{"id":50965,"date":"2024-12-28T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-28T10:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/541f821a-6111-4326-ad83-43091808e5f7"},"modified":"2024-12-28T12:09:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T11:09:20","slug":"twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Twice in my career, I missed my cue to appear on stage’: tenor Jonas Kaufmann on his best and worst performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Saturday, 28 December 2024 at 10:30 AM<\/p>

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Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of tenor Jonas Kaufmann<\/strong>…<\/p>

Jonas Kaufmann… Concert Heaven<\/h2>
Verdi<\/strong> La traviata<\/em> Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Angela Gheorghiu (soprano) et al The Metropolitan Opera, New York (February 2006)<\/p>
If I look back through my career, there have been moments where I really was overwhelmed by what had just happened. One, certainly, was my debut at The Met, because that radically changed my career. I\u2019d already performed in many places, at La Scala and Covent Garden, but in 2006 I was finally at The Met, with Angela Gheorghiu<\/a><\/strong> in Verdi<\/a><\/strong>‘s La traviata<\/em>.<\/p>
I was obviously super nervous, because the house is so big, and I\u2019m pretty sure that nobody in New York had heard the name Jonas Kaufmann before \u2013 even though I\u2019d sung some parts at the Chicago Lyric Opera beforehand. And then I sang and afterwards the audience burst into applause; it\u2019s in those moments that you tend to turn round and wonder if Pl\u00e1cido Domingo<\/a><\/strong> just entered the stage. That was an incredible moment.\u00a0<\/p>

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The Met: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere<\/h3>
I can\u2019t explain to you honestly why, but for every young singer The Met is the Olympus. You\u2019re pinching yourself and, as they say, if you can make it there you can make it anywhere; and that\u2019s true somehow. When I went back to Europe, wherever I went people said, \u2018Oh yes, this is Kaufmann, he had a great success at The Met\u2026\u2019 It was actually almost ridiculous, because I\u2019d been to all these great theatres in Europe, like the Paris Opera, Covent Garden, Munich, Berlin, La Scala\u2026 but suddenly Europe takes notice of this young tenor only because he was a success at The Met. I can\u2019t explain it, but it has this special thrill.<\/p>

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The sheer size of that hall causes some anonymity for a performer. It\u2019s a completely different animal to Covent Garden, in terms of size; in London you have the impression you can lean forward and touch the audience. I feel more and more at home over the years in many of those houses. When you come back you know the stagehands, the orchestra musicians and you can find your way to the canteen and back without getting lost.\u00a0<\/p>

<\/div> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Jonas Kaufmann, Juan Diego Fl\u00f3rez and Sonya Yontscheva perform the ‘Drinking Song’ from Verdi’s La Traviata<\/em> <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jonas Kaufmann… Concert Hell<\/h2> Bizet<\/strong> Carmen<\/em><br\/> Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Vesselina Kasarova (mezzo-soprano) et al<br\/> Zurich Opera House (2008)<\/p> I can think of several moments. In 1995, I was singing one of the Knappen in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/parsifal\">Parsifal<\/a><\/strong> <\/em>in Saarbr\u00fccken, which is really not much to sing, but I completely lost my voice on stage. I had a cold and at that point I didn\u2019t know how to judge how much I was capable of doing. There was no voice left and I just couldn’t sing. I realised I really need to come up with a back-up plan, learn my technique, or learn to read my instrument better.\u00a0<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/20-greatest-tenors-all-time\">The 20 greatest tenors of all time<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> Also, I think twice in my career I forgot to enter\u2026 The first production that I ever did professionally was Eine Nacht in Venedig<\/em>, a beautiful operetta by Johann Strauss II, in the small theatre of Regensburg \u2013 I was still a student at the conservatory in Munich. We did 36 shows in one season and I have to say I was so bored I was sitting in my dressing room reading. I heard dialogue that I had never heard before and thought, \u2018What are they talking about?!\u2019 Then I realised they were improvising because I was not on stage!<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/alison-balsom-best-worst-concerts\">‘I was in a cold sweat for 28 minutes’ \u2013 trumpeter Alison Balsom on her best and worst performances<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I was chatting away and suddenly I thought, ‘Why is it so silent?’<\/h3> Even worse, when I did <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/georges-bizet\">Bizet<\/a><\/strong>‘s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/habanera-lyrics\">Carmen<\/a><\/strong><\/em> in Zurich with Vesselina Kasarova, I was down under the stage in the catacombs of the theatre, because I had to climb up from underneath for my entrance in the second act. I was down there chatting about this and that together with the assistant conductor, who was also waiting there; and I said, \u2018Why is it so silent?\u2019 We looked at the monitor and saw a completely desperate conductor, and I said, \u2018Oh, this is me!\u2019 So I started singing my part without hesitating, and I ran onstage, singing, singing, singing, and I thought, \u2018I made it!\u2019 Then when I stop singing, the first thing that Carmen says is \u2018Enfin te voil\u00e0!\u2019 (Finally you are here!), and the whole house broke down. I realised that it must have been an eternity, almost a minute of silence before I had started singing.<\/p> Jonas Kaufmann\u2019s album \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/dp\/B0D9P8NQ84\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Puccini Love Affairs<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 is out now on Sony Classical<\/em><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Published: Saturday, 28 December 2024 at 10:30 AM Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of tenor Jonas Kaufmann… Jonas Kaufmann… Concert Heaven Verdi La traviata Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Angela Gheorghiu (soprano) et al The Metropolitan Opera, New York (February 2006) If I look back through my career, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":50966,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/12\/twice-in-my-career-i-missed-my-cue-to-appear-on-stage-tenor-jonas-kaufmann-on-his-best-and-worst-performances.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Saturday, 28 December 2024 at 10:30 AM Read on to find out the Concert Heaven and Concert Hell performances of tenor Jonas Kaufmann… Jonas Kaufmann… Concert Heaven Verdi La traviata Jonas Kaufmann (tenor), Angela Gheorghiu (soprano) et al The Metropolitan Opera, New York (February 2006) If I look back through my career, there…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/50965"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}