Thomas Hampson
American singer Thomas Hampson has been one of the world's top opera stars since the early 1990s, with more than 200 recordings to his credit. Hampson combines a mellifluous tone that has proven remarkably durable, a powerful top, and charisma that saw him named one of the world's 50 most beautiful people by the U.S. magazine People in 1993.
Hampson was born on June 28, 1955, in Elkhart, Indiana, but grew up in Spokane, Washington. He and his two older sisters sang in church, but at first, he was unsure of his career choice: he attended Eastern Washington University, graduating with a government major, but also earned a voice degree from Fort Wright College. Summer classes at the Music Academy of the West with baritone Martial Singher and a second-place finish in the Metropolitan Opera's Western Region auditions in 1980 tipped the scales. Hampson traveled to Europe for auditions, studying with contralto Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and joining the company of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf in 1981. Engaged for bigger and better roles, he joined the Zurich Opera in 1984, gave a Wigmore Hall debut recital touted by Schwarzkopf, made his Metropolitan Opera debut as Count Almaviva in 1986, and by the late '80s was clearly one of opera's top rising stars. Performing in several famed readings of Mahler works conducted late in life by Leonard Bernstein cemented his reputation; a 1986 recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor with Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic was an early recording triumph.
Since then, there is hardly a major world opera house or concert venue in which he has not appeared. Hampson has had a flair for highly visible public performances, such as a 1991 Live from Lincoln Center television broadcast of Copland's Old American Songs with the New York Philharmonic and a 2009 recital at the Supreme Court of the United States, populated by opera-loving justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia. Yet he has also championed new music, giving world premieres of operas by Richard Danielpour, Michael Daugherty, and others. He has a repertory of nearly 100 operas, spanning the genre's entire temporal range, taking up new darker-toned roles such as Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal and Scarpia in Puccini's Tosca in middle age. He has continued to specialize in Mahler, whose large-scale but lyric music fits his voice beautifully.
Yet Hampson has also been clearly defined as an American singer, performing repertory from that country, teaching and serving on the board of the Manhattan School of Music, and winning induction into the elite American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. That year, he participated in the first broadcast of classical music on a streaming mobile phone app, teaching a master class in Mahler song at the Manhattan School of Music. He has also been open to crossover projects, such as a CNN television musical exchange with South African vocal harmony group Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 2012. The pace of Hampson's recording career did not slow in the late 2010s and early 2020s; the year 2018 saw his debut on the Cedille label with a song recital, Songs from Chicago. In 2023, he released a pair of albums, appearing on a Capriccio recording of Kurt Weill's cantata Propheten and issuing an album of Liszt orchestral songs on Aparté.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Thomas: Hamlet
Antonio de Almeida, Thomas Hampson, June Anderson, Samuel Ramey, London Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Notturno (Richard Strauss : Lieder)
Thomas Hampson, Wolfram Rieger
Klassik - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Bernstein: On The Town (Live)
Frederica von Stade, Thomas Hampson, London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas
Klassik - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Barber: The Songs Complete
Cheryl Studer, Thomas Hampson, John Browning, Emerson String Quartet
Klassik - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lehár: Die lustige Witwe (Live at Royal Festival Hall, 1993)
Felicity Lott, Thomas Hampson, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cole Porter Night and Day: Thomas Hampson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 24.05.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro - Highlights
Klassik - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.1980
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Kurt Weil On Broadway: Thomas Hampson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.05.2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Delius: Sea Drift; Florida Suite
Charles Mackerras, Thomas Hampson, Orchestra of the Welsh National Opera
Klassik - Erschienen bei Decca Music Group Ltd. am 01.10.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Winterreise
Thomas Hampson, Wolfgang Sawallisch
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Leading Man / The Best Of Broadway
Klassik - Erschienen bei EMI Classics am 01.01.1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Songs from Chicago
Thomas Hampson, Kuang-Hao Huang
Mélodies - Erschienen bei Cedille am 14.09.2018
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
A Portrait of Thomas Hampson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.10.2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
American Classics: Stephen Foster/ Charles Tomlinson Griffes / Aaron Copland
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 03.11.2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bernstein: Wonderful Town
Kim Criswell, Audra McDonald, Thomas Hampson, Sir Simon Rattle, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.07.1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Arias by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven & Schubert
Vokalmusik (weltlich und geistlich) - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carmen (Extraits)
Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, Inva Mula, Michel Plasson, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Opernauszüge - Erschienen bei Parlophone (France) am 06.04.2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elatus - Mahler: Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 01.02.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Massenet: Werther
Antonio Pappano, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, London Symphony Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.10.1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Massenet: Werther
Patricia Petibon, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.10.1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ives, Macdowell & Griffes : Songs to German Texts
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 01.01.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo