Kaufmann - The Age of Puccini (2015)

Caveat emptor (from a major US daily): It is tough enough to sell albums these days. So it was intriguing when Jonas Kaufmann, perhaps the most famous, sought-after tenor in the world, took to social media on Tuesday and warned fans off of a planned Decca release of his singing. Why? It is a case of dueling Puccini albums.

Mr. Kaufmann has been working on an album for Sony Classical called “Nessun Dorma: The Puccini Album,” which he recorded in Rome last fall with the conductor Antonio Pappano, for release in September. On Facebook Mr. Kaufmann described it as the “ ‘real’ Puccini album.” But Decca is pre-empting it, assembling an album due in August titled “Jonas Kaufmann – The Age of Puccini” that features older recordings of Mr. Kaufmann singing a few Puccini arias and works by other composers. That seems to have angered him.

“Please don’t let yourselves be deceived by the Decca release ‘Jonas Kaufmann — The Age of Puccini,’ ” Mr. Kaufmann wrote to his fans on Facebook (in German, English and French, for good measure). He wrote that the Decca release includes only three Puccini tracks, with much of it made up of arias from other composers from his 2010 Decca recording “Verismo Arias.”

“Therefore familiar recordings — in new packaging,” he wrote of the Decca album. “I was not consulted in its making, this was done without my knowledge and approval.”

Mr. Kaufmann wrote online that “Nessun Dorma,” the Sony album, would be all Puccini, containing arias and scenes from “Manon Lescaut,” “La Bohème,” “Tosca,” “La Fanciulla del West” and, as the title aria suggests, “Turandot.”

Representatives of Decca and Sony did not immediately return email messages or phone calls seeking comment.