The new album "Magische Töne" by Jonas Kaufmann contains some of the most beautiful operetta and opera melodies. In addition to evergreens by Emmerich Kálmán, Franz Lehár and Paul Abraham, it also contains one of the most popular arias in the tenor repertoire: the eponymous Magical Tones from the opera The Queen of Sheba by Karl Goldmark. After Vienna, now Budapest: Jonas Kaufmann has recorded his new album there with the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera, conducted by Dirk Kaftan. The focus is on highlights by composers from the era of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy (1867-1918), with evergreens from the operettas of Emmerich (Imre) Kálmán, Franz (Ferenc) Lehár and Paul (Pál) Abraham leading the way. "There is an incredible musical wealth that this era has produced," summarizes Kaufmann. "Looking back, we can be glad that the majority of these works were premiered in Vienna and written in German, which quickly made them internationally known and popular." In Hungarian, they would probably have remained a national art form - just like the operettas by Jenő Huszka (1875-1960), which were hardly ever performed outside Hungary despite their qualities. For this album, Kaufmann chose one of Huszka's best-known titles: Bob's entrance song from the operetta Bob herceg. "There the whole world is still red-white-green" - is the last word in the duet Komm mit nach Varasdin from Kálmán's Countess Mariza. Of course, the colors of the Hungarian tricolor can be heard just as clearly in the music as in the lyrics and thus also represent a piece of national identity. But this second heyday of operetta also stands for that melancholy memory of a liberal, cosmopolitan, culturally diverse Europe that perished with the First World War and which Stefan Zweig described so vividly in his memoirs The World of Yesterday. Jonas Kaufmann's duet partner is Nikola Hillebrand, who has recently become one of the most sought-after sopranos of her generation. For Dirk Kaftan, the conductor of the album, the recordings were a welcome reacquaintance with a genre that he studied in depth during his time as General Music Director in Graz. "Above all, you have to empathize with a musical language that cannot be written down. Gustav Mahler's famous sentence applies to this repertoire in particular: 'The most important things are not in the notes! This is another reason why I found the recording sessions with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra so gratifying: the musicians know exactly what it's about and how to make it sound." In Paul Ábrahám's innovative style, which enriched the operetta genre with elements of jazz, foxtrot and revue, Kaftan sees a clear parallel to the works of Kurt Weill, as "a means of expressing a future that was destroyed by the National Socialists". Two opera titles round off the new album: the aria Hazám, hazám ("My homeland") from the opera Bánk bán by Ferenc Erkel - a passionate commitment to the Hungarian homeland - and "Magische Töne", the famous aria from Karl (Károly) Goldmark's The Queen of Sheba. These tones become magical when the singer knows how to coax delicate, intimate piano sounds from his voice in an exposed position - something that is particularly appealing to Jonas Kaufmann: "Someone once said to me: your loud tones are thrilling, but your quiet ones drive me crazy. Dramatic tones probably have more of an effect on the listener's body and nervous system, the quiet ones on the heart and soul."