erst schön
2. Rudolf Sieczyński - Wien, du stadt meiner Träume (Wien, Wien, nur du allein)
3. Hans May - Heut ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben
4. Robert Stolz - Im Prater blühn wieder die Bäume
5. Johann Strauss II - Wiener Blut, Wiener Blut
6. Johann Strauss II - Ach, wie so herrlich zu schaun (Lagunenwalzer)
7. Johann Strauss II - Dieser Anstand, so manierlich
8. Johann Strauss II - Draussen in Sievering blüht schon der Flieder
9. Johann Strauss II - Sei mir gegrüsst, Du holdes Venezia
10. Johann Strauss II - Komm in die Gondel
11. Franz Lehár - Lippen schweigen
12. Emmerich Kálmán - Zwei Märchenaugen
13. Carl Zeller - Schenkt man sich Rosen in Tirol
14. Jaromir Weinberger - Du wärst für mich die Frau gewesen
15. Hermann Leopoldi - In einem kleinen Café in Hernals
16. Hans May - Es wird im Leben dir mehr genommen als gegeben
17. Ralph Benatzky - Ich muss wieder einmal in Grinzing sein
18. Peter Kreuder - Sag beim Abschied leise 'Servus'
19. Georg Kreisler - Der Tod, das muss ein Wiener sein

Jonas Kaufmann, tenor
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Ádám Fischer, conductor

Date: 2019
Label: Sony Classical
https://sonyclassical.de/alben/releases-details/wien

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Review

If you’re watching the calories, stop reading now. This evocative collection of Viennese sweetmeats, of wine, women, song and Sachertorte, does not countenance the notion of abstinence. Kaufmann’s love affair with Vienna – City of Dreams – was born in the Tyrol (his grandparents’ farm) and carried through to operatic stardom. His first professional production was an operetta – Strauss’s A Night in Venice – and he embraces the style, the timbre, the allure, even the specific accent of this repertoire with complete conviction and self-evident delight.

The great thing about these performances is that they sound ‘lived in’. The trick in performing Viennese operetta and Viennese chansons (and this selection has been shrewdly chosen across both) is surely that they don’t sound ‘artful’ but rather that the impression is of their slipping off the vocal chords, spontaneous, relaxed and over-easy. The range here is from numbers born into a cabaret style like Hans May’s ‘Heute ist der schönste Tag in mein Leben’ and Hermann Leopoldi’s ‘In einem kleinen Café in Hernals’ (where Kaufmann might be enjoying a slice of Kardinalschnitte) to the full tenorial voluptuousness of the Korngold version of ‘Sei mir gegrüsst, du holdes Venezia’ from A Night in Venice and ‘Zwei Märchenaugen’ from Kálmán’s Die Zirkusprinzessin (‘The Circus Princess’), which abounds in zigeuner heat and is described by Kaufmann as operetta’s answer to Pagliacci’s Canio. It’s in numbers such as this where one forgets that maybe there were fine details that Kaufmann might have finessed more deftly a few years back, and one is eternally grateful for his beefy, darkening tone.

There is so much to savour here – but above all it’s the stylistic understanding (and in this experience and hindsight are invaluable) that carries all before it. There is a oneness, too, with his collaborators – Adám Fischer and the inimitable Vienna Philharmonic, their oft-swooning strings festooning the voice in Robert Stolz’s utterly gorgeous ‘Im Prater blühn wieder die Bäume’. I love, too, Carl Zeller’s ‘Schenkt man sich Rosen in Tirol’, with its super-catchy chorus, and Weinberger’s ‘Du wärst für mich die Frau gewesen’, where Kaufmann’s seductive head-voice is sexily shadowed by solo violin. By contrast, we are in darker Kurt Weillian territory with the despondent, really bittersweet Hans May number ‘Es wird im Leben dir mehr genommen als gegeben’.

Oh, and fear not, Lehár’s Widow waltzes in (along with soprano Rachel Willis-Sørenson) for ‘Lippen schweigen’, one of the very great tunes, one for the ages – all ages.

-- Edward Seckerson, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/Dec/Kaufmann_Wien_19075950412.htm
https://www.ft.com/content/dc45a32c-ee6b-11e9-bfa4-b25f11f42901
https://www.allmusic.com/album/wien-mw0003298892
https://www.amazon.com/Wien-Jonas-Kaufmann/dp/B07RR74FP8

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Jonas Kaufmann (born 10 July 1969 in Munich) is a German operatic tenor. He studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich and began his professional career in 1994. Kaufmann is best known for his performances in spinto roles such as Don José in Carmen, Cavaradossi in Tosca, Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur, and the title role in Don Carlos. He has also sung leading tenor roles in the operas of Richard Wagner in Germany and abroad, most notably at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and is also an accomplished Lieder singer. His debut recording was with Decca and was released in January 2008.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Kaufmann
https://www.jonaskaufmann.com/en/

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