Tenor Jonas Kaufmann, center, in a dress rehearsal of “Doppleganger” by director Claus Guth at the Park Avenue Armory in New York on Sept. 23, 2023. (Monika Rittershaus/Park Avenue Armory via AP)
Finally recovered from a string of illness, tenor Jonas Kaufmann rose from one of 62 neatly ordered hospital beds at the Park Avenue Armory to perform a collection of Schubert songs in “Doppleganger.”
For 80 solid minutes, the spotlight shone on Kaufmann, whose voice was in fine form as he portrayed a wounded World War I soldier. Surrounded by beds sat Helmut Deutsch’s Steinway in director Claus Guth’s New York debut.
After a string of cancellations, Kaufmann said in early July he had a multi-drug resistant germ infection that caused congested lungs. He was prescribed a high dosage of antibiotics, recuperated at his home in Salzburg, Austria, and returned for performances last month in Australia and Italy.
“My physical strength is maybe at 98% or something, but almost there,” he said before the New York run that began last week and ends Friday. “The side effects of the antibiotics were really, really strong. I had lots of problems with the joints and muscles and really aching.”
The infection came after Kaufmann said he had his fourth bout of COVID-19.
Kaufmann has known Guth since they both attended Munich’s Hochschule für Musik und Theatre. Guth directed Kaufmann in Schubert’s “Fierrabras” at the Zurich Opera in 2002 and staged Schubert’s unfinished “Lazarus” at Austria’s Theatre an der Wien in 2013.
Pierre Audi, the armory’s artistic director since 2015, asked Guth to create a project with Kaufmann. Working with designer Michael Levine, Guth scheduled “Doppleganger” for October 2020 only for the coronavirus pandemic to force a postponement.
“Schubert is like a friend of mine in the heart since very early,” Guth said. “This kind of Schubert bell was ringing again.” “Doppelganger” presented challenges with…
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