Is Jonas Kaufmann really an exceptional tenor?

Parla, I'm not your dad but could I just offer this thought in friendship? It would make all the difference to your posts, and the reaction of others to them, if you would start with, “For my taste ………”, or “For me personally ………..” instead of handing out your views as if you’re Moses just down from Mount Sinai. No reasonable person would take issue with somebody saying that for him or her, the be-all-and-end-all of opera is singing. Others might think you’re missing a great deal of the total entertainment, but that’s your call. However to state categorically, as if it’s a proven fact, that singing is all there is to opera is frankly laughable and makes you sound like a total berk.

Similarly it’s hard to take issue with somebody who states he or she prefers the singers of yesteryear even if the listener might make a mental note that, as was pointed out above, that puts you in the same category as people who claim today’s violinists have no character, neither does today’s beer and what happened to that crispy bacon we used to get before the war. Like you, I believe that nodody today touches Vickers (in certain repertoire) and Callas is special. But I also believe Florez and Fleming, to name just two, will take their place in opera history and that we have a crop of young singers, especially amongst the ladies, that tomorrow's opera cognoscenti will describe as yesterday's golden age.

I certainly respect your musical knowledge and welcome the energy you bring to this forum. Lose the de haut en bas manner, distinguish between opinions and facts and perhaps we could all be one happy family on here as well as keeping these threads on track.

Just a thought. No 400-line response necessary.

Tagalie, thanks for your "thought", but I'm not dealing with "taste" and "opinions", when I have to face Music or Art. It's not a de haut  en bas approach either.

I can't neglect what I learned and what I have experienced some decades in dealing as seriously as it gets with Classical Music. I remember some older Opera cognoscenti in the late sixties, complaining about Decca's casting Windgassen in the Solti's Ring, claiming that he destroyed (!) the whole enterprise or that Hotter was too old for the Ring to deliver the role of Wotan, as it should be performed.

Nowadays, we listen to Mrs. Barker singing Mimi and, taking into account all the other aspects of the work, we can settle with something that, few decades ago, the producers wouldn't dare to record, even as a bargain CD (actually, even now, they confined themselves to issue only the DVD). In the fifties and onwards, dwindling towards the late seventies and early eighties, almost every Opera recording was an event thanks to the singers and conductors. Nowadays, with the exception of the Baroque and some modern Operas, we settle with the second best and with the all round balanced performances, where none excels, let alone be brilliant. I have seen quite a few modern Opera productions live in some quite respectable theatres (in Germany, US and Asia) and none made me thrilled or excited. They looked like movie or theatre productions, where anything mattered except the music and the singing, which were always settled to some degree of mediocrity or second best, in the happiest case.

Anyway, chacun a son gout, if that pleases you, but, frankly speaking, as I cannot imagine a Violin Concerto without a great soloist, I cannot envisage an Opera without great singers.

(By the way, I don't care if "others might think I'm missing a great deal of the total entertainment", because Opera and Clasical Music in general are and offer much more than mere entertainment; it's education, spiritual fulfillment and an intellectual uplifitng experience).

Parla

Well, I tried, but the plastic budgie is upright once more.

As long as you keep thinking you’ve cornered the market on musical knowledge you’re going to keep inviting ridicule from those who choose not to ignore you.

Tagalie, you might have been absent when I similarly tried to temper the zeal of the omniscient One. I proffered pretty much the same advice. I even went so far as to sympathise with Him when everyone else was putting the knife in over the Messiaen plagiarism affair. But He's so thick-skinned that even a knife scarcely suffices.

You will still have some time to get to know me further.

For the time being, I still enjoy your mislead perception not only on certain aspects of music but on people you happen to "meet" in an internet forum. Intriguing and, in a way, fascinating.

Going back to the substance, I just learned, experienced and still believe that, let's say, in a Cello Concerto the cellist will make all the difference or the damage (I cannot imagine we can have a successful performance of Dvorak's Cello Concerto with a poor soloist while the rest, namely Conductor, Orchestra, Venue, lighting, acoustics, etc. are perfect. On the contrary, I attended, in early seventies, a performance of the said concerto with Rostropovich with a middle of the road Orchestra, an unknown conductor and in an adverse venue. Still, the audience got crazy with the performance.). In the same way, I cannot imagine how in a genre, where the voices play a very crucial and so predominant role, we can be happy with every other factor involved, most of the time not even a musical one (visual effects, direction, staging, lighting, costumes even dancing) and we can settle for a second rate voice, without feeling even a sense of void or less satisfaction.

However, if that's your perception (even if you wish to call it "taste" or "opinion"), fine. So be it...for you. I simply cannot follow.

Parla

Hilarious.

I've kept out of this one (like Vic) been there all too often.

"Arguing with a fool", Tagalie? Oh! Oh! Faux pas, my dear friend.

However, I can understand you. It's a way out, after all.

Anyway, we agreed : "Chacun a son gout" (at the end of the day). Who is a great tenor or Opera singer is another question for some other (sunny) day.

I hope you may enjoy as well the new Werther with Villazon (it's coming soon).

Parla