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Financial Times, 22.5.2018 |
Richard Fairman |
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Konzert, 19. Mai 2018, London, Barbican Hall |
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Jonas Kaufmann, Barbican, London — alive with meaning
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Nothing was shirked in the tenor’s performance of Strauss’s Four
Last Songs |
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Some people said it could not be done. Others complained that they could not
see the point of trying it in the first place.
When Jonas Kaufmann
announced that he was going to sing Strauss’s Four Last Songs, he caused a
controversy, while simultaneously stoking a high degree of expectation. The
event was originally scheduled as the last concert of Kaufmann’s residency
at the Barbican last year, but that was cancelled, leaving doubt as to
whether it would ever happen. At the weekend the rescheduled date finally
came round.
At a time when gender-neutral casting is becoming
commonplace in the theatre — a female Hamlet is currently treading the
boards at the Globe — why does it matter? After all, female singers have
claimed Schubert’s Winterreise since the 1980s, when Brigitte Fassbaender
and Christa Ludwig made it their own.
The difference is that the
Strauss songs are written in such a way as to allow the right kind of
soprano to soar limpidly through the air. That does not sit so well for a
man. When Kaufmann did use a half voice to shape long, relaxed lines, as in
the second song, he failed to project strongly enough and was lost under the
orchestra. His strengths showed most in the outer songs, where he sang out
fully, creating a strong, dark atmosphere. Overall, nothing was shirked,
either the most expansive lines or the highest notes, and it was a pleasure
to hear a performance of Strauss’s Four Last Songs in which the poetry was
alive with meaning.
He had warmed up on an earlier group of four
Strauss songs. “Ruhe, meine Seele!” sounded even more Wagnerian than usual
(Kaufmann has recently essayed the part of Tristan for the first time) and
“Befreit”, surely Strauss’s greatest song, was broadly phrased, the words
deeply felt. He generously added “Morgen” as a hushed encore at the end of
the evening.
Conductor Jochen Rieder and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
provided the support on this exploratory journey. In between Kaufmann’s
appearances, they played Korngold’s “Schauspiel” Overture and Elgar’s In the
South, two works as Sraussian in their cut and flamboyant use of the
orchestra as the master himself.
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