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Financial Times, September 13, 2013 |
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Jonas Kaufmann: The Verdi Album |
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Extracts showcase the tenor’s dark, dramatic quality |
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These
albums are designed to milk a star-fixated market rather than make a serious
contribution to the Verdi bicentenary. Kaufmann disappoints. He opens with a
leaden “La donna è mobile” (Rigoletto) that reveals more heroic strain than
Italianate style. Arias from Aida, Un ballo in maschera and I masnadieri
prove little more seductive and no less studio-bound. Why the relentless
need to force?
Things start to pick up with “Ah! sì, ben mio … Di
quella pira” from Il trovatore, while extended extracts from Don Carlo (with
the excellent baritone Franco Vassallo) and La forza del destino showcase
the dark, dramatic quality in Kaufmann’s tenor. Finally, fleetingly, “Quando
le sere al placido” from Luisa Miller brings some soft singing. The
orchestral accompaniments under Pier Giorgio Morandi rarely exceed the
perfunctory.
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