New York, NY (Top40 Charts / Sony Classical) After years of singing Giacomo Puccini's heroes on stage to vast critical and audience acclaim, Jonas Kaufmann finally records an album entirely devoted to the world's most-loved opera composer. His new album, Nessun dorma (Sony Classical), available
September 11 will include a selection of the composer's stupendous tenor arias drawn from Puccini's greatest operas, including Turandot, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly and La fanciulla del West, amongst others. Spanning the breadth of Puccini's output from the early operas Le Villi and Edgar, the album culminates in the mighty aria "Nessun dorma" from his final opera Turandot. Kaufmann is joined on the album by Maestro Antonio Pappano, the Orchestra dell' Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia and soprano Kristīne Opolais.
This fall, Kaufmann will embark on a European tour with this repertoire performing in Frankfurt, London, Paris, Brussels, Prague and Mannheim. The tour continues in
Spring 2016 with dates in Essen and Munich.
In
September this year, Kaufmann will also make his first appearance at the "Last Night of the Proms" at the Royal Albert Hall in London, broadcast to millions as part of the world-famous finale of the BBC Proms. Along with a selection of Puccini arias, Kaufmann will also sing "Rule, Britannia!" - which, according to records, will be the first time this song has been performed by a German singer in the concert's history.
In October, Kaufmann will bring a selection of Puccini arias to cinemas worldwide with the release of an exciting new film. This special cinema event produced by Arts Alliance will present Kaufmann's concert from Teatro alla Scala in Milan with the Filarmonica della Scala and Jochen Rieder conducting, along with a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the busy life of "the greatest tenor of our day" (The Daily Telegraph). The film will be released in more than 1000 cinemas and 40 countries.
Puccini's music made a deep impression on Kaufmann from an early age, as it has done on many people. Few people are aware of the unparalleled popularity the composer enjoyed in his own lifetime and how this fame came about. As Kaufmann explains: "Nowadays every-one knows 'Nessun dorma' - not least as a result of the legendary first concert given by the Three Tenors on the eve of the FIFA World Cup final in Rome in 1990. But during the last twenty years of his life, Puccini was already as famous as
Madonna is today. His arias were such popular hits that everyone knew them - at the beginning of the 20th century he was the composer who captured the hearts of each and every one of his listeners."
A century ago the arias from Puccini's operas were whistled in the streets. Millions of listeners from every walk of life were moved to tears by La Bohème and Madama Butterfly. His music had mass appeal and was accessible to and loved by all. Puccini had a gift for reaching out to all the men and women of the modern world. His operas no longer contain heroes of a Verdian stamp, which is what makes his characters so fascinating, precisely because they combine such apparently contradictory qualities.
Puccini's music became even more popular than Verdi's thanks to Enrico Caruso and the invention of the gramophone record. It was the legendary Italian tenor who turned the record into a medium of mass communication. Everyone who owned a gramophone knew who Caruso was, and everyone who listened to Caruso also listened to Puccini. By the standards of his time, Puccini earned as much as Hollywood stars today and he lived the high life.
Jonas Kaufmann regards it as a stroke of luck that he was able to record his Puccini album in Rome: "First, I love the city. Second, it is here that the wonderful Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di
Santa Cecilia performs. Third, the orchestra's principal conductor is Antonio Pappano, to whom I owe many hours of happiness on the operatic stage. I was also extremely lucky that Kristīne Opolais, my partner in two stage productions of Manon Lescaut, was able to record a number of scenes with me."
"No aria is as loved today as 'Nessun dorma'. The legendary first concert of the Three Tenors took place only a few days before my twenty-first birthday, and I really envied
Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Jose Carreras for this hit of theirs. For a long time I didn't dare sing 'Nessun dorma' myself, since I was so in awe of the aria's magic and its incredible appeal. Even today, whenever I hear and sing this aria, I still get goosebumps."
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