It was a Jonas Kaufmann special. At least in Munich. At least in Kaufmann’s home opera house.

The place was packed. The outfits were designer specials and tee shirts, “Herren,” even in highly colorful shorts, and “Damen,” in extravagant lamé skirts with high slits and gilded shoes.

Kaufmann, and Helmut Deutsch, reknowned pianist and accompanist, walked onto the stage in a semi-radiance of audience cheers and delivered two unforgettable hours of Schumann and Liszt. While Kaufmann will sing Mario in“Tosca” during Munich’s  annual opera festival, tonight he displayed his gifts for intimate and artistic musical communication.

Schumann

They opened with Schumann’s “Dichterliebe,” based on poems of Heinrich Heine.

“In schoensten Monat Mai,” opens the well-known cycle with a tender invocation of spring flowers, the nightingale and new love. Kaufmann’s diction was as always, precise, endings of words clean and exact, his tone tender and eloquent. Right away we experienced the beauty of both words and music, Schumann‘s art equalizing both music and words. Two voices, two hands, definitely the downbeat. When he composed the work, he wrote to Clara that writing songs at that time was easy and wonderful. Today it still sounded like that, the dialogue between poet and beloved influencing our feelings as we listened and overheard. Kaufmann carried this forward, choosing not simply to name what he was feeling, but rather to light his presentation with his own facial expression. It was as if the eyes he looked with became the eyes he looked into.

Granted, not every sound he made resounded in the hall – some of his “pianos” again seemed arch and contrived, some of the fortes foreshortened, but the overall execution remained on point, the lines sung with fastidiousness, the beauty plucked, as it were, from a larger cloth.

Through each of these miniatures, the intense moments remained connected to a larger time and place, to nature and the universe. Here was the romantic vision for sure, the opening adulation and exultation coming to a climax mid-way, “Ich grolle nicht,”when it turns into the disappointment that brings but in no way maudlin or self-serving. Kaufmann took care to invoke this as if it were the most natural thing to do so. We were to be reminded: this is how it is when you love, and pay attention, when you observe and experience life. He sang with deftness, particularly in his lower register, layers slowly unfurling as the tone resounded. As always with his singing, we continued to experience a bit of awe as well as pleasure as we discover this.

So too with Deutsch’s musical aplomb, Schumann’s artful composition frequently extended beyond the text, ending as if “in medias res,” but then projecting us into a slightly different but relevant landscape. Both piano and voice, however, remained eloquently tied to each other as two hands even as they pursued different musical strands.

With the ardent “Ich grolle nicht,” Kaufmann sang with conviction but without heaviness or force. His voice rang warm and deep, even though the lowest note of the “lied” came without an absolutely solid sound.

“Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen” took us outside the joy of love into hopeless disappointment. The old story – jilted love, disappointed love, this young one loves that one and that one another. The “old story.” Here he sang with charm and poignancy, his eyes twinkling in acknowledgment but without heavy-handedness. The lightness was in fact the point: not a young man’s perspective.

The same for the next songs, which although when he brought us back to the garden flowers and linked us to the dreamier world previously described, there was caution and a different kind of observation.

Still intensely observant and detailed, Kaufmann brought forth the view of something beyond light-hearted love. Here we venture into love tinged with shadow, and shadow that leads to darkness and beyond. Did Kaufmann the performer do this for effect or did he convey something he knew besides? The concluding moments of the lied raised that question.

Liszt

Liszt followed Schumann. The three sonnets from Petrarch were a nice complement to the elaborated Schumann cycle, although a little jerky, perhaps by contrast to the sinuous intertwining that preceded? Or the switch to Italian here, there were rough spots, sometimes a little too much casual intonation, less purity of commitment, a bit of fatigue?

Nevertheless, Kaufmann came more to life with “Freudvoll und Leidvoll” where his voice grew in weight and volume. It was as if he unbuttoned his shirt, threw away his cravat and gave forth more energy and focus. It was then, we settled back in our seats, and one by one he served us up more flowers, including a bouquet of  encores: “Die drei Zigeuner,” “Ihr Glcken von Marling,” “O lieb, solang Du lieben kannst,” and “ Es muss ein Wunderbares sein.”

Thus romance was thus not the only color of the evening. The foot-stamping and the applause led the way for these. Kaufmann seemed to gain in ease and confidence the more it went on, and his continued singing led to more musicality from him and Deutsch. It is always a rarity that someone as dramatic as Kaufmann can be – a Don Carlos or an Otello – could allow himself to offer such a range. He did and does this with aplomb, and by so doing, he seemed to be inspired to sing even more.

Those of us who cherish Kaufmann’s active presence on the stage couldn’t help but wonder how many more times we would have the privilege of being in an audience with someone who offered not only his gift but his genuine love of doing what he does. We too continue to become more enlarged from his doing so.