Tenor Jonas Kaufmann has signed an exclusive, long-term agreement with Sony Classical and has recorded his debut album for the label. ‘The Verdi Album’, due for release in September, includes 13 highlights of the composer’s operatic repertoire, including 11 firsts for the singer. Featured are tenor arias and scenes from Macbeth, Luisa Miller, La forza del destino, Un ballo in maschera, Otello, Aida, Il trovatore, I masnadieri and Simon Boccanegra. The album was recorded in Auditorium Niccolò Paganini in Parma with Pier Giorgio Morandi conducting the Orchestra dell'Opera di Parma.

Giuseppe Verdi is ‘a man of the people: his music is so powerful that it reaches people and moves them even outside the world of opera,’ says Kaufmann. ‘Quite simply, Verdi is musically synonymous with Italy. Everyone knows his melodies and can sing them. Then there is Verdi the great dramatist, the man who set plays by Shakespeare and Schiller and who was 74 when he wrote a piece that sounds more modern and bold than anything he had written until then: Otello. When I recorded these two scenes for my Verdi album, I was so drawn into the sway of the music that I wish I could have sung the whole part on stage straightaway, but I shall have to be patient, because it will be a couple of years before I sing my first Otello in the theatre.’

Now one of the world’s most sought-after tenors, Kaufmann made his international breakthrough with Verdi in 2006 when he sang Alfredo Germont in La traviata at the New York Met. This year he has taken on three productions of Don Carlo (in London, Milan and Salzburg) and two role debuts in Il trovatore and La forza del destino.

Formerly signed to Decca Classics, Kaufmann released his debut album of 'Romantic Arias' for the label in 2008. His most recent album for Decca, 'Wagner', recorded under Donald Runnicles with the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, was released in February 2013. He has also recorded for EMI, Harmonia Mundi and Mariinsky.