The world's "hottest" tenor
“The world's greatest tenor” - The Telegraph, UK
“The greatest tenor of our day” - The New York Times, USA
Jonas Kaufmann
The Sound of Movies
Film music sung by Jonas Kaufmann!
It is impossible to even imagine a movie without music. Music does not merely enhance the effect of the image; it often evokes emotions that are more intense and lasting than the image itself. While music can leave a strong impression without visuals, a film cannot achieve such an effect without music. Even during the era of silent films, people were well aware of this, which is why pianists or small orchestras were employed to accompany the visuals throughout the screening; these live performances contributed greatly to the audience's emotional experience. Therefore, it is not surprising that from the dawn of sound films, the demand for great composers was as overflowing as that for famous actors or directors. Among them, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Max Steiner are revered today as the fathers of film music. The works they produced in Hollywood became the cornerstone of a great tradition that extended from Franz Waxman and Roger Miklós to Bernard Herrmann, and later to Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, and Hans Zimmer. What would have happened if Korngold's music were removed from Errol Flynn's adventure films, or if Bernard Herrmann's music were absent from Hitchcock's classics *Vertigo* or *Psycho*? The emotional impact of these works would undoubtedly have been reduced by more than half. Furthermore, I dare to assert that if it were possible to steal the emotional foundation created by music from a film, that film would lose most of its efficacy.
On the other hand, the dazzling success of early sound films owed much to vocalists such as Richard Tauber, Josef Schmidt, and Jan Kiepura who were active in Berlin, as well as Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in Hollywood. Mario Lanza was also a figure who achieved great success in the film industry, and his 1951 film *The Great Caruso* opened the doors wide, inviting people of all generations into the world of opera.
As an avid movie buff and a singer, I cannot help but be extremely fond of all kinds of vocal numbers included in various soundtracks from around the world, and this is likely why the process of scouring the vast treasury of film music to find the most beautiful pieces for my new album felt so enjoyable. The resulting album is like a crystallization of the gems recorded in over 80 years of cinematic history. Whether they were inserted to support the visuals or treated as pure music, all these works hold a deep place in my heart.
