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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Liszt: Orchestral Songs
Thomas Hampson, Sunhae Im, Stéphanie Houtzeel, Tomasz Konieczny, Orchester Wiener Akademie, Martin Haselböck
Französische Mélodies und Kunstlieder - Erschienen bei Aparté am 28.04.2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Simon Boccanegra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Decca Music Group Ltd. am 01.01.2013
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Puccini: Messa di Gloria, Preludio sinfonico, Crisantemi
Antonio Pappano, Roberto Alagna, Thomas Hampson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 11.02.2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gounod: Faust
Cheryl Studer, Richard leech, José Van Dam, Thomas Hampson, Michel Plasson, Orchestre Du Capitole De Toulouse
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 28.02.2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen
Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, Inva Mula, Michel Plasson, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 15.02.2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sérénade (Gounod, Bizet, Chabrier, Meyerbeer...)
Thomas Hampson, Maciej Pikulski
Duette - Erschienen bei PentaTone am 15.09.2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Ashokan Farewell . Beautiful Dreamer (Songs Of Stephen Foster)
Jay Ungar, Molly Mason, Thomas Hampson, David Alpher
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics (Parlophone) am 01.01.2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Massenet: Thaïs
Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Choeur de l'Opéra de Bordeaux, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Yves Abel
Klassik - Erschienen bei Decca Music Group Ltd. am 07.07.2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Don Giovanni, K. 527
Thomas Hampson, Edita Gruberova, Concertgebouworkest, Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.01.1989
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler: Symphony No. 6; Kindertotenlieder
Thomas Hampson, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
Klassik - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.1989
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tides of Life
Thomas Hampson, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Candida Thompson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Channel Classics am 17.02.2017
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Le nozze di Figaro
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 04.10.1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rossini: Guillaume Tell (Live)
Oper - Erschienen bei Orfeo am 08.03.2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Thomas Hampson: A Portrait (Inspiration)
Vokalmusik (weltlich und geistlich) - Erschienen bei Warner Classics International am 13.02.2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen & Symphony No. 1
Thomas Hampson, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Tennstedt
Klassik - Erschienen bei London Philharmonic Orchestra am 01.06.2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen; Kindertotenlieder; Rückert-Lieder
Thomas Hampson, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Leonard Bernstein
Französische Mélodies und Kunstlieder - Erschienen bei Deutsche Grammophon (DG) am 01.01.1991
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen
Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, Inva Mula, Michel Plasson, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 15.02.2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Massenet: Werther
Patricia Petibon, Roberto Alagna, Angela Gheorghiu, Thomas Hampson, London Symphony Orchestra, Antonio Pappano
Oper - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 01.10.1999
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
For Lenny
Kevin Olusola, Javier Morales-Martinez, Rhiannon Giddens, Thomas Hampson, Lara Downes
Musical - Erschienen bei Sony Worldwide am 09.02.2018
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Orff: Carmina Burana
Edita Gruberova, John Aler, Thomas Hampson, Shinyukai Choir, Berliner Philharmoniker, Seiji Ozawa
Klassik - Erschienen bei Decca Music Group Ltd. am 14.04.2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Very Best of: Thomas Hampson
Klassik - Erschienen bei Warner Classics am 17.01.2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo