Actually, we agree on several aspects of Kaufmann’s vocalism. The voice, dark in its lower range ever since his vocal re-set early in his career, has grown yet darker, and the texture thicker. While I don’t think it’s true that he doesn’t sing legato (notes and phrases are generally connected where they’re supposed to be), he does not often employ the kind of legato you and I both prefer—a supple kind, with the suggestion of portamento and messa di voce always behind it, even when not overt. A good share of the time, he sings “square,” and that often sounds inexpressive. You impute this to dysfunction, whereas I’m more inclined to hear the stylistic choices of a modern singer, who believes he’s singing cleanly and without Late Romantic/Veristic indulgences. (See my remarks on Andrea Chénier, below.) I am your ally in finding this misguided, but we’re speaking right now about functionality.

The “springboard” appoggio (more accurately, I think, acciaccatura): I was aware of one or two instances of this bad habit in the Tristan. Listening for it in the Chénier excerpts I heard online (recent Munich and Vienna performances), I can’t say I found much evidence of it. But it’s interesting to discuss anyway. We are again in agreement that this is not the ideal way to approach an upward interval, and though I admit to a sneaky fondness for it as an effect in some instances, as a repeated offense it can be truly annoying. The classic reference on this would be to Giuseppe di Stefano, for whom it was practically a default setting. (And once a phenomenally successfuI singer has legitimized a quirk like this, many feel at liberty to incorporate it.) I wonder if you’d further agree with me that we find this notion almost exclusively in male voices, and most frequently in tenors? (I have heard it occasionally in low-voiced females trying to jump the break, sometimes in a shamelessly provincial form with an added syllable, e.g., the Habañera: “La-ha-mour, lamour.“)  So whether we like it or not, we owe it to the Grand Cause to ask why it is that certain very gifted singers sense some advantage in it. You suggest, not illogically, that it’s because there’s a gap in the passaggio area that the singer tries to leap. But I don’t think that’s the case with either Di Stefano or Kaufmann. And these are tenors of almost opposed techniques, Kaufmann’s roughly as you have described it (though I have been unable to take my tape measure to JK’s throat to determine the depth of his laryngeal suspension), di Stefano’s geared toward a wide, lifted position, with overly open vowels. ^(I)