Born in 1969, German tenor Jonas Kaufmann has developed an extraordinarily broad repertoire over the course of his career, ranging from bel canto roles to the heroes of Verdi and Puccini all the way to Wagner. He completed his musical studies in Munich, the city of his birth, and then took part in master classes taught by James King, Hans Hotter and Josef Metternich, later further honing his singing technique under the guidance of Michael Rhodes. In 1994, he launched his career at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken, and soon afterwards was taking the stage at the Stuttgart and Hamburg operas. Invitations from abroad were also quick to come: the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Opéra de Paris and Milan's La Scala all heralded the newcomer's arrival in the international arena. Kaufmann's forays into the most diverse possible realms of the operatic literature have taken him to the world's greatest stages, to be greeted with unanimous enthusiasm from critics and viewers alike. His Wagnerian repertoire has grown increasingly important in recent years: he sang the title roles of Parsifal in Zurich and of Lohengrin in Munich and Bayreuth, and the role of Siegmund in Robert Lepage's production of Die Walküre at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Privileged to have worked with such conductors as James Levine, Antonio Pappano, Claudio Abbado, Sir Charles Mackerras and Daniel Barenboim, Kaufmann has also given concerts together with the Berliner Philharmoniker (under Sir Simon Rattle and Nikolaus Harnoncourt), the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra (under Franz Welser-Möst) and the Wiener Philharmoniker (under Helmut Rilling). He has appeared on numerous DVDs, including the Met's Ring, Munich's Lohengrin, the Royal Opera House's Carmen and the Paris Opera's Werther. Kaufmann's work has been recognised with a number of awards, and he has been selected the ECHO Klassik “male singer of the year” three times (in 2010, 2013 and 2015).
