JONAS KAUFMANN - A PERFECTLY NORMAL HERO
"Kaufmann looks every inch the romantic hero, and you could listen to his warm, characterful singing all day long."
(Sunday Telegraph)
He's the most attractive – and perhaps the most unpretentious – tenor since Franco Corelli and Plácido Domingo: Jonas Kaufmann. A gift to the opera world, a tenor who can truly credibly portray a young lover with his looks and his voice. He is the first German tenor in generations who can bear comparison with the great tenors of the past and the present, and who can look forward to a lengthy international career.
This 45-minute film is neither a classical artist's portrait nor a glossy, down-home look at the man behind the artist, but the document of a singer's path toward professional and artistic fulfillment. A path marked by difficult moments as well as great leaps and bounds, it encompasses his seminal 2001 debuts at the Zurich Opera and the Chicago Lyric Opera; his 2003 Belmonte at the Salzburg Festival; his Met debut as Alfredo in "La Traviata" and his first solo CD in 2006; his first aria album, his Vienna Des Grieux and his Zurich Don José in 2008...
The film team joins Kaufmann on his travels, at home, at rehearsals and performances. Interviews with his wife, herself a mezzo-soprano, and with distinguished conductors, directors and colleagues, including the great Vesselina Kasarova, shed light on the role the young tenor plays in the demanding, everyday world of the opera business and the music industry in general.
Of course, Kaufmann himself also talks freely and candidly about his life, his current situation and his prospects and plans for the future. He provides fascinating insights into the life of a young artist: how he coped with the crushing work schedule of a provincial theater... his Met debut and the resulting shift in his market value... the importance of his family and his loneliness as a traveling artist... and, of course, how his looks affect his career and his on-stage love scenes... "I want to be as sincere as possible in my roles, even when I sing words like: 'I love you.'"
