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Evening Standard, 9 February 2017 |
Barry Millington |
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Wagner-Konzert, London, Barbican, 8. Februar 2017 |
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Jonas Kaufmann/LSO/Pappano, review: Consummate vocal mastery
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Jonas Kaufmann had a range of tonal resources at his disposal,
writes Barry Millington |
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The eagerly awaited Wagner programme of Jonas Kaufmann’s three-concert
Barbican residency did not at first rise to expectations. The Prelude to
Tristan und Isolde soared, under Antonio Pappano’s experienced baton, to an
impassioned climax. But along the way there were uncertainties of tuning and
ensemble which became rather more apparent in the Wesendonck Lieder,
presumably played even less frequently by the LSO.
Kaufmann is bold
in appropriating this cycle, written for and generally performed by a female
singer. In principle there’s no reason why a man shouldn’t sing about angels
and hothouse plants and oblivion, though from the far side of the hall, the
tenor’s voice was often masked by even chamber-scale orchestral sonorities
in a way that a higher woman’s voice would not have been.
Everything
shifted up a gear for Act I of Die Walküre, in which Kaufmann as Siegmund
was joined by Karita Mattila as an accomplished, engaging Sieglinde and Eric
Halfvarson as a splendidly menacing Hunding, the latter reinventing his
vocal line to spit out his rancorous hatred.
Accompanied by a more
confident, if still rough-edged LSO under the inspirational Pappano,
Kaufmann and Mattila graphically dramatised the burgeoning love of the
sibling pair. Kaufmann skilfully deployed a range of tonal resources,
ranging from half-voice introspection to the fearless full-throated cries of
“Wälse!”
ith the Wagnerian orchestral flood at such close proximity,
even Kaufmann occasionally struggled against the tide (the audience on his
side might have fared better). But his consummate vocal mastery was never
far away and the climactic approach to the final incestuous embrace was
thrilling.
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