“Par quelle douce voix, mon âme est ranimée?” / “What sweet voice recalls my soul to life?”
~Don Carlos, Act II
I suppose the title for this final installment of notes from the Don Carlos Adventure was inevitable. (Links to Part One and Part Two, here.) To think: it was just over a year and eight months ago that I first heard the name ~ and the voice ~ of Jonas Kaufmann…
I’ve been home a week now, not yet recovered, reflecting on “mon jour suprême,” as Rodrigue would say, seeing and hearing Jonas live in the French version of my favorite opera. To have heard, in real time and in relatively close space, the one whose voice made me fall in love with opera and who brought music back into my life altogether, lifting my soul out of sadness, was a miraculous gift. A dream.
And speaking of gifts, what a gift it was to have spent time with kindred spirits ~ friends made through this mad passion that is opera-love. So many of us said that Jonas ~ and/or opera in general ~ have brought us together. A supreme gift. And that is only the beginning…we are already planning more adventures to come.
I suppose that, for many who first encounter the world of opera, we cling to a particular “opera guide,” to borrow the phrase of my friend Laura. The guide is that singer who gives us access to new works and help us to latch onto them, because we have first latched onto him or her. We feel comfortable with our guide; he or she helps us to make sense of what is new. We feel with his feelings, and see with his eyes. For one of my friends, this guide is Ruggero Raimondi; for another, James Morris and Ferruccio Furlanetto; for another, Domingo. I am sure that many have taken Jonas for their opera guide, and certainly he has been mine. From Massenet’s Werther (the first Jonas opera I saw on video, from the 2010
Paris production) to Tosca ~ especially the unforgettable live-stream of April, 2016 ~ to An Evening with Puccini to La Fanciulla del West to Don Carlo to Otello to Wagner ~ and I was afraid of Wagner! ~ the
list goes on. Jonas has lifted ~ and broken ~ my heart countless times. His voice has become a light and inspiration, a consolation, and a reminder of why we are alive.
As he stumbles barefoot onto the stage of Don Carlos, we can hear his sobs. (I start blubbering myself by the time he has given Elisabeth the portrait of the Infante to surprise her, and sings, “Je suis Carlos…Je t’aime!” / “I am Carlos and I
love you!”) The projected images of his near-breakdown across the stage send a terror up the spine. His pianissimo is wrenching. Our breathing stops at his voice at such moments, and we are adrift at sea…a sea that is ominous, dark, exquisite, and sometimes terrifying.
In the recent documentary, Jonas Kaufmann, Tenor for the Ages, “our tenor” comments on the interesting phenomenon of the effect he has on so many; how we (his fans) seem to feel as though we are in a kind of relationship with him…and yet, we can know him to a degree, though he cannot possibly know each and every one of us.
He can’t possibly know that so-and-so came all the way from Oregon to hear him, and that she’d been working very hard to make it happen; or that this other fan came from Australia, or England, or Ireland; nor that he changed this or that person’s life forever. We might forget that he can’t possibly know all of this. It is an odd dynamic. Even our tendency to call him, or refer to him as, “Jonas” ~ rather than “Herr Kaufmann” or “Maestro Kaufmann” ~ is, I think, indicative of his approachability, and the affection and intimacy we feel for this beloved tenor. He is “our Jonas,” “our tenor.” His infectious laugh, his kindness, his intelligence, his disarming smile, his enthusiasm…all are clear in every interview, and his presence on stage and screen compels us to feel every emotion with him. But really, when I stop to reflect on this as relates to the tenor himself, how unique ~ and beautifully strange ~ a relationship this is.
It really hit home when, after the emotional impact of my second Don Carlos of October 22nd, the “three little maids” and our friends were not allowed to remain beyond the security barrier to wait for the cast. (Mio Carlo, Viv, was truly heroic in her efforts to “sweet talk” the security guard to allow us to remain! But it was not to be.) All of us were pressed just on the other side of the barrier. It was impossible, in those fleeting moments ~ he is walking into a virtual wave of fans pouring out and around him ~ to say something personal and meaningful as he graciously tries to accommodate everyone’s desire to have a moment, a signature, or a photo.
After he signed my program ~ which I didn’t really need, as I already have a treasured signature of his which was obtained for me in January by mio Carlo, Viv ~ I asked if I might shake his hand. Instead, I kissed it. In the moment, it was the only means of communication that occurred to me, as I didn’t have the words.
Later, as he walked through the crowd (the parting of the Red Sea) Viv and I followed without thought or aim, in a kind of daze ~ at least, that was my own state of mind ~ half-conscious that we were very time-crunched, needing to catch the last Eurostar that night so that I could make my plane from London in the morning. Jonas stopped at one point to allow some photos to be taken, and in a brief moment after one of his fans stepped away, this shy Oregonian stepped in and asked on impulse, “Jonas, may I have a photo?” (I followed this up with a “My hero!” which I’m not sure that he heard…) Still in a daze, I unthinkingly rested my head against his scarf and jacket as Viv snapped the photos. (And I didn’t even say “Il core vi dono!” Such restraint! 😉 ) He is so gracious. After that, I suppose I could have flown back to Oregon without the plane. (Viv and I did literally run across the street and back to collect our luggage, hardly conscious of the traffic, or of anything else!)
I will treasure that memory as long as I live. For him, I suppose, it was only another fan, and another moment; for me, the whole experience was the “jour suprême.”
How can one say, in a moment ~ even if one could remain clear-headed enough to express it ~ how truly appreciative we are of his great gift that he shares with us? To remark what a wonderful performance it was, or how “beautiful” it was, seems so terribly insufficient that we might resign ourselves to silence.
One would need the words that Charles Dickens gives to the broken Sydney Carton, who was “recalled to life” by the presence of Lucie. That Sydney knows he can never mean anything to Lucie personally, does not alter the fact that she has had a great impact on his life; she has made him a better man simply by her existence in the world. “You have stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me.” Perhaps we wish we could be a Rodrigue, or a Don Quichotte ~ tilting at windmills ~ or a Sydney, for our tenor. “It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything…”
His investment in each and every role, his intelligence and thoughtful interpretation of character, his quality as an actor…all are, of course, part of what goes into this alchemy. His unique voice, so dark and haunting. But there is something still indefinable and ineffable. A depth of humanity ~ an empathy ~ is communicated in every note. Too, perhaps one has the feeling ~ the imagining ~ that he is singing to you yourself, directly. I have heard masterful audiobook readers that, one would swear, are speaking directly to you, whispering in your ear and telling you the story, as though no one else was present. They are reading for you. And, they have the ability to communicate the heart of the story, as if from within. This almost ineffable poignancy and intimacy does come through, in the voice itself, when one has the gift of mastery. It is that special something that perhaps separates a talented voice from a masterful and life-changing one. It is this something that makes an audience applaud for an unheard-of number of minutes, interrupting the flow of an opera, to hear again the devastating “E lucevan le stelle” with unearthly pianissimo. Whatever “it” is, this something breaks our hearts and makes us wish to be better than we are, simply in gratitude that such beauty is possible in this world, like a glimpse of paradise.
“Mon âme, à votre voix, rêve du paradis!” / “My soul, at your voice, dreams of paradise!”
~ Don Carlos, Act II
Jonas’ unique voice, veiled and shadowy, communicates a mystery, a longing. If longing for the inexpressible had a voice, it would be his.
And, perhaps, in a better world than this, where time itself is irrelevant and there is no press of the crowd, no jostling for that impossible “moment” to communicate our thanks, our Jonas just might understand something of the impact that his hard work ~ and his great gift ~ have had upon each one of us. But I hope he glimpses it now, and that it makes him smile. Certainly, there is one little seamstress out West who will carry this gratitude in her heart always.
Don Carlo and the Seamstress 