As his 13-week “Song of America” radio series fans out successfully across the American airwaves, Thomas Hampson returns to the US for a series of high-profile concerts, recitals and a company role debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, all featuring signature repertoire. He begins by collaborating for the first time with Gustavo Dudamel, with whom he will perform Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Jan 13-15). “Song of America” recitals, with pianist Craig Rutenberg, follow at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Jan 22), and in Clinton, MS (Jan 24), Nashville, TN (Jan 26) and Sarasota, FL (Jan 30). Hampson then teams up with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for Brahms’s Requiem and Dvorák’s Bible Songs (Feb 3-5), before heading to New York for his company role debut as Verdi’s Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera (six performances March 15 – April 9).

Hampson’s “Song of America” project reached a new high this fall with the introduction of a 13-week “Song of America” radio series. The project – which began as a collaboration with the Library of Congress, presenting recitals and outreach activities – has taken Hampson to cities across America, presenting his explorations of both beloved and unjustly neglected music that, in his words, “says everything about the culture we call American.” Conceived and developed by Hampson, the new radio series is syndicated by the WFMT Radio Network of Chicago to public radio stations across the country. Each hour-long program – narrated by Hampson – focuses on a particular topic that sheds light on a larger theme in American history, and includes approximately 40 minutes of songs drawn from archival and modern recordings, plus stories and insights about the people and events that inspired those songs.

While many stations began airing the series in the fall, it will also be heard on many additional stations starting in 2012, including WQXR 105.9 FM in New York, which will broadcast the programs on Sundays at 9 pm, starting on January 8. The series, which was made possible by the Hampsong Foundation and the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, will also be offered to members of the European Broadcasting Union and to stations in other countries around the world. A list of the 208 stations and translators participating thus far is available at www.songofamerica.net/radio, which also houses various online resources to complement the 13 programs.

Stations already airing the series have been enormously pleased with the responses they have received from listeners (some of whose comments appear under a separate heading below), and programmers have offered their own words of praise. Caitriona Bolster, Music Director for KWAX-FM in Eugene Oregon, comments: “This is a series that should be required listening for anyone interested in American social and cultural history, literature, and music. Thomas Hampson does a superb job of bringing the past to life with a directness and passion that are irresistible.”

Carl Blare of KDXRADIO.COM adds, “In our 50th year of concert-music broadcasting we could recite for you the usual American composers, but not until Thomas Hampson’s ‘Song of America’ series did we realize the other universe of songs that have been overlooked by most modern media. The series brings to life an inheritance of not only the songs but also the anecdotes that name the people, place and time involved with each song’s creation. ‘Song of America’ is an audio encyclopedia worthy of permanent residence on the reference shelf.”

WFMT’s music director, Andi Lamoreaux, comments: “Thomas Hampson articulates both knowledge and enthusiasm in his introductions to a wide range of music in ‘Song of America’. The shows are extremely well written, and the varied music choices showcase a number of fine American singers past and present.”

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Mahler songs have been a staple of Hampson’s repertory for more than two decades; his performances of these masterworks with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in January are something of a coda to Hampson’s special involvement with the Austrian composer’s music last season, during which the baritone devoted many performances to the Mahler year (commemorating the 150^th anniversary of his birth and the 100^th anniversary of his death). Recognized as today’s leading interpreter of the Austrian composer’s songs, Hampson began the worldwide celebrations on July 7, 2010 – Mahler’s 150^th birthday – in Kaliste, Czech Republic, with both a recital from the composer’s birth house, which was streamed live on medici.tv, and an internationally televised orchestral concert, now available on DVD. Throughout the season Hampson performed Mahler with prominent conductors and leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. His new recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Wiener Virtuosen – a conductorless ensemble comprising principal players of the Vienna Philharmonic – was widely acclaimed, bringing Hampson his third ECHO Klassik prize, generally recognized as the German equivalent of the Grammy Award.

Hampson’s return to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera in March will mark his first time performing one of his signature roles – Verdi’s Macbeth – with the company. When he portrayed the role for the first time in the U.S., at San Francisco Opera in November 2007, Joshua Kosman reported enthusiastically, “Just when there seemed to be no way for Thomas Hampson’s performance in the title role of Verdi’s ‘Macbeth’ to get any more majestic or wrenching, it did … [An] unqualified triumph.” In Opera News, Georgia Rowe called Hampson’s achievement “a performance of sustained beauty and authority throughout.”

Listener responses to the “Song of America” radio series

“The program on Arthur Farwell was brilliant! Long ago, Thomas Hampson introduced me to Farwell’s music, and his music on Native American themes, as presented on this program, just brought me to tears it was so wonderful. The whole program was truly memorable.” — a listener from Los Angeles

“I’m enjoying the radio shows in Salem, Oregon!” — a listener via Facebook

“This is a GREAT program! Heard Stephen Foster and Walt Whitman and just yesterday, songs of downtrodden groups in this country. Now I MUST be home in time to hear ‘Song’ every Sunday. Thanks, Thomas Hampson!” — a listener via Facebook

“I think it is a very wonderful and important series. Quite riveting. I know that radio always does lots of surveys to assess the audiences for its programming. I hope they will do it for Thomas Hampson’s series because I’m sure the results will be gratifying.” —a listener from Los Angeles

“I think Thomas Hampson does such a good job by gathering all the interesting historical stuff! He’s a real intelligent factotum (like that famous Spanish hairdresser). I think he uses every inch of his talent. And, indeed, it is nice if the message of American song would be more and more spread in Europe, just like the German songs are known all over the world. By modern technology the world is already getting one country to a certain level, so why not make all art global known.” — a listener from the Netherlands

Hampson comments: “Having had the greatest privilege co-hosting the Opera News Awards, and the pride of winning an Opera News Award myself, I know firsthand the wonderful events the Metropolitan Opera Guild presents to celebrate our art-form and sustain its celebrated education programs. I am deeply honored to join the company of the previous honorees given the distinction of Met Mastersinger.”

“Met Mastersingers: Thomas Hampson” is the third installment in a series that began in February 2010 with an event honoring soprano Renée Fleming. Last fall, the German bass René Pape was celebrated. Gruber has had conversations with a “who’s who” of great artists at many Guild events over the years, including such luminaries as Teresa Stratas, Renata Scotto, Roberta Peters and James Levine, and he looks forward to speaking next with a singer who is as renowned for his work as a concert artist and song recitalist as he is for his operatic mastery. Gruber observes:

“I have enormous admiration and respect for Thomas Hampson, and am delighted that the Guild will celebrate him as this year’s ‘Met Mastersinger.’ In addition to having perhaps the most beautiful baritone voice of his generation, he has never rested in his quest to expand his musical horizons, as well as those of his audience. Thomas Hampson is the very definition of a mastersinger.”

About Thomas Hampson

The American baritone Thomas Hampson enjoys a singular international career as a recitalist, opera singer, and recording artist, and maintains an active interest in teaching, research, and technology. He has performed in the world’s most important concert halls and opera houses with many of today’s most renowned singers, pianists, conductors, and orchestras. He is one of the most important interpreters of German romantic song and with his celebrated “Song of America” project has become the “ambassador” of American song. Hampson began his 2011-12 season at the San Francisco Opera, where he created the central role in the world-premiere production of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Other operatic engagements this season include role debuts as Iago in Verdi’s Otello and the title role in Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler, both at the Zurich Opera, and his house debut as Verdi’s Macbeth at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Among other season highlights for Hampson are the opening-night gala concert of the National Symphony Orchestra with Christoph Eschenbach, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Munich Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, Brahms’s Requiem and Dvorák’s Biblical Songs with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck, and “Song of America” recitals in New York and Cologne. Last month marked the first airing of the “Song of America” radio series, co-produced by the Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network of Chicago. Hosted by Hampson, the series consists of 13 one-hour programs exploring the history of American culture through song, bringing the “Song of America” project to a national audience of radio listeners.

The Metropolitan Opera Guild at a glance

For more than 75 years, the Metropolitan Opera Guild has provided substantial support to the Met, and has greatly enhanced the public’s appreciation of opera in general. Since its founding by the pioneering philanthropist Eleanor Robson Belmont in 1935, the Guild has contributed more than $245 million to the Met. The organization has one of the country’s most innovative and far-reaching music education programs, which impacts more than 1,800 schools and communities. In August 2010, the Guild received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s “Arts-in-Education” Model Development and Dissemination Program for its Comprehensive Opera-Based Arts Learning and Teaching (COBALT) project.

he Guild also publishes Opera News, the world’s largest-circulation magazine devoted to opera, and produces an annual series of major public programs, including the Opera News Awards, and the Met Legends and Met Mastersingers series. The seventh annual Opera News Awards will take place in New York City on April 29, 2012 at The Plaza, celebrating the achievements of five extraordinary artists who have each made an invaluable contribution to the art form: sopranos Karita Mattila and Anja Silja, baritones Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Peter Mattei, and director Peter Sellars.

Thursday, March 22, 2012, at 7:30pm
MET MASTERSINGERS: Thomas Hampson
The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College
68th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues)
New York City

The star of the Met’s Macbeth will be on stage with Paul Gruber to discuss his work, watch video excerpts of his performances, and sing some favorite songs.
Tickets are $40 for Guild members and Met patrons, and $50 for all others. Following the program, join the Guild for a champagne-and-dessert reception with the artists: $150 for premium seating and reception. For tickets, call (212) 769-7009, or order online at www.metguild.org.

Shakespeare was one of Verdi’s greatest inspirations, and later this season Hampson will also play the title role in the composer’s Macbeth at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (March 15 – April 9). The Met production will mark the first time Hampson has performed this, one of his signature roles, for the company.

Hampson began his 2011-12 season at San Francisco Opera, where he created the role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier to great critical acclaim:

“The cast was headed by baritone Thomas Hampson, who made Rick [Rescorla] a larger-than-life figure of easy physicality, agile phrasing and characteristically warm, expansive tone.”
– Opera News 9.10.11  [Georgia Rowe]

“But in just a few minutes of impassioned musical oratory, superbly delivered at Saturday’s world premiere by baritone Thomas Hampson, it captures everything – the heroism, the moral fervor, the staunch and committed love for one’s fellow humans…The cast was first-rate throughout – particularly Hampson, whose raffish charm and resplendent tonal gifts have rarely been put to such apt use. In his portrayal, you could hear and see a man able to lead soldiers into battle or brokers into a smoke-filled stairwell.”
– San Francisco Chronicle, 9.12.11 [Joshua Kosman]

“Thomas Hampson sang him with a style that captured the brash overconfidence of his youth and the more weary perspective of his maturity.”
– Examiner.com, 9.11.11 [Stephen Smoliar]

“Hampson chewed the scenery and sang magnificently… At the curtain call a few moments later, many still had tears in their eyes. The great baritone Thomas Hampson, a larger-than-life Rick Rescorla, won our hearts.”
– Los Angeles Times, 9.11.11 [Mark Swed]

“The casting for this production could hardly have been better, with baritone Thomas Hampson achieving a late-career triumph that was an unadulterated pleasure to experience. With enormous personal charisma, the singer imbues the role of Rescorla with heart, strength, charm and humor. It surely ranks among the most fully rounded portrayals on the operatic stage in recent memory. Vocally, too, Hampson rises to the occasion, singing with clear, robust tone and no sense of strain whatever.”
– MusicalAmerica.com, 9.12.11 [David Mermelstein]

“Revered American baritone Thomas Hampson is in remarkable form to handle the complexities of “Rick Escorla” whose story begins as a brazen young paratrooper in Cyprus and ends in middle age…”
– SanFranciscoSentinel.com, 9.12.11 [Sean Martinfield]

Each hour-long program focuses on a particular topic that sheds light on a larger theme in American history, and includes approximately 40 minutes of songs drawn from archival and modern recordings, plus stories and insights from Hampson about the people and events that inspired those songs. Several programs also feature interviews with experts from related fields. Programs include Stephen Foster, dedicated exclusively to the 19^th-century songwriter who is considered the father of American music; Whitman and Music, examining the great poet and the music that shaped him as well as his deep influence on American composers; “There Is No Gender in Music”, exploring the contributions of American women composers; and Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance, which traces the roots and influences of the great 20^th-century poet who gave jubilant voice to the lives of African Americans.

Thomas Hampson observes, “These songs – our songs – say everything, through the eyes of our poets and the ears of our composers, about the culture we call American.”

A list of participating stations will be posted at www.songofamerica.net, which will also house various online resources to complement the 13 programs.

Additional information about the series, including a list of the subjects for all 13 of the programs, is available here: http://www.21cmediagroup.com/mediacenter/newsitem.php?i=732

Radio personnel interested in airing the series should contact Carol Martinez of WFMT at 773-279-2112 or cmartinez@wfmt.com.

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www.thomashampson.com / www.songofamerica.net / www.wfmt.com

Thomas Hampson begins his 2011-12 season at San Francisco Opera, where he will create the role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis’s Heart of a Soldier (seven performances, Sept 10–30). Based on the 2002 book by James B. Stewart, the new opera, featuring a libretto by Donna DiNovelli and directed by Francesca Zambello, commemorates the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Heart of a Soldier marks the beginning of an extraordinary new season for Hampson that includes two role debuts at Zurich Opera – Iago in Verdi’s Otello (Oct 20 – Nov 27) and the title role in Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler (June 16 – July 5) – and an important company role debut, as Verdi’s Macbeth, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera (March 15 – April 9); performances with major orchestras in Europe and the U.S., including Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel (Jan 13–15); and several recitals on both continents, including a “Song of America” program at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Jan 22). October will see the debut of “Song of America,” a 13-week radio series, which reveals American classic song – poetry set to music by American composers – as a vibrant diary of the American experience. The series, conceived and developed by Hampson, is co-produced by the Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network of Chicago and will be syndicated by the network to public radio stations across the country.

Highlights of Hampson’s concert appearances this season also include the National Symphony Orchestra’s opening-night gala concert with Christoph Eschenbach, marking the orchestra’s 80^th and the Kennedy Center’s 40^th anniversaries (Sept 25); Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the Munich Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta (Nov 17–21); plus Brahms’s A German Requiem and Dvorák’s Biblical Songs with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck (Feb 3–5). Throughout the season Hampson will give recitals in the U.S., Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, including additional “Song of America” programs in Claremont, CA (Sept 16) and in Cologne, Germany.

Hampson’s 2010-11 season was dominated by performances celebrating the 150^th anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s birth and commemorating the 100^th anniversary of his death. Recognized as today’s leading interpreter of the Austrian composer’s songs, the baritone began the worldwide celebrations on July 7, 2010 – Mahler’s 150^th birthday – in Kaliste, Czech Republic, with a recital from the composer’s birth house, streamed live on medici.tv, as well as an internationally televised orchestral concert, available on DVD. Throughout the season he performed Mahler with prominent conductors and leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic. His new recording of Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the Wiener Virtuosen – a conductorless ensemble comprising principal players of the Vienna Philharmonic – was widely acclaimed, bringing Hampson his third ECHO Klassik prize, generally recognized as the German equivalent of the Grammy Award. In spring 2011 Hampson received the Concertgebouw Prize for his outstanding contribution to the arts.

Hampson has written an essay for the UK’s Guardian, available here, about the significance of Heart of a Soldier and his creation of its central character, Rick Rescorla.

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I was performing in London when David Gockley (San Francisco Opera’s general director) came to talk to me. He wanted to discuss an idea for a new work based on a book called Heart of a Soldier by the Pulitzer prize-winning author James B Stewart. Francesca Zambello, the opera director, had recommended it to him – she had seen the operatic potential in the story of Rick Rescorla, a 9/11 hero born in a small Cornish village.

The book struck me like a thunderbolt: here was a moving story – about fate and the bonds of love and friendship – that shone brightly in stark relief against the black backdrop of 9/11. And at its heart is a poet-soldier, Rick Rescorla, Morgan Stanley’s former director of security, whose inspirations were Kipling and Shakespeare, and whose bravery meant some 3,000 fewer people died that day than might have done, even though he lost his own life.

I had been in New York, rehearsing at the Metropolitan Opera, on September 11 2001, but I hadn’t heard this tale of heroism, and I was immediately intrigued. Without hesitation, and with only a kernel of information about the project, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.

Stewart’s is not a political story, and composer Christopher Theofanidis and librettist Donna Di Novelli haven’t created a political opera. There’s no finger-wagging. It’s not a morality tale about terrorism, nor even an account of what unfolded on 11 September.

I was asked to sing the role of Rescorla, and I started finding out about his story and what made him the man he was. He fought in Vietnam, and he never got over losing any of those young men serving under him. The responsibility he felt towards them was one of the life experiences that shaped how he responded on 9/11.

Rescorla was adamant that people should be disciplined and prepared for the unknown eventualities of their lives. You learn to drive better because you never know what another driver is going to do; when you work in a 115-storey building you have fire drills – and you have them frequently. That’s what Rick did. And because of that discipline – that attention to technical and mundane detail, and that belief in people – nearly 3,000 people didn’t die.

The closest comparison I can make to an existing opera is William Tell – which, incidentally, is the only opera I’ve done before with Zambello. It’s the same kind of story: about family, about hearth and homeland under attack by intruders, and how we have to stand up for people.

Rescorla wasn’t a goody-two-shoes, but he understood – and lived according to the belief – that at the defining moments in your life you simply do the right thing. He gave people tremendous faith in themselves, and he liked doing that. It’s an honour for me to try to find the footsteps of this character I have come to admire so much.

To my mind, Heart of a Soldier reflects the essence of American life: the belief in self, and the belief in the right to live one’s life in a way that one believes in. It’s not a long opera, but every vignette, every little scene, is full of life: full of people doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing at any given moment, sometimes with happy results, other times with tragic consequences. It’s tremendously sad at the end, with the cataclysmic collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. But it’s also two wonderful love stories: an achingly poignant romance, and a profound friendship between two men that spans decades and continents. The first is about two people – Rick and his second wife Susan – in mid-life with a lot of baggage, with a lot of life behind them, who meet by chance in a defining moment we can all appreciate, because they find the dream we all have: that we can be brought to a moment by higher forces. The second storyline, arching across Rick’s adult life, is his friendship with Dan Hill, whom he met in 1960 when both were in the army, and whose close friendship endured to the end of Rick’s life.

Theofanidis incorporates into his score a recurring musical theme based on a Cornish folksong about the heart – the lion’s heart and being true to your own heart (Rick was born in Hayle, in Cornwall, where a memorial to him has been erected). Returning at one point to the 1960s, to capture the essence of the time, the opera tells the “lion story” of how Rick and Dan met. Dan had heard about the fabled Rick, who ventured into the jungle to track a lion that has been terrorising villages. Three days later, Rick returned with a huge carcass slung over his shoulder and a lion’s tooth around his neck; Rick took the lion’s blood and smeared it ritualistically on his arms and legs, inhabiting the spirit of strength. Such warrior moments and military metaphors are there in the opera, and the Cornish melody embodies these particularly heroic moments.

A few days into the rehearsal process, I’m struck by how Theofanidis has mustered in his music all the requisite momentum, rhythmic drive and powerful but never maudlin lyricism to make for a deeply theatrical and moving evening. His musical voice is fascinating and exciting, tonal and yet inventive.

One thing about this role and this opera that has such a profound appeal for me is that it’s not loaded with melancholy or self-pity. It’s life-affirming and filled with hope. It gives the feeling that the characters have been involved in a life-fulfilling process. Some of those lives are shorter, and that’s very painful for those left behind. It’s neither a pacifist story nor a military story, but a personal one: about the heart of a soldier, about courage, fate, and certainly love. The story of Susan’s relationship with Rick is beautiful: though tragic in its brevity – the two were married for only two years before his death. There won’t be a dry eye in the house, for many reasons.

America has been profoundly changed by 9/11. While not being a “9/11 opera”, this piece allows everyone to meet the phenomenon of 9/11 on his or her own terms. Despite being an artist who works all over the world in an art form so bound to European culture and history, I am an American who feels very strongly about my country’s ideals, and I reflect often on its founding principles and how real- politik has reinterpreted them in any generation. While reading Stewart’s book and looking forward to doing the opera, I wrote to Gockley: “This is a profound project in my life and a great honor to even try to make a life like Rick Rescorla’s realisable … He’s a great human being. He has given me a little renewed piece of faith that there is right in the world, that there is reason.”

This work isn’t entirely full of hope, but it is full of reason and consequence. There’s a sense of fulfillment in it. We have an arc to our lives, and we don’t know what it is. There’s only so much any of us can know.

Heart of a Soldier has its world premiere at San Francisco Opera on 10 September. Details: sfopera.com

View article in The Guardian