Since his debut at the Metropolitan Opera New York in 2006, Jonas Kaufmann has been one of the top stars of classical music. After engagements in Saarbrücken, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Milan, Jonas Kaufmann went to the Opera in Zurich in 2001. From there, his international career began with appearances at the Lyric Opera Chicago, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan, the Deutsche Oper and the Staatsoper in Berlin, the Vienna State Opera, and at the Salzburg and Bayreuth Festivals.
Kaufmann is as much in demand internationally in the Italian and French repertoire as in the German. He has sung Verdi's
Otello in London, Munich, Naples and Vienna, Massenet's
Werther in Paris, Vienna and New York, Wagner's
Lohengrin in Bayreuth, at La Scala, in Paris and Melbourne. Whether oratorios and operettas, Canzone Napoletana and Viennese songs - Kaufmann has mastered the whole scala of the tenor repertoire and attaches great importance to a versatile repertoire that keeps him flexible in every respect: vocally, musically, stylistically and linguistically.
He describes lieder singing as the "royal class of singing", as this genre requires much more fine-tuning and differentiation than any other vocal discipline. His partnership with pianist Helmut Deutsch, with whom he has worked since his studies in Munich, has proven as effective in the recording studio as in countless concerts, including one at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on Oct. 30, 2011. It was the first solo recital given at the Met since Luciano Pavarotti (1994).
At the beginning of the 2023/24 season, Kaufmann presented a special project with Helmut Deutsch and director Claus Guth at the Park Avenue Armory in New York:
Doppelgänger, a staged interpretation of Schubert's
Schwanengesang. Following a series of
Otello performances and his stage debut as Calaf in Claus Guth's new production of
Turandot at the Vienna State Opera, that season has included concerts of his project
The Sound of Movies, as well as performances of
La Gioconda at the Salzburg Easter Festival and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and of
Aida at the Bavarian State Opera and
Andrea Chenier at the Royal Opera House in London. At the beginning of the 2024/25 season he undertook a concert tour in Europe to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Giacomo Puccini's death.
Kaufmann is an exclusive artist with Sony Music. Many of his CDs and DVDs have won international awards such as the
Gramophone Award. He has been named "Singer of the Year" several times by the editors of the magazine
Opernwelt, the classical music magazines
Diapason and
Musical America, as well as by the juries of the
International Opera Awards and
Opus Klassik (formerly
Echo Klassik). In 2013 he was appointed
Bayerischer Kammersänger, in 2014 he received the media award
Bambi in the category of Classical Music, in 2015 the
Premio Puccini, in 2016 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, in 2018 the
Officier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the Bavarian
Maximiliansorden for Science and Art. In 2022 he was appointed
Österreichischer Kammersänger, and he also received the
Premio Corelli 100 and the
Premio Internazionale Casa Museo Enrico Caruso. In 2024 he received the
Ordre de la Légion d’honneur.
December 2024
https://jonaskaufmann.com/