Jonas Kaufmann Named Intendant of Austria's Tyrol Festival Erl

The German-Austrian tenor will initially hold the role between 2024 and 2030

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann will succeed Tiroler-Festspiele Erl's present Intendant Bernd Loebe on September 1, 2024 — at the close of that summer's season. Kaufmann's contract will extend until 2030.

The search committee was comprised of Haselsteiner State Opera director Bogdan Rošcic, Volksopern director Lotte de Beer and the head of the culture department in Carinthia, Brigitte Winkler-Komar. They lauded Kaufmann's enthusiasm and ideas for the festival, selecting him from a pool of 43 applicants.

A native of Munich, Kaufmann is one of the world's best-known tenors and has performed over 70 roles in the world’s leading opera houses. He takes on roles in French, German, and Italian as well as performs in lieder recitals.

His 2022/23 season includes the title role in Peter Grimes and Dick Johnson in La Fanciulla del West at the Bayerische Staatsoper, the title role in Andrea Chenier at the Wiener Staatsoper and Teatro alla Scala, Cavaradossi in Tosca at the Opernhaus Zürich, Radames in Aida at the Wiener Staatsoper, his role debut as Tannhäuser at the Salzburger Osterfestspiele, Siegmund in Die Walküre at the Teatro San Carlo and the title role in Werther at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden

His latest album with Sony Classical Insieme, released in October 2022, includes a selection of duets with Ludovic Tézier.

"With Jonas Kaufmann, a new era of the Erl Festival will be ushered in,"  said Andrea Mayer, the Secretary of State for Art and Culture. "Jonas Kaufmann's career and art can only be described in superlatives. He is a sensitive, gifted interpreter, masters an immense repertoire, transcending temporal and genre-specific boundaries, and cultivates a lively engagement with the works and their composers."

"I am very much looking forward to this honorable task and I hope to be able to lead the Tyrol Festival Erl to artistic heights with a combination of Erl tradition and new focuses," Kaufmann said.

"I came into contact with this music at an early age through one grandfather (a fervent Wagnerian), and through the other — who spent the last 25 years of his life in Tyrol — this federal state has grown dear to me; this fact can definitely be called fate. How extremely exciting it will be to be able to pull the strings behind the scenes here for the first time!"