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Easter in Salzburg, Recital in Brussels and a New Recording

Thomas Hampson returns to the Salzburg Easter Festival this month to co-star in Richard Strauss’s Arabella, the German composer’s sixth and final opera collaboration with librettist Hugo von Hoffmansthal. Hampson sings the role of Mandryka, reuniting with superstar soprano Renée Fleming, who takes on the title role, and conductor Christian Thielemann. In between the two performances (April 12 and 21), which celebrate the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, Hampson joins the Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of Thielemann and Christoph Eschenbach, for a “Concert for Salzburg” featuring music by Mozart and Strauss (April 17).

Hampson also pays tribute to the Strauss Sesquicentennial with the release this month of an all-Strauss recital recording entitled Notturno. The album, pairing Hampson with his long-time collaborator, pianist Wolfram Rieger, takes its name from Strauss’s expressionistic Op. 44 song featuring poetry by Richard Dehmel portraying the macabre figure of Fiddling Death. The new DG release features popular and lesser-known songs written throughout Strauss’s career.
Have a first listen to the album on Soundcloud.
Pre-order Notturno → CD | → Download

Hampson closes out the month with a recital on April 27 in Brussels, Belgium, a program of mostly late-Romantic songs, including works by Richard Strauss, songs to texts by Dehmel by Alexander von Zemlinsky, R. Strauss, Alma Mahler-Schindler and Arnold Schoenberg, and three of Gustav Mahler’s “Rückertlieder.” Wolfram Rieger is once again Hampson’s partner at the piano.