Off The Bookshelf US -Music Romantic Arias Romantic Arias New & Used Romantic Arias Books CDS DVD's Nusic Electronics

Search Music - select a category

Buy Romantic Arias online at Discounted New and Used prices. Delivered to your door with Off-The-Bookshelf.

Romantic Arias
by: Jonas Kaufmann

List Price: $16.98

Off The Bookshelf's Price: $14.99

You Save: $1.99 (12%)
Prices subject to change.

Used Price: $13.10
Third Party New Price: $9.26

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0028947599661
Label: Decca
Manufacturer: Decca
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Decca
Release Date: March 11, 2008
Studio: Decca
Sales Rank: 5566
MPN: 001083702

Disc 1:

Related Items:

Gaetano Donizetti - La Fille du regiment / Dessay, Florez, Palmer, Corbelli, French, Campanella, Pelly (Royal Opera House 2007)

Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Jonas Kaufmann is without question the most versatile tenor of his generation, and his current repertoire includes an astonishing range of opera roles from Mozart to Wagner. He is also a celebrated Lieder interpreter, equally at home on the concert platform. His Decca Debut album celebrates a luscious range of Romantic opera arias, showcasing the astonishing diversity of his voice.

Jonas Kaufmann has made stunning debuts in many of the world's leading opera houses in recent seasons. For example, to fabulous acclaim he appeared as Alfredo in La Traviata at the Metropolitan Opera and Chicago Lyric Opera - "smoothly burnished, beautifully focused... and always disarmingly musical" (New York Magazine). He was Don Jose in the 2007 new production of Carmen at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden - "superb" (The Guardian).

Romantic Arias includes opera favorites by the Italian giants Verdi and Puccini, by French greats Berlioz and Bizet, and by Wagner, the epitome of German Romanticism. Kaufmann responds to each composer with seductive ease.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Interesting
I've just received this highly vaulted recital album, which is more-or-less my introduction to Kaufmann and his voice. My first thought was that the voice is as baritonal as they say -- like listening to Robert Merrill try tenor roles, though Kaufmann is fully comfortable in the range. I found this particularly distracting in the Traviata excerpt, when I couldn't stop wondering why Germont is singing his son's lines. Some tenors (Del Monoco?) do also come to mind, but rarely his (and my) idol Fritz Wunderlich; the sound is often cloudy and unclear, and rarely strings out cleanly and prettily (a notable fault in the Bizet aria, a bit better in Faust); it seems most open in the Wagner excerpt (and does sound a bit like Wunderlich there). In some cases like the concluding Werther, the sound ... Read More

Rating:

- Tenor Arias for Mediocre Baritone
Some very distinguished tenors started out as baritones. Such was the case with the great Carlo Bergonzi who retained a warm Caruso like baritonal timbre in his voice while still hitting ringing, spinto high B-flats and singing in sweet head voice and mezza voce. Ramón Vinay also began his career as a baritone, becoming a gifted heroic tenor before returning to the baritone repetoire as his voice darkened with age.

Unfortunately, Kaufmann is not cut from the same cloth. With some effort, he could become a useful baritone. But his premature and unjustified desire to enter the tenor range is quite ridiculous, producing a strained, constipated and thoroughly unpleasant sound. And he should learn to shave.

Rating:

- A fine large-voiced tenor at work
Jonas Kaufmann is what I would call a big voiced tenor--along the lines of Franco Corelli or Richard Tucker (I'm not saying he's that good yet--but his voice is powerful!). The liner notes begin by noting that many of us want to compartmentalize tenors--"He's a Puccini tenor," He's a Mozart tenor," "He's a Wagnerian tenor." The notes then say that ". . .Jonas Kaufmann resists [this tendency], uncompromisingly maintaining his remarkable versatility." Versatile indeed! This CD ranges from Puccini to Wagner, from Bizet to Weber and Verdi.

Let's take a look at a few of the cuts on this CD.

"Che Gelida Manina." What a tenor piece, from Puccini's "La Boheme." Kaufmann shows a good rich large voice. He also sings with considerable passion. Here and there are those annoying ... Read More

Rating:

- A Promising, Committed Artist with a wonderful Voice
Large-voiced tenors are in short supply today, a phenomenon that most likely traces its origin to the vocal education system that stresses importance on the purity of tone so favored in Mozart and Handel's operas that are in such a vogue in today's classical music scene. However beautiful and well-controlled many of today's tenor voices are, this does not produce the thrilling electricity that you can get from voices that once rang full and true in a manner similar to that of the singers from an earlier part of the century like Ludwig Suthaus, Ramon Vinay, and Max Lorenz in the German wing and Franco Corelli and Carlo Bergonzi in the Italian department. Fortunately, a few stars do emerge from this low calorie vocal rubble who can prove themselves successors to the crown that has for so long ... Read More

Rating:

- Well done
Mr. Kaufmann has a nice voice, the high registrer sounds different than the low, but any way he has his own style and as result it's a good interpretation!

Well Done!!

Music : Romantic Arias