The Belgrade Music Festival – BEMUS proudly announces the first concert in Belgrade of the world’s greatest tenor today – Jonas Kaufmann!!
The star of the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, and Vienna State Opera will brighten the stage of the Blue Hall of Sava Center on October 1st, together with the conductor Jochen Rieder and Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra, at the opening of the most important art music festival in Belgrade and Serbia.
Our audience will enjoy the best tenor arias and songs from the movies.
Starting from June 28th tickets can be purchased online at tickets.rs and at Ticket Vision outlets (including Trg Republike, Ušće Shopping Center and Cvetni trg).
Jonas Kaufmann, tenor
Hailed as “the world’s greatest tenor” by The Telegraph, Jonas Kaufmann has performed over 70 roles in the world’s leading opera houses. The New York Times has described him as having “clarion top notes, the blend of virility and tenderness in his singing,” and praised his “refined musicianship.” Not only a great vocal technician, his performances are also praised for their dramatic impact, “He embodies each role with such an investment that he makes the viewer think that this is the last time he will perform this work.” (Telerama). One of today’s greatest interpreters of Lieder repertoire, Kaufmann is also in very high demand in concert. His performances and recording have earned him multiple honors and awards including eleven ECHO/OPUS Klassik awards, “Singer of the Year” from multiple classical music magazines including Opernwelt, Diapason and Musical America. He has been knighted as a Chevalier de l’Ordre de l’Art et des Lettres, and has been named a member of the Bayerischer Maximiliansorden. In 2022 he was appointed Austrian Kammersänger, in 2024 he received the Ordre de la Légion d’honneur.
Last season, Kaufmann has appeared at the Bavarian State Opera (Peter Grimes and La Fanciulla del West), the Vienna State Opera (Andrea Chenier and Aida), Zurich Opera (Tosca), La Scala Milan (Andrea Chenier), Teatro San Carlo in Naples (Die Walküre) and the Royal Opera House in London (Werther), among others. He also made his long-awaited role debut as Tannhäuser at the Salzburg Easter Festival. To mark the festival’s centenary, Kaufmann gave a concert in the Arena di Verona, together with Sonya Yoncheva and Ludovic Tézier.
At the beginning of the new season he presented a special project with Helmut Deutsch and director Claus Guth at the Park Avenue Armory in New York: Doppelgänger, a staged interpretation of Schubert’s Schwanengesang. Following a series of Otello and a new production of Turandot at the Vienna State Opera Kaufmann performed the first act of Die Walküre in the End-of-the-year concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, a series of concerts (The Sound of Movies) in Baden-Baden, Prague, Naples and Munich. After new productions of La Gioconda at the Salzburg Easter Festival and at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples he has given performances of Aida at the Bavarian State Opera and Andrea Chenier at the Royal Opera House. Planned performances until the end of the season include concerts at the Theater im Park in Vienna and the Kurpark in Wiesbaden as well as concert performances of Act 2 of Tristan and Isolde in Gstaad and Baden-Baden.
A voice which excels in a large variety of repertoire, Kaufmann has received recognition for his performance of French, German and Italian roles, as well as his performance in recital. Standout roles include Don José, Werther, Don Carlo, Otello, Andrea Chenier, Maurizio, Lohengrin, Parsifal and Florestan, which he has performed at houses such as Teatro alla Scala, Covent Garden, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera, Opernhaus Zürich, Opéra national de Paris, and the Wiener Staatsoper. He has released multiple recordings, also encompassing diverse repertoire, including operatic repertoire, Lieder, operetta, and more.
A native of Munich, Germany, Jonas Kaufmann completed his vocal studies there at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, in addition to which he attended master classes with Hans Hotter, James King and Josef Metternich. During his first years on stage at the State Theatre in Saarbrücken he continued his training with Michael Rhodes in Trier.
Jochen Rieder, conductor
Teatro alla Scala, Carnegie Hall and Frankfurt's Alte Oper - Jochen Rieder is a regular guest in many of the world's leading opera houses and concert halls, collaborating with some of today's most admired soloists and orchestra. An enthusiastic artist widely recognized especially for his work with German and Italian repertoire, Maestro Rieder has lead critically acclaimed performances and CD productions across the world.
Over the years, a long and intense musical friendship has become established with tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Together, they have performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Barbican Centre, the Philharmonie of Berlin, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Philharmonie of Munich, the Stuttgart Liederhalle, Baden-Baden’s Festspielhaus, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, the KKL Lucerne, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Essen Philharmonic Hall, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Peralada Festival, Seoul Arts Center in South Korea, Menuhin-Festival Gstaad/CH, the Royal Opera House Muscat/Oman, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Sydney Opera House/Australia, the Movistar Arena Santiago de Chile/South America, Teatro Real Madrid, Schlossfestspiele Regensburg, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Osaka Festival Hall, the Suntory-Hall Tokyo, the Waldbühne Berlin, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Carnegie Hall New York, Elbphilharmonie and Arena di Verona.
He conducts numerous renowned orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala Milano, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, RAI Symphony Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest The Hague and BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Besides concerts all over the world, they made several recordings together, released by SONY: 2014 with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin CD and DVD with Operette-Arias (awarded with Platinum and Gold and the «Echo-Klassik 2015»), 2015 the DVD of the Puccini-concert at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, which has also been screened in many cinemas, 2016 the DVD «Dolce Vita – My Italy», accompanied by the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI di Torino and 2018 CD and DVD «An italian night», from the Waldbühne Berlin, again with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and awarded with the OPUS KLASSIK 2019. Further Releases have been 2020 “My Vienna”, 2020 “It´s Christmas” and 2023 “The Sound Of Movies”.
A further recording conducted by Rieder, was released in 2015 by NAXOS, containing Mahler’s orchestral songs with Swedish baritone Peter Mattei and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.
Most recently he conducted opera performances in Cape Town/South Africa, at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Düsseldorf as well as concerts with russian soprano Aida Garifullina in Vienna, Prague and Moscow, with violinist Daniel Röhn in the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Prinzregententheater Munich as well as a “Das Lied von der Erde” tour with the Sinfonieorchester Basel.
Conductor Jochen Rieder was born in the German region of Rhineland-Palatinate. He has followed a classic Kapellmeister career path that has taken him from conducting positions in Karlsruhe via Bremen to the Zurich Opera House.
Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra
The Vojvodina Symphony Orchestra, founded in February 2011 in Novi Sad, is a reputable ensemble committed to artistic excellence. In the past period, it has successfully performed over seventy premiere programmes, with the participation of world-renowned domestic and foreign conductors. The orchestra has performed close to 170 concerts so far, especially excelling in the late-Romantic repertoire, but also in interpretations of works created in the 20th and 21st centuries, collaborating with renowned conductors and soloists such as Maxim Vengerov, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Misha Maisky, Nemanja Radulović, Janoska Ensemble and many more.
