[Originally published on musicalcriticism.com, ahead of Kaufmann's first ROH Cavaradossi]
Jonas Kaufmann is
a rare breed of singer. Coming originally from Munich, he has avoided being
type-cast and has a repertoire that ranges from Mozart to Wagner, encompassing
many of the great French and Italian roles. This season at Covent Garden he's
already impressed critics and audiences alike opposite Anna Netrebko in La
traviata. His Don José in Francesca Zambello's production of Carmen(when
it opened in 2006) received the kind of universal acclaim that's hard to come by
in the opera world. He first made an impression at the Royal Opera House when
he appeared opposite Angela Gheorghiu in Puccini's La Rondine and
it's in the same composer's Tosca that he makes a role debut next
week, as Mario Cavaradossi.
When we meet for our interview, I find Kaufmann laid-back
and easy-going, and the conversation leads straight into Tosca. 'It's
a beautiful production,' he enthuses, 'and one that, let's say, goes according
to the original story, which makes it very easy to remember. It seems to be
pretty easy in a positive way, not simple but not too interventionist.'
I ask specifically about the character of Cavaradossi and
how he fits in with the other, flawed characters Kaufmann has played – Don
Carlo, Don José and Alfredo in La Traviata. I put it to him that
sometimes Scarpia, as the villain of the piece, can come across as the more
interesting character, his attempted seduction of Tosca eliciting strange
sympathy from the audience.
'I don't see it in this way. Of course Scarpia would love to
have a relationship in this way with Tosca but I think he hasn't. It's an
ongoing thing that he wants her, particularly in the sexual way. He's not an
aristocrat, he's not well-educated, and therefore apart from my complaints that
Tosca's jealous about everything and everybody, I think I really love her and
I'm really confident that she's really with me. So it's not as though I have
any doubts about the relationship or am jealous about her. Well, obviously, the
whole trouble is caused by my doubts regarding her loyalty, but it's maybe just
that I know her really well - that she can't keep secrets. The problems start
just because I don't tell her what's going on and she's suspicious, and that's
why it all ends tragically. I suppose the character's got more nobility than
the others you mention: he's not as innocent, as foolish as Alfredo; not
aggressively as passionate and driven as Don José. It's different, but only, I
think, because he feels safe in the relationship with her and that's what
allows him to keep calm.'
I mention an interview with Paolo Gavanelli, who will be playing Scarpia in this revival. In
this interview, the baritone plays devil's advocate and talks about Scarpia as
just doing his job, controlling Cavaradossi who is, after all a revolutionary.
'If Cavaradossi had been a really active revolutionary it would be different,'
admits Kaufmann. 'He's obviously a sympathiser of the Napoleonic idea, of the
revolutionary idea. As Scarpia says disrespectfully, he's reading Voltaire, but
he's not active as such. It's not that he's in this group of people who want to
overthrow the government. He feels sympathy for that idea, and it's through the
coincidence that he meets Angelotti on his flight that he starts playing a more
active role; that's why he suddenly needs to help.'
Is he naïve to let himself get caught up in it all? 'No, I
think it's a very clever plan. It would have worked. He has the house, the
secret path that leads to the house, the hidden cave where Angelotti can stay
and no-one will find him. It's a clever plan and a good idea, and if Tosca
hadn't appeared and had the doubts after seeing Angelotti wearing women's
clothes for his escape, the suspicion that there might be an affair with
another girl, everything would have been pretty easy and smooth.' Is he undone
by Tosca? 'More undone by himself and the fact that he doesn't tell her the
truth from the start and say to her, "This is what's happening and please
don't tell anyone". The moment he realises he should have told her, he
doesn't have the chance: he just says in the second act, "quanto lo
vedesti", so "whatever you have seen, don't say anything or you kill
me" and she doesn't understand. She has an initial doubt and Scarpia feeds
this as part of his attempt at making him more open to her. Maybe I disagree
with that view of Scarpia but maybe you're right, we just see the opera from
different angles. Let's put it this way, though: in this interpretation,
Scarpia is definitely not well educated, he has no respect for art, for culture
or anything apart from his own interests. After all, he's the tyrant, he's
torturing the people.'
And how does Kaufmann assess the challenge of singing the
role? 'Oh, it's just great, great music. You've been mentioning other parts –
Don José, Don Carlo – which are beautiful to sing, but I've been longing for
this Cavaradossi for a long time, and now finally, for the first time, I get to
sing it. It's one of those dreams come true, because Tosca is such a beautiful
opera. From the very first to the last note it is so rich, so...' Words fail
him at this point. 'Aaaah! So great. And I'm very happy to be doing the first
production in a relatively traditional, non-interventionist way; if you start
in one of those turned-round productions where you can't follow the plot, it's
very difficult to do it for the first time.'
Although Kaufmann has established an enviable reputation in
French and Italian opera, he is also moving into the German repertory, having
sung both Walter in Die Meistersinger and Parsifal, as well as
Florestan in Fidelio (a role he reprises at the Paris Opera in the Autumn). He's
already booked in to sing Lohengrin in Munich in September 2010. I ask him if
he feels himself, as German tenor, being pulled inevitably towards the bigger
Wagnerian roles, but he makes it clear that he never wants to be pigeon-holed
in terms of his voice. 'Once you start singing this repertoire, once you step
into the box called "Wagnerian tenor", especially if you're a German
tenor and have a certain success in singing that, there's such a longing for
those kind of voices that everybody wants to force you to accept almost only
German repertory. I think this is a big mistake since you're losing a lot of
your qualities if you concentrating only on this pretty heavy stuff. So I try
to avoid that. I love Wagner, I have to say, I really like to sing Wagner, but
I don't want to miss out on the others. I don't want to miss out Puccini or
Verdi or the French composers.'
And Lohengrin and Walter are still roles in the Romantic
tradition? 'Yes, I think even Wagner himself had the idea of an Italian-style
singer performing his operas. He didn't agree at all with having Sprechgesang where
it's more talking and speaking than singing, and where you're losing the lines
and you're losing the warmth of the voice. Again I think it's a mistake and it
can happen if you always force yourself to do the same things; the voice will
not only get heavier but also less flexible and hard, and maybe less pretty,
and I worry about losing those qualities. I should add that it's also not just
a purely logical and practical thing to save the voice: I would simply miss the
other things so much, like Cavaradossi. And there are so many other things to
do, like Butterfly, which is coming soon. I can't name them all:
everything up to Otello, so Trovatore, Un ballo
in maschera, many, many beautiful operas, and later maybe also Aida.'
So he sees himself going towards the heavier Verdi too? 'I
see myself going towards the heavier roles but in all the repertories: the
French, the German and the Italian. And I'll try to keep as much of the lighter
things as possible in between, just to keep the voice in good shape, to keep
its flexibility and to be able to sing Lied, which I adore. I
don't want to miss out by screwing up or fooling about with the voice. The
problem in our business is that you plan so far in advance; there are so many
decisions you have to take now for things that come in six or seven years and
it's ridiculous because you're not a machine or some sort of medium who can see
the future. You're dealing with more human material and it's a good thing that
we grow with the things we do, that we change slightly, develop, increase, whatever
you want to call it.
'But it's change, and sometimes you change in directions
you don't expect and then you're screwed because you made the wrong decisions
years and years before. Therefore, I hope that I've made the right decisions
and that as far as I see now in my schedule, I'll keep all those things: I'll
keep the Mozart and I'll keep the lighter Verdi but I can feel also that my
voice is going in this direction. With the breaks in my hand I let it go but
not maybe as fast as it wants to, or maybe as fast as the opera world wants it
to.' I mention how the opera world is always longing for the perfect Tristan or
Siegfried and he interjects, 'Or Otello. There's always a discussion about
Otello. I've already had many offers for the role and it's difficult to say no
because it's such a beautiful opera and such a great role, but…' he laughs. But
there's plenty of time, I suggest. 'Exactly'.
I bring up the rumours that about him being involved in Les
Troyens at Covent Garden in 2012, suggesting that the role of Enée in
the Berlioz opera would tie in with his vocal game-plan. He reacts to the
rumour with well-rehearsed evasion. 'I heard so,' he laughs, but goes on:
'Exactly, and in 2011, I'm going my first Siegmund [in Die Walküre]
at the Met in New York. So yes, step by step, one after the other. But again, I
try to avoid having too many heavy things at the same time, so it's one or two
productions per year of this type and the rest is French or Italian repertoire.
So I'm going to be debuting at the beginning of next year as Roméo [at the
Teatro la Fenice in Venice], because I've never done it and I want to do it now
because it's more than time to, and Werther will come in 2010 for the first
time. So there are many other things of the not-too-heavy repertory that have
to be done too.'
Obviously Kaufmann's versatility has given him the
opportunity to pick and choose, but judging from our conversation, there's one
role that is testing his resolve to be sensible with his voice. 'One of the
very finest houses offered me Otello and I really struggled to decide whether
or not I should do it. I said I need to do Trovatore and Ballo before.
At least those two, and we're only talking about the Verdi repertory. There's
not time to do that in the next four years so it just has to wait.' But it will
come? 'It will come; the problem is not that I'm dreaming of things that will
never come, the problem is different. I always compare it to the child in a candy
store, where you see that and you want this and that and you can't do it at the
same time without ending up with a stomach ache. So you have to be patient and
you have to feel the joy of waiting for something beautiful to come: that's
what I'm doing now, which is great.'
With such a wide repertory and no obvious desire to
specialise in any particular area, I ask Kaufmann if he sees himself as an
old-fashioned singer. He agrees but adds: 'Usually "old-fashioned"
has this dash of not being really attractive, let's put it that way. I see it
in this case as being very positive. In the singing tradition, in the singing
technique, we – humanity – did much better in the past than we do now. If you
listen to old recordings, to the old Italian traditions of singing, you can
hear how solid their technique was, how much care they took and how they
covered their voice in cotton wool just to protect it. You can hear that in the
singing, that they really were careful. They got to the stage where they were
able to sing everything. And now you're supposed to concentrate on something.
Sometimes it's not your fault, let's say, tastes also change, which means today
you don't want a Lohengrin to sound like a light Mozart singer, but there was a
time where that was absolutely acceptable.
'Of course, if your voice is limited
to a certain volume, you can't sing everything, you can only sing as much as
you're actually allowed to without being covered by the orchestra. But if you
have a voice that can get through the orchestra, even if it's the heavier one,
for me it's a better choice to do everything - to do the lighter as well as the
heavier things. That's better than just saying, "The heavy roles are my
speciality, I can get through everything, just squeeze it out and let the turbo
run every time," because that's not interesting. For me, it's not
interesting. Sometimes now you hear voices, especially in the Wagnerian
repertory, where there is no beauty in the voice, the voice is loud, the voice
is digging through everything like a drill and you lose the musicality. You
don't have the big phrases, you don't have the big bows, the intimacy. And it's
really a pity.
'For instance, when I did Parsifal for the first time, I'd
never expected there to be so much piano in this piece because
you always hear them,' here Kaufmann makes a straining, groaning sound, 'All
the time. There are so many passages where a Lied voice is not
only enough but is really needed, because it's written in a way – so soft, so
intimate – that this sort of sound, this light sound is ideal. But of course,
there are some points where you can't avoid singing really loud, so in Parsifal in
the Second Act if you sing 'Amfortas! - Die wunde!' softly, you might as well
sing it at home because no-one will hear you. But the ability, the flexibility
to have both, is so important and so interesting to hear. By specialising you
lose quality and you lose certain abilities. I've been doing this job for quite
a while now and whenever I'm doing a new part I discover something new; I
always find some new colour, phrasing, something technical, whatever it is, and
I add that to the collection of possible varieties and I can use it in other
interpretations. Even with things I've already done many times I think,
"Oh well, why don't you do that like this, why don't you try this sound in
there?" And that also helps you to keep it interesting for yourself,
because if just you keep doing the same things it's such a stupidity, it's easy
to fall into routine, which then can't transmit as many emotions.'
And that's the whole point of live performance - that you
have these option to call upon each time? 'Exactly. But sometimes you hear
singers who, when they repeat three recitals in a row, sing every phrase in the
same way: every tempo is the same, even the gestures are the same. I like to be
able to choose spontaneously, and that's the main reason I do recitals: I'm the
boss and I can decide and choose spontaneously to do this piano or
to do an accelerando here. I don't want to miss out on that.
It's a way of interpretation that you need in the singing world because you
usually always have an orchestra with you, and with an orchestra you can't be
that flexible. You have to agree that you're not alone and even the best
conductor, like Tony Pappano here, who's so great and follows you so much, it
all has to be done within limits. Even he isn't able suddenly to go into double
tempo or to introduce a sudden piano where the orchestra's
always played forte. He can go "sh! sh!", but fifty
percent won't look at him because they don't expect him to do that. So, more or
less, you have to do the same. Of course you can do some rubato and
there are sometimes little details you can do differently but it's limited.
Whereas in a recital you can do everything you want.'
Kaufmann first came to the attention of a wider audience
away from opera with his Gramophone Award-winning disc of Lieder by
Richard Strauss. Is song always going to be an essential part of his work?
'Definitely. First of all, I really would miss it and it would also be a
mistake because you're using part of your voice that you would probably never
use in an opera performance: because of the orchestra you wouldn't be heard,
but with a piano you can do different things. I'm not saying that you're using
a different voice for Lied singing. I remember when I did
Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. He wrote it first of all with piano
accompaniment. And it's really difficult to play, which is why it's not done
very often, but I've been doing it with Violeta Urmana – who has a really large voice – and people
were upset that we were singing it so loud. But I'd say, "I'm sorry, but
if Mahler, a quite intelligent composer, writes ffff, he wants it loud!"'
And he wasn't writing for small voices at the time, I point out. 'Exactly,
they'd go from Pamina to Brünnhilde, everything was possible. And I've a lot of
respect for a lot of Lied singers, but I think it's a mistake
to use a completely different voice. You can use part of your voice, you can do
a piano if you can do it, that's almost impossible on the
opera stage.'
And the same is true when specialising on the big operatic
roles? 'Exactly, then you can't go back down. But there are parts of Parsifal,
as I've said, like the "Karfreitagszauber" in the Third Act,
"Wie dünkt mich doch die Aue heut so schön". Or "Parigi, o
cara" from La traviata, where there's nothing in the
orchestra, it's all so soft, you can whisper and everybody can hear. And you
should. You should do it as softly as possible. Because it's a very intimate
moment when he creates this dream for her to forget that she's about to die;
he's not singing that to the audience, he's just singing it to her, and that's
why I always love to sing it very softly. But if you don't do the Lieder you're
not experienced enough, maybe, to use this part of your voice at the opera. So,
all those different styles, all those musical parts, they all come together to
bring out the full range of the voice, and I think it's healthy to do that. If
you only always stick to the same thing it's not good. Like a motor, if you're
only driving in town it's not good, nor is it if you only drive on the
motorway, it's the variety that keeps the engine alive.' Of course with the
Strauss, I point out, there are plenty of chances to sing out, too. 'Exactly,
they're like operatic arias but they also have intimate moments.'
This brings us on to Kaufmann's most recent disc, Romantic
Aria, the first product of an exclusive contract with Decca. The disc was
extremely well received and features Kaufmann in several of the roles he's
performed on stage. I ask about his plans with the label and whether or not
they include, at this stage, complete operas. 'Yes and no' he answers. 'We haven't
agreed 100% to complete operas but I'm sure we will. We're concentrating now to
find recording possibilities for more solo albums. Now after the mixed album
we're looking at ones specialising on the subjects like Italian, French,
German, maybe verismo, maybe Mozart - stuff which is becoming more
and more difficult to find time for, unfortunately, the more and more people
are involved. I'm doing a Butterfly with Angela Gheorghiu and
Tony Pappano this summer, but it's not with Decca but with EMI. The agreement
is older than my exclusive contract. Yes, there are plans, though, and I'm
hoping to record several things because as much as I like this life performing,
at the end you realise that this form of art is a very instant thing. It only
lives on in people's memories. You perform, and the performance is over and
it's gone, so recording is the only chance to keep it alive.'
So he sees it as important to be recorded for posterity?
'Yes, it may be selfish, but you wish that something might stay. For a painter
or a sculptor, whatever they create is there for ever. With us singers, though,
everything goes except the recordings. Of course I know people now who say,
"I've seen these famous singers live" and they can say, "This
phrase he did like this or that," but still it's not the same as if they'd
done a recording and I have it there to listen to myself. It's the only part of
a career that stays and it would be great to do more, and I think we will.'
These are difficult times for the record companies, though. 'Yes, but they're
also difficult times for me because I started this more or less now in a phase
of my career where I'm already so busy performing all over the world that it's
really hard to squeeze out some more time. It's already at a limit, and I have
a family - and I like to see them occasionally!' he laughs. 'So it's really
difficult, and frustrating sometimes too when you realise that you'd love to
record much more and both sides – me and the record company - agree that it
would be a good thing to do.' He lets out a sigh at this, a dilemma that most
singers can only dream of. 'But I just can't find the time. I've got plenty
more years, though!'
I return to his references to older singers and mention his
well-documented admiration of Fritz Wunderlich. Does he himself listen to
recordings of other singers? 'I have to confess, now, for instance, that I've
been listening to a recording that was released here at the Royal Opera House
[on the ROH Heritage label] with Zinka Milanov and the debut of Franco Corelli
at Covent Garden, with Guelfi as Scarpia, which is incredibly good. You can
talk about the tastefulness of holding some notes forever but it's really,
really impressive. There are some great moments but you can hear it's live,
because sometimes they screw up, which is good because you can really feel that
it's live. You can listen to it and it's almost like a movie. I had a friend
who told me she loved a recording with Domingo, Sherill Milnes and Leontyne
Price, which is a great recording. But if you listen to the live recording it's
like' - he acts scared - 'ah, ah, God! She's going to kill him! It's so, so…'
It's the difference between a well-polished product of a recording studio
and a warts-and-all record of a thrilling live event, I suggest. 'Exactly. I
remember that Claudio Abbado said he hates recording in the studio now - he
always wants to make a live recording and then maybe go to the studio to edit
parts if something really terrible happened. I can totally understand that,
because you can feel so much more atmosphere in a live recording. And I bought
that Tosca on purpose also because Corelli was, I think,
thirty-four or thirty-six when he sang that here. I'm thirty-eight now, and I
was interested to hear how he did it. Again, some things are
"no-goes" these days, but other things are still great, even to our
modern ears.
'Talking about Fritz Wunderlich, there are so many things I
adore about him and he recorded lots of things, it's just the repertory I'm
doing now he didn't sing or record most of it so I can't say I'm studying that.
What I admire, though, is a basic thing, especially with Wunderlich, about how
you express emotions. It's about how there can be a direct link between your
diaphragm and the gut of the audience, so that people can have a real
connection with your emotions. Wunderlich was perfect with that - whether it
was joy or sadness or frustration – and that's really unique.'
Talkng of Wunderlich brings us back to an area in which his
recorded legacy is probably richest: Lieder. I ask if Kaufmann
too has plans for recording Lieder with Decca. 'Yes, we
definitely want Lieder, that's something we agree on and we already
have cycles and things in mind. I thought it would be much easier because it's
just with my pianist, but I still need to have the time. It will take a while,
but we have three or four albums in mind and we plan over the next three or
four years to record several Lied albums. So it's not over
with the recording of Liedernow that I've signed with Decca.
Actually, that was not only my idea, it's not as if I forced them or convinced
them to agree to it - they had the same feeling too.'
I ask there are any cycles in particular, but Kaufmann's
answer studiously avoids any definite statements. 'There are some that can wait
even if I've sung them often. An example is Winterreise, which is
something I've been performing, not excessively like some. I mean, I always
have the comparison with Herman Prey, whom my pianist Helmut Deutsch worked
with for several years. He would do one recital tour in just Germany with 36
recitals, one day after another performing only Winterreise, so you
can imagine how many of those he sang! I've done maybe ten or twelve now, but
it's something that still can grow and the older you get, the more experienced,
not only vocally but in terms of life-experience. For instance, with Die
Schöne Müllerin you have to be young because the guy's really
innocent: vocally younger and more flexible, more light, less sadness. In Winterreise the
story's over and you start suffering from the first song, whereas in Müllerin the
first half is positive before it starts going down. I think this must be a
young man because he's much more naïve, and falls into this trap as a result.
We tried to divide them into what's really essential to do now and what can be
done in five or six years, and this is a cycle that needs to be recorded
earlier rather than later.'
Kaufmann's own song recitals are relatively rare events so I
ask if this is a conscious decision or simply dictated by a full operatic
schedule. 'Lieder tours are impossible to do now, there just aren't the
opportunities any more. They don't sell as well as opera and therefore many
producers struggle to put very many recitals together. Of course here in the
Wigmore Hall there's a pretty solid Lied cycle, but even in
Vienna they've had to cut down and Munich just doesn't have it any more.
There's one in Carnegie Hall in New York, but there there's just a few. Then
there are the festivals, but they're only over a short period so it's
impossible to do a Lied tour like they used to. I mean, they
[Prey and Deutsch] did a tour of North America going to many, many cities and
Japan, they were crazy about it there. That's pretty much over now, I think.'
Does he think more people have shifted towards opera, or has
the audience just dwindled? 'No, I have the impression that it's just
disappeared. Opera is powerful because it has more glamorous stars who are
better-known, whereas Lied singers are now specialised. Herman
Prey, also, wasn't only famous for his Lieder but for being Figaro in Barbiere,
Wolfram in Tannhäuser and so many other parts as well. He performed
so much opera at the same time and was one of those all-round artists. Like
Brigitte Fassbaender or Christa Ludwig, all those famous singers that were also
very famous Lied singers. Maybe Fischer-Dieskau is an
exception because he was much more famous for his song recitals than he was for
opera. But almost all the others you have in mind for thirty or forty years ago
were opera singers who were great Lied singers, but they did
both.'
Does he see the fact that there are now so many Lied specialists
as having resulted in their audiences being more specialised but smaller?
'Exactly, that's it. I think it's a mistake, because they're so specialised and
they're so concentrated on that that they lose the wider context.
Media attention is always particularly fierce when it comes
to tenors, with fickle commentators always keen to find the natural heir to the
famous 'Three'. I ask Kaufmann whether he feels any of this media pressure, but
his answer is typically relaxed and straightforward and he comes across, again,
as neither egotistical nor falsely modest.
'I don't think there's a special
gap. There aren't that many tenors of a certain level nowadays. Well, there are
maybe more tenors who are well known than there were when it was only those
three, but even then there were also many others. Now it's more spread out,
there are not only one or two or three. The categorisation, the new successor,
of whomever, I'm not really interested in. If I did have to choose anybody I'd
say probably Plácido. Because of the three, Domingo was the one with the
widest, still has, the widest repertory. He's sung Wagner, he's sung French and
Italian repertory and if there's no classical German or French song, the
Zarzuela is also a very soft and intimate way of singing. So that's maybe the
closest but I think it's a big mistake to think of yourself as the next 'X' or
'Y'; you are you, and I'm the first Kaufmann and not the second Pavarotti or
Wunderlich or whoever.
'And for us who are doing the job now on this level
there's enough work, so there's no competition. It's not like I wish Rolando
[Villazon] bad luck for whatever, or he for me. We joke around and he said to
me once "Ja, ja, you should do more Wagnerian stuff" and I said,
"It's ok, I'll stick with it all". But that's only joking and
especially for tenors, luckily for us, there aren't that many so we're not
competitors but friendly colleagues. It's not like with some other repertories
and voice types where there are so many that they really have to fight against
one another.'
I point out the fact that Villazon will be Don Carlo in the
Royal Opera's new production of the work this summer and that Kaufmann is
rumoured to be singing in the production's first revival. 'Someone even sent me
an article in a British opera magazine with the rumour that I was even going to
do this run because Rolando was cancelling because he had to cancel a
production in New York! I don't see that as a competition or challenge, though,
whoever did the production before, in this case it's Rolando. It's no secret
that I'm doing the revival. Which is fine. I've done Carlo before and I love
this part. It's like Marcelo Alvarez did the revival of Carmen here
which I did the first run of, so what? He's Marcelo, he does his own thing,
you've always got to bring your own character to it and not imitate anyone else
who was in the production. And that's what I'm doing in Tosca, I'm
trying to create my own Cavaradossi - within the limits, of course, of this
production.'
