Having scored a hit with his
Puccini
album
Nessun Dorma
in 2015,
Jonas Kaufmann
returns in 2024 with more
arias in conjunction with the centenary of the composer's death.
Kaufmann
is more than arguably the biggest tenor star in the world, and his fans wasted no time in putting this release on classical best-seller lists in late summer of that year. They will more than likely be fully satisfied; there are a few signs of late middle age in
's voice, but the magic is undeniably still there. What gives this album a bit of extra liveliness is that the
Puccini Love Affairs
of the title are realized mostly as duets.
sings solo only on the two evergreens at the end of the album, "Che gelida manina" from
La bohème
and "E lucevan le stelle" from
Tosca
. Elsewhere, he is accompanied by one of six female guests, and this is satisfying; if
is opera's male king, it is not clear that he has a female counterpart, and each of the six women here has a claim to the title. Their variety adds a good deal to what is otherwise a
program with few surprises; sample the windlike tone of
Pretty Yende
in "O soave fanciulla" from
, the unexpected delicacy of
Sonya Yoncheva
in a pair of
excerpts or the gutsy turns of
Malin Byström
in
La fanciulla del West
. Conductor
Asher Fisch
knows enough to keep the
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna
largely out of
's way, and
Sony Classical
's engineers get fully idiomatic sound out of Bologna's Teatro Auditorium Manzoni. One of the more rewarding mass-market albums of
's long career. ~ James Manheim