Kaufmann was born in Munich. His father worked for an insurance company, and his mother was a kindergarten teacher. He had one older sister. He started studying piano when he was eight, and he sang in his elementary school choir. Although he studied for mathematics entrance exams, in the summer of 1989 he began his vocal training at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. While studying, he sang some small roles at the Bavarian State Opera. He graduated from school in 1994 achieving distinctions both in opera and concert performances.\n', 'In 1995, after a vocal crisis, Kaufmann received help from American baritone Michael Rhodes who taught him a "new way of singing" and how to become "more relaxed in my voice and in myself." In Kaufmann\'s book Meinen die wirklich mich? he said, "To find a Michael Rhodes that can really help you and bring you to success is really a great stroke of luck."\n', 'He began his professional career at Staatstheater Saarbrücken in 1994 and was soon invited to make debuts in German theaters such as the Stuttgart Opera and Hamburg State Opera, as well as international debuts at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opéra National de Paris, and La Scala. He made his Salzburg Festival debut in 1999 in a new production of Busoni\'s Doktor Faust and returned there in 2003 as Belmonte in Mozart\'s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and for concerts of Beethoven\'s Ninth Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic.\n', '

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