Viva Puccini! – Die große Puccini-Gala mit Jonas Kaufmann by , Minn (2024/2024), Surmast Direttur Jochen Rieder, Wiener Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria

"It seemed to me that there was nothing more beautiful in the world than being able to write a work for the theater. To enchant the audience. To move them. To make them cheer," said Giacomo Puccini, overwhelmed by Verdi's "Aida," for which he made a pilgrimage on foot to Pisa, twenty kilometers away, in 1876 because he could not hear any modern operas in his birthplace of Lucca. This fascinatingly complex man, who loved hunting and cars, was different from his contemporaries. Dramaturgically too. He said goodbye to the classic heroic material of previous opera works. His protagonists were people next door, "the great pain in small souls" (Puccini). Like hardly anyone else, star tenor Jonas Kaufmann succeeds in bringing the moving feelings of ordinary people to the stages of the world and, in the spirit of Puccini, sweeping opera audiences and music critics into storms of enthusiasm. 2024 will mark the 100th anniversary of Puccini's death. With his program "Viva Puccini!", Jonas Kaufmann dedicates himself to the work of this extraordinary composer. A very personal homage with the most beautiful arias and scenes from his world-famous operas such as "La Bohème", "Tosca" and "Madame Butterfly" - interpreted by the German State Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Jochen Rieder, soprano Maria Agresta and "the greatest tenor of our time" (The Daily Telegraph).