Kaufmann: opera schedules are a "nightmare"

Jonas Kaufmann has told Classic FM that fixing performance schedules so far in advance is "artistically speaking, a nightmare".

Voices are continually changing and thus the repertoire that singers can and should be singing changes too. Opera houses and concert halls plan schedules years in advance and so, Kaufmann says, “we have to guess where our voice is aiming at”.

Kaufmann draws a comparison with the visual art world: “If you have a painter and you force him to choose the colours for a picture he’s probably going to paint in 2016, he would call you mad, because he would never ever know what he’s going to paint at that time, but we have to.”

Hear Jonas Kaufmann in an exclusive interview with Classic FM