Thomas Hampson

Beginning March 11, Thomas Hampson gives his company role debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera as the treacherous Iago in Verdi’s Otello (five performances through March 30). Hampson first sang the role at Zurich Opera in fall 2011, and it joins other key Verdi roles – including Simon Boccanegra and, last season, Macbeth – that Hampson has sung in recent seasons at the Met.  Hampson joins  Argentinian tenor José Cura (Otello) and Krassimira Stoyanova (Desdemona) for this, Verdi’s penultimate opera, which received its triumphant world premiere (20 curtain calls for the composer!) at Milan’s La Scala in February 1887.  Hampson discusses his first Met Iago in the commentary that follows:

I am tremendously excited to be returning to the Met again this season. Last year, we celebrated 25 years since my debut with the company, and I was deeply moved by their show of affection for me and for their years of generous support.  To sing in a Met Otello is a milestone in any singer’s career, and I’ve waited for quite some time to sing Iago because I think you need a lot of experience with other Verdi roles to begin to understand it.  I’ve come to really love this role, which I was very afraid of at first.  But it really fits my vocal and theatrical abilities, perhaps even better than some of the other bigger Italian repertoire that I’ve done at the Met.  José Cura and I have done these roles together often, including last season in Zurich.  He’s a very dynamic, unpredictable, and exciting performer on stage, and one of the nicest colleagues you can work with.  Krassimira Stoyanova is an old friend and one of my closest colleagues in the business.  We’ve worked together frequently in Europe and she is one of the most beautiful and classy singers in the business today. If you really want to learn about singing, just listen to what she can do.  Our conductor is Alain Altinoglu, a shooting star if there ever was one – he  is very energetic and extremely capable.  I’ve seen this classic Met production many times, and look forward to what promises to be an extremely gratifying experience for both the performers and audience alike.

For his last stop in the US before returning to New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Thomas Hampson returns to Akron, Ohio for a “Song of America” program with pianist Craig Rutenberg.  Presented by the Tuesday Musical Association, the recital on Sunday, March 3 will feature a broad range of American songs by both well-known and lesser-known composers, from Stephen Foster, Charles Ives, Aaron Copland and Paul Bowles, to Arthur Farwell, William Grant Still, Margaret Bonds and Elinor Remick Warren.  Hampson comments:  “I always love doing ‘Song of America’ recitals wherever I can, but it’s a special honor to do one for one of the oldest and most important presenters in the country.  They were wonderfully understanding when I had to reschedule my fall recital, and I’m very pleased to be going back to Akron.”  Ticket information and the complete program is available here.

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Following performances of songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Indianapolis Symphony February 22 and 23, Thomas Hampson heads to San Francisco for a recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger.  Their program at Herbst Theatre on Tuesday, February 26 features music by Schumann and Barber, as well as the world premiere of a new song cycle by Michael Hersch. Hampson discusses the new work in the commentary that follows:

I’m thrilled to be going back to San Francisco for this recital, which will feature an important world premiere.  Composer Michael Hersch has written a beautiful cycle for me, Domicilium, based on poetry by Thomas Hardy.  I’ve known Michael for several years – in fact, one of the first conversations that he had about writing vocal music was with me and the Pittsburgh Symphony about 15 years ago, when he wrote that orchestral piece for them [Ashes of Memory], a powerful work that Mariss Jansons felt very strongly about. Michael and I have regular contact since then, and this new cycle is the first project we’ve done together.

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This spring, Thomas Hampson’s U.S. engagements take him from opera house to concert and recital hall, and from Verdi and Mahler to the latest in contemporary American composition. The baritone makes his company role debut as Iago in Otello at the Metropolitan Opera (March 11) and premieres new chamber works by Michael Hersch (Feb 26) and Mark Adamo (April 24), before touring the latter to the Boston Celebrity Series (April 26) and New York’s Lincoln Center (April 28). Besides singing songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Indianapolis Symphony (Feb 22–23), his orchestral collaborations also take him back to Europe to celebrate the 125^th anniversary of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a star-studded gala benefit (April 10) and reprise the title role of Simon Boccanegra with the Vienna Symphony, in a concert performance that will be recorded for future album release (April 13 & 17).

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Thomas Hampson sings songs of life and death by Mahler and Dvořák when he reunites with the Wiener Virtuosen for a five-concert tour that includes performances in Merano (Feb 11), Bern (Feb 12), Zurich (Feb 13), Innsbruck (Feb 15) and Vienna (Feb 17).  Mahler is arguably the composer with whom Hampson is most closely associated, and his 2010 recording of Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Wiener Virtuosen was widely acclaimed.  BBC Music Magazine called it “A wonderfully fresh imaginative take on the songs…a constantly absorbing recital [with] ‘pungent characterizations.’”  For their current tour, Hampson and the conductorless ensemble turn to Mahler’s harrowing Kindertotenlieder – songs on the death of children – a song cycle featuring five settings of poetry by Rückert that attempt to come to terms with incomprehensible loss.  Dvořák’s “Zigeunermelodien”, op. 55 makes for a fascinating counterbalance.  These passionate “Gypsy Songs” are considered by some to be Dvořák best work in the genre – the fourth in the set, “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” is perhaps his most famous melody – encompassing a wide range of emotions as they bring to life the indomitable spirit of the Gypsy people.

Both of the Mahler and Dvořák songs will be heard in arrangements commissioned by Hampson.  He explains:  “The thrust of the Mahler arrangement, which I also worked on myself, was to reduce the number of players while leaving the original orchestration by Mahler intact. I took Mahler’s comment about the ‘chamber tone’ of his song orchestration very seriously as to not interfere with his original intent in the iconography of instrumentation apparent in the structure of the Kindertotenlieder.”  About the Dvořák songs, Hampson notes:  “I asked my friend, the increasingly celebrated Czech composer Sylvie Bodorova, to arrange the songs for the same orchestration as the Mahler songs.  Her work is a beautiful dedication of an important contemporary Czech composer to her venerated master, Antonín Dvořák.”