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Jonas Kaufmann in Andrea Chenier : portrait

In a decade spent on the world’s great opera stages, Jonas Kaufmann has established himself as one of the most iconic singers of the day. And in a career he has built up intelligently and thoughtfully, the roles he takes on always seem like a major event. Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, January 20th, through February 6th he will be singing the title role of Andrea Chenier, at the Royal Opera House, alongside Eva-Maria Westbroek amd Zeljko Lucic. We are taking this occasion to review the...


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Interview with french soprano Anaïs Constans, third prize winner of Operalia 2014

Each year since 1993, the Operalia contest has been aiming to split and highlight the greatest voices of tomorrow among the young talents of today. And if currently the opera singing contests increase so much that we can sometime question their relevance, Operalia and its judging panel contributes to start up concretely their laureates’ careers. Placido Domingo, Operalia project manager, sees in it the opportunity to “offer to others the same good fortune whose he benefited...


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The voices of tomorrow : meet the tenor Bryan Hymel

At the occasion of a brief detour to Paris, we had the opportunity to meet Bryan Hymel. The young american tenor from New-Orleans, rising figure of the actual lyrical scene, talks about his atypical career which tooked him from Jazz to the greatest opera houses in the world, such as the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden (where he replaced Jonas Kaufmann as Aeneas), or the Wiener Staatsoper. Gifted of a particularly high tessiture, he explains his taste for the french heroïc tenor...


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Jonas Kaufmann recounts Manon Lescaut

At the age of 44, the great German tenor, today considered the greatest of his generation, has chosen to add a new role to his repertoire, that of Des Grieux in Puccini’s Manon Lescaut. After Mario Cavaradossi in Tosca and Dick Jonhson in La Fanciulla del West, this is only his third Puccini role, even though his baritone-tinged tenor voice seems ideally made for this repertoire. Why did he wait so long? Perhaps just because he was never offered it. Or because he felt that, before...


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Anna Netrebko renounces her debut in Faust at Covent Garden

That's on Facebook that Anna Netrebko just announced her withdrawal from Covent's Garden production of  Faust : « I am so sorry to have to withdraw from the role of Marguerite in Faust. After much consideration and intensive preparation, I have come to the conclusion that the role is not right for me. I had been very much looking forward to debuting this role at the Royal Opera House and following it with further performances in Vienna and Baden-Baden....


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Jonas Kaufmann recounts Werther

Often considered the most personal and sensitive of Massenet’s works, Werther – whose libretto is freely inspired by The Sufferings of the Young Werther, Goethe’s epistolary novel – stands as one of the landmarks of 19th century French Romanticism. A melancholy work imbued with a resolutely tragic aspect sometimes bordering on the morbid.  In both Massenet’s work and Goethe’s novel, the young poet Werther is madly in love with Charlotte – who...


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Jonas Kaufmann recounts Don Carlo

This year, in commemoration of the bicentenary of Giuseppe Verdi's birth, the Salzburg Festival presented this summer a new production of Don Carlo, directed by Peter Stein, provided with a impressive cast, and especially with Jonas Kaufmann in the title role. We met him in Salzburg and he recounted us about his Don Carlo during a pleasant interview. See also Jonas Kaufmann in "Don Carlo’s sensational cast delights Salzburg audiences"...


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Bryn Terfel recounts Falstaff

At the height of the Year Verdi (which we commemorate in 2013 the bicentenary of the birth), in February, the Scala presented Falstaff in a production by Robert Carsen and including Bryn Terfel in the title role . We took the opportunity to meet the Welsh bass-baritone who gives us his vision of the role and work (funny and full of life, revealing the young composer who was then eighty years), but also shares working methods, leaving ample room for immediate emotion and...


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Jonas Kaufmann recounts Lohengrin

On the occasion of the opening of the opera season 2012-2013, la Scala gives a new production of Lohengrin, opera by Richard Wagner, in a staging by Claus Guth and relying on an impressive cast : René Pape in the role of Heinrich der Vogler, Anja Harteros to embody Elsa, Evelyn Herlitzius lending his face to the character of Ortrud, and Jonas Kaufmann in the title role. And in the context of a long exclusive interview, the tenor presents the work, the way he approaches his role...