Jonas Kaufmann Wien

Jonas Kaufmann's tribute to the immortal melodies of the world's most beautiful cities.

Jonas Kaufmann's new album is a deeply personal tribute to the world-famous melodies from the birthplace of waltz and operetta. Hence its title: "Wien" - the German for "Vienna". None other than the Vienna Philharmonic is a more natural fit for such a recording of evergreen hits, with the varied programme conducted by Ádám Fischer. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen joins on the duets, including the title melody of Wiener Blut.

Jonas Kaufmann has always had a special rapport with Austria and Vienna. His grandmother had a fondness for the light classics and was happy to sing the evergreens of Johann Strauss, Franz Lehár and Robert Stolz - a nice contrast to his grandfather's passion for Wagner. As a child, Jonas spent much of his free time on his grandparents' farm in Tyrol. Austrian television was almost more familiar to him than its German counterpart. In this way he absorbed the full breadth of Vienna's entertainment scene, from Peter Alexander to Georg Kreisler. He loved to imitate Hans Moser's Viennese twang and to slip into the role of "Herr Karl" (aka Helmut Qualtinger). Mastering Viennese dialect was child's play.

Since then he has had a deep love for Viennese songs and operetta. "The music always put me in a good mood", he recalls. "When I had unlikeable things to do as a student, like cleaning or vacuuming, all I had to do was play Carlos Kleiber's Fledermaus recording, and in no time at all I had a grin on my face."