The contribution to opera made by Giuseppe Verdi, born two centuries ago this year in October of 1813, can scarcely be calculated. As for the appeal of his music to Hampson as an interpreter, the singer explains: “Verdi has such an astounding understanding of human nature and he always finds, in his mature operas at least, the way to articulate that in his musical language.” At London’s Covent Garden this summer the baritone reprises the title role of Simon Boccanegra, in a revival of last October’s production at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, about which the Chicago Tribune observed: “At a time when true Verdi baritones are a rare commodity, he gave an impressive and deeply considered performance in this touchstone Verdi role.” As then, the London staging comes courtesy of Elijah Moshinsky, whose direction Hampson reports having “very much learned to trust.” The Tribune confirms: “Moshinsky set forth the dark, complicated story with commendable directness and restraint, honoring Verdi’s dramatic purposes.”

Hampson will head a strong cast at Covent Garden, featuring Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto, dubbed “today’s reigning Fiesco” (Chicago Tribune), and Abkhazian/Russian soprano Hibla Gerzmava – “the most remarkable new talent encountered in many a year” (Opera Today) – as Amelia Grimaldi. Leading from the podium will be Antonio Pappano, whom Hampson considers “one of the greatest opera conductors of our time,” and whose leadership of Verdi’s La traviata at the Royal Opera House in 2009, also starring the baritone and since issued on disc, boasted “quality as befits a major international house” (Independent, UK). In the midst of their six London dates, Pappano will lead Hampson and the cast in a concert performance of the opera with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House in Birmingham on July 7.

Hampson and Pappano reunite for their second Verdi opera of the summer at the Salzburg Festival, where the baritone makes six appearances as Rodrigo in a new production of Don Carlo from venerable German director Peter Stein. German tenor Jonas Kaufmann sings the title role, with soprano Anja Harteros – the first German to win the Cardiff Singer of the World competition – as Elisabetta di Valois. Hampson’s many previous collaborations with Pappano include an acclaimed EMI Classics DVD/CD set of the opera, which was recorded live at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris.

It is also with selected arias and duets from Don Carlo that the baritone joins Rolando Villazón to salute Verdi in concert, with Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at Munich’s Odeonsplatz.

As with Verdi, this year represents a milestone anniversary for Benjamin Britten, who was born in November 1913. A lifelong pacifist whose earliest memories were of the First World War years, the English composer incorporated war poems by his compatriot Wilfred Owen into the War Requiem, his non-liturgical setting of the requiem mass. At the Salzburg Festival this summer, Hampson will sing the role of the German Soldier with Anna Netrebko and Ian Bostridge as his fellow soloists, supported by Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. After Hampson’s account of the work at London’s Royal Albert Hall in 2008, Music-Web International admired “Pappano’s command of the orchestra,” and observed: “Bostridge and Thomas Hampson’s German Soldier make for an intriguingly complementary pair, given the latter’s habitual patrician air and his richly burnished tone.”

The bicentennial of Richard Wagner’s birth fell last month. Rounding out Hampson’s summer of anniversaries is a revival of Peter Konwitschny’s “near perfect” (Sunday Times, UK) take on the arch-Romantic’s final opera, Parsifal, at the Bavarian State Opera. As the New York Times noted when the baritone sang the ruler of the Grail kingdom at the Met, “Hampson has made something of a specialty of the agonized, desperate Amfortas.” Conducted by Kent Nagano, the upcoming Munich production will also star British tenor Christopher Ventris – following his “excellent” (Telegraph, UK) account of the part in Bayreuth – in the title role.

A list of Hampson’s upcoming engagements follows, and additional information is available at www.thomashampson.com.

Thomas Hampson: summer engagements 

June 27; July 1, 3, 10, 13 & 16
London, UK
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Antonio Pappano
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra (title role)

July 6
Munich, Germany
Odeonsplatz
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus / Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Verdi: arias and duets in concert
With Rolando Villazón, tenor

July 7
Birmingham, UK
Town Hall & Symphony Hall
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House / Antonio Pappano
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra in concert (title role)

July 31
Munich, Germany
Bayerische Staatsoper
Bavarian State Orchestra / Kent Nagano
Wagner: Parsifal (Amfortas)

Aug 13, 16, 19, 22, 25 & 28
Salzburg, Austria
Salzburger Festspiele
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra / Antonio Pappano
Verdi: Don Carlo (Rodrigo)

Aug 18
Salzburg, Austria
Salzburger Festspiele
Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia / Antonio Pappano
Britten: War Requiem (German soldier)

Italian-American composer Mark Adamo (b. 1962) is best known for his operas Little Women and Lysistrata; the New Yorker’s Alex Ross calls him “one of the best opera composers of the moment.” Yet Adamo’s exceptional ear for vocal writing also lends itself to other lyric forms, as already evidenced by his settings of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, his song cycle The Racer’s Widow, and his cantata, Late Victorians. For Hampson, “[Adamo’s] ability to write lyric music” makes for “some of the most extraordinary music being written today.”

Adamo’s new chamber work, Aristotle, is the setting of a poem of the same name by former national Poet Laureate Billy Collins, which explores the nature of beginnings (where “almost anything can happen”), middles (“the sticky part where the plot congeals”), and the ends that are, “according to Aristotle, what we have all been waiting for.” Shedding light on the poem’s appeal to him as a composer, Adamo explains:

“If you’re awarded the privilege of making music for a singing actor the caliber of Thomas Hampson, and for young musicians of the caliber of the Jupiters, one wants to compose a piece that is both a substantial monologue and a structurally rewarding string quartet at the same time. Billy Collins’s pellucid Aristotle made that possible. The range of Collins’s images nudged the string writing into new (for me) colors and registers while demanding each movement retain its own character.”

For Hampson’s upcoming appearances at the Mondavi Center in Davis, Boston’s Jordan Hall, and New York’s Alice Tully Hall, he will be joined by the Jupiter String Quartet, which recently impressed the Washington Post with its combination of “freewheeling excitement and precise ensemble playing.” Besides giving the first performances of Aristotle together, Hampson and the quartet will also team up at all three venues for selected Lieder by Hugo Wolf.

The new commission marks the baritone’s second world premiere of 2012-13, which is the fourth consecutive season in which he will have presented world or North American premieres. As Hampson confides, he considers himself “so blessed to have the kind of career where I can do so much of the great standard repertoire with the world’s best conductors but also get to work with so many important composers of our own time.”

Hampson was most recently seen at the Vienna Symphony, giving concert performances in the title role of Simon Boccanegra that were recorded for future release on the Decca label (April 13 & 17). Verdi’s Doge has become something of a signature role; at Lyric Opera Chicago, John von Rhein concluded that “at a time when true Verdi baritones are a rare commodity, [Hampson] gave an impressive and deeply considered performance in this touchstone Verdi role” (Chicago Tribune). The baritone next looks forward to reprising his portrayal at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he will headline a production of Simon Boccanegra by Elijah Moshinsky, with Antonio Pappano on the podium (June 27–July 16).

The concert will be webcast live on medici.tv, where it will then be available for free for the next 90 days: more information here.

Hampson discusses the festival in the commentary that follows:

The model, idealistically speaking, is Tanglewood – the kind of American festival campus atmosphere with educational events and performances.  It’s an oasis of a two week seminar for young singers who need to regroup and gather together everything they need to get at the heart of what songs are all about.  Why are they written?  Why are songs cultural identifiers, regardless of the culture or epoch they come from?  This informing process enlivens the technical process.  I do the bulk of the teaching, but Thomas Quasthoff is splitting the duties with me this year.  Lieder professor, and one of my long-time collaborators, pianist Wolfram Rieger, will be teaching during the second week of the Academy as well.  We also have a series of lectures by some of the most important German literature experts who as well know about music history.  My friend Jens Malte Fischer, well known in America for his Mahler biography, heads the lectures series, which we work on together.  It’s all very exciting stuff – and lots of fun. This is a passion of mine and it is very important to me.

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.

A high point for Hampson last season was the debut of the “Song of America” radio series.  Hosted by Hampson and co-produced by his Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network, the “Song of America” radio series has proven to be extremely popular, having aired on 311 radio stations and in nine out of the top ten markets in the U.S. According to data gathered by the WFMT Radio Network, the series reached approximately 5.3 million listeners in the U.S. and was one of the WFMT Radio Network’s most successful series.  Song of America was also made available by the European Broadcasting Union to its 48 member stations in 2012, and it reached another 3.1 million listeners abroad. Stations outside of the United States that aired the series included Raidió Teilifís Éireann (Ireland’s national public service broadcaster), New Zealand Public Radio (NZPR), and public radio stations in Croatia, Romania, Denmark, Latvia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

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.

I think it’s wonderful that this young American composer has focused on the poetry of such an important and influential English author as Thomas Hardy, whose poems are known to music lovers through well-known settings by Finzi.  The cycle is comprised of five songs and the first one is only for the piano.  In typical Hersch fashion, he’s gone to using “extracts” – almost Haiku-esque poems of Hardy that are extremely abstractionist.  The story in these poems is in the bits that aren’t actually said!  It’s hard to describe the effect in words, but Hersch has created a soundscape of supposed memory and implied emotions.  It’s very powerful stuff.

I’m so pleased that this important new work is on a great program that starts with a quintessential song cycle by Schumann, his Liederkreis Op. 39.  This cycle, which features poems by Eichendorff, is, in its own way, abstract.  We’re also doing a number of songs by Samuel Barber.  I find Barber and Schumann very close compatriots in the landscape of the soul in song.  Together with the Hersch work this will be a challenging but I think very engaging recital.

For ticket and additional information visit: http://sfperformances.org/performances/1213/ThomasHampson.html

In the opera house: first Iago at the Met

Hampson’s upcoming appearances in Otellomark his second Verdian Met role debut in as many seasons; last March he sang his first Macbeth for the company, impressing Opera Brittanica with his “energetic, fiercely committed performance,” while the Financial Times observed: “Hampson knows how to project incisive power on his own estimable terms, and he focuses the tragedy with abiding intelligence.”

It was also last season that the baritone made his role debut as Iago at Zurich Opera. As Opera News reported:

“[The] molding of the principal characters was so masterful that they emerged as our contemporaries. This was especially true of Thomas Hampson’s Iago, presented as an intellectual of the caliber of Henry Kissinger. Hampson declaimed his lines as if he had just passed the final exam of some rhetoric course, enjoying to the full every nuance of Verdi’s melodic prose, his voice projecting the text’s insinuations with the accuracy of a guided missile.”

Now Hampson resumes his portrayal of the Machiavellian Iago in the Met’s revival of Elijah Moshinsky’s “imposing 1994 production” (New York Times). Argentinean tenor José Cura co-stars in his signature role as Otello, with Bulgarian soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as Desdemona, and Alain Altinoglu on the podium.

In recital, including world premieres of two new commissions

No stranger to new music, it was Hampson who created the starring role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere production of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier, which was written to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks; the Los Angeles Times describes how “the great baritone Thomas Hampson, a larger-than-life Rick Rescorla, won our hearts.”

It is in recital, however, that the baritone – a passionate advocate of the art of song – debuts two new commissions from American composers this spring. The first of these is Domicilium by Michael Hersch (b.1971), “one of the most fertile musical minds to emerge in the U.S. over the past generation” (Financial Times). Set to poems by Thomas Hardy, Domicilium is a song cycle in four parts that marks the composer’s first vocal writing in over a decade. Hersch explains what drew him to the poet’s work: “At its best, Hardy’s writing exhibits a remarkable power and immediacy; an ability, at least for me, to cut to the bone of whatever subject he engages with.” Hampson gives the song cycle’s world premiere in recital with pianist Wolfram Rieger at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, on a program with Schumann’s beloved Liederkreis and selected songs by Samuel Barber (Feb 26).

Two months later, the baritone teams up with the Jupiter String Quartet to give the first performances of a second new commission, by Mark Adamo (b.1962), whose first opera, Little Women, was pronounced “a masterpiece” by the New York Times. A lyrical song cycle titled That Year, the new chamber work places vocal settings of four contemporary poems at the center of a surreal, modern, and intensely personal response to Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” Coupled with selected lieder for baritone and string quartet by Hugo Wolf, That Year will receive its world premiere at UC Davis on April 24, followed by its East Coast premiere at Boston’s New England Conservatory on April 26, and its New York premiere in Alice Tully Hall two days later.

A high point for Hampson last season was the debut of the “Song of America” radio series, which explores the history of American culture through song. On March 3, the baritone will be joined by pianist Craig Rutenberg for a “Song of America” recital at the Tuesday Musical Association in Akron, OH, where their program will rangefar and wide across the American songbook, from Copland, Barber, and Ives to Hopkinson, Bowles, and Farwell. As the New York Times comments,

“Hampson conveys the idea of an oral tradition that it is his mission to pass on, with the closed-eyed intensity of a blind poet when he is singing, and the zeal of an evangelist when he is addressing the audience about its cultural heritage.”

Hosted by the singer and co-produced by his Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network, the “Song of America” radio series has proven to be extremely popular, having aired on 311 radio stations and in nine out of the top ten markets in the U.S. According to data gathered by the WFMT Radio Network, the series reached approximately 5.3 million listeners in the U.S. and was one of the WFMT Radio Network’s most successful series.  Song of America was also made available by the European Broadcasting Union to its 48 member stations in 2012, and it reached another 3.1 million listeners abroad. Stations outside of the United States that aired the series included Raidió Teilifís Éireann (Ireland’s national public service broadcaster), New Zealand Public Radio (NZPR), and public radio stations in Croatia, Romania, Denmark, Latvia, Serbia, the Czech Republic, and Germany.

In the concert hall in Indianapolis, Amsterdam, Vienna, and more

Mahler is arguably the composer with whom Hampson is most closely associated. Internationally recognized as “one of the composer’s leading interpreters” (Guardian, UK), the baritone’s 2010 Deutsche Grammophon recording of Mahler’s orchestral song settings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn was welcomed by Fanfare magazine as “one to treasure for years to come.” Similarly, London’s Daily Telegraph declared:

“Mahler’s whole world is here rendered in a fabulously piercing and tender performance. … [Hampson is] on superb form, catching the music’s emotional complication as well as its folk-like simplicity.”

The Indiana-born baritone returns to Des Knaben Wunderhorn for his two upcoming dates with the Indianapolis Symphony and Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro, at the orchestra’s home on February 22 and the following day at DePauw University in Greencastle, where he also gives one of his famed master classes (Feb 24).

It is again with Mahler that Hampson tours Europe this month, singing his orchestral song cycle Kindertotenlieder alongside Dvorák’s Zigeunermelodien with the conductorless chamber orchestra Wiener Virtuosen, in Merano, Italy (Feb 11), Bern (Feb 12), Zurich (Feb 13), Innsbruck (Feb 15), and Vienna (Feb 17).

Selections from Mahler’s song cycles are on the program once more when the baritone joins Amsterdam’s Royal Concertbouw Orchestra, chief conductor Mariss Jansons and fellow special guests Lang Lang and Janine Jansen for a gala benefit to celebrate the venerable orchestra’s 125^th anniversary on April 10.

Three days later, Hampson heads to the Vienna Symphony, where Massimo Zanetti will lead a concert performance of Simon Boccanegra that will be recorded for future CD release. The baritone will reprise his portrayal of the title character, which has become something of a signature role; when he last embodied Verdi’s Doge at Lyric Opera of Chicago, veteran critic John von Rhein concluded that “at a time when true Verdi baritones are a rare commodity, he gave an impressive and deeply considered performance in this touchstone Verdi role” (Chicago Tribune). In Vienna, Hampson will head a strong cast that also features Joseph Calleja and Luca Pisaroni.

A list of the baritone’s upcoming engagements follows, and additional information is available at www.thomashampson.com.

Thomas Hampson: spring engagements

Feb 11
Merano, Italy
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Dvorák: “Zigeunermelodien”
Wiener Virtuosen

Feb 12
Bern, Switzerland
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Dvorák: “Zigeunermelodien”
Wiener Virtuosen

Feb 13
Zurich, Switzerland
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Dvorák: “Zigeunermelodien”
Wiener Virtuosen

Feb 15
Innsbruck, Austria
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Dvorák: “Zigeunermelodien”
Wiener Virtuosen

Feb 17
Vienna, Austria
Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
Dvorák: “Zigeunermelodien”
Wiener Virtuosen

Feb 22
Indianapolis, IN
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra / Joana Carneiro

Feb 23
Greencastle, IN
DePauw University
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn
Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra / Joana Carneiro

Feb 24
Greencastle, IN
DePauw University
Master class

Feb 26
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Performances
Schumann: Liederkreis, Op. 39; Barber: song selections; Hersch: Domicilium (world premiere)
Recital with Wolfram Rieger

March 3
Akron, OH
Tuesday Musical Association
Master Class

March 3
Akron, OH
Tuesday Musical Association
“Song of America” recital with Craig Rutenberg, piano

March 11, 15, 20, 23 & 30
New York, NY
Metropolitan Opera / Alain Altinoglu
Verdi: Otello (Iago)

April 4–7
Heidelberg, Germany
Frühling – Stadthalle
Lied Academy Masterclasses

April 10
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
125th Anniversary Benefit Gala
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Mariss Jansons
With Lang Lang and Janine Jansen

April 13 & 17
Vienna, Austria
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra in concert (title role)
Wiener Symphoniker / Massimo Zanetti

April 24
Davis, CA
Mondavi Center
Mark Adamo: That Year for baritone and string quartet (2012, world premiere)
Wolf: Selected Lieder for baritone and string quartet
Chamber concert with Jupiter String Quartet

April 26
Boston, MA
Celebrity Series
Mark Adamo: That Year for baritone and string quartet (2012, East Coast premiere)
Wolf: Selected Lieder for baritone and string quartet
Chamber concert with Jupiter String Quartet

April 27
Boston, MA
New England Conservatory
Master Class

April 28
New York, NY
Chamber Music Society
Mark Adamo: That Year for baritone and string quartet (2012, NY premiere)
Wolf: Selected Lieder for baritone and string quartet
Chamber concert with Jupiter String Quartet