Thomas Hampson

Did You Know?

• Hampson grew up in Spokane, Washington, and earned a BFA in Voice Performance at Fort Wright College under Sister Marietta Coyle.
• He is married to Andrea Herberstein and has three step-children and one daughter, Meghan, from his first marriage.
• In 2007, he became a member of the board of the Manhattan School of Music and helped open the first Lied Academy as part of the Heidelberger Frühling Festival in 2011.

Early career

An audition tour in Europe in the early 1980s led to a contract with the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and the opportunity to study with Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, whom he had met at the Merola program. During his three years as a member of the Düsseldorf ensemble (1981–84), he gained stage experience with smaller roles and also took on larger assignments, including the title role in Henze's Der Prinz von Homburg in Darmstadt and Guglielmo in a Jonathan Miller production of Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. In 1984, he began an engagement at the Opernhaus Zürich as a principal lyric baritone, participating in the Harnoncourt-Ponnelle Mozart cycle and the title role of the 1987 production of Don Giovanni. His 1984 London recital debut took place at Wigmore Hall. His U.S. recital debut occurred on April 14, 1986, at The Town Hall in New York, and he made his Metropolitan Opera debut on October 9, 1986, as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro. In 1986, he auditioned for Leonard Bernstein, leading to participation in the 1987 semi-staged performance of Puccini's La bohème in Rome and later performances of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, Rückert-Lieder, and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen with the Vienna Philharmonic.

1990s

In 1990, Hampson released his first solo recital album on Teldec, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with Geoffrey Parsons, using a piano that had belonged to Mahler. That year he continued his partnership with Bernstein in performances of Mahler's Rückert-Lieder and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, and made his Carnegie Hall debut performing Mahler's two cycles with the Vienna Philharmonic. He made his San Francisco Opera debut as the title role in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and his role debut as Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1991, he opened the New York Philharmonic season in a Live from Lincoln Center telecast singing Aaron Copland's Old American Songs conducted by Kurt Masur, and sang in the 25th Anniversary Gala of the Metropolitan Opera. He also released a Cole Porter tribute album on EMI/Angel. During the 1990s, he performed at venues including Avery Fisher Hall, Barbican Centre, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Royal Albert Hall, and Théâtre du Châtelet, and at opera houses such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Paris Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, and Vienna State Opera. He worked with pianists including John Browning, Geoffrey Parsons, Wolfram Rieger, Craig Rutenberg, and Wolfgang Sawallisch, and with conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Vladimir Jurowski, James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Michael Tilson Thomas, and Franz Welser-Möst.

2000s

In early 2000, Hampson performed a Mahler-centric recital at Carnegie Hall and reprised his performance in Doktor Faust at the Met. He served on the Artistic Committee for the Kennedy Center Honors and sang at the Centennial Celebration for Elinor Remick Warren at the Washington National Cathedral. He also released a recording of Massenet's Thaïs with Renée Fleming. In February 2001, he sang Amfortas in Wagner's Parsifal at the Paris Opera and the Royal Opera House in London, and took a four-month recital tour across Europe and the U.S. with Vladimir Jurowski and Franz Welser-Möst. In 2002, he made role débuts as Mandryka in Arabella by Richard Strauss at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris alongside Karita Mattila, as the title role in the world premiere of Friedrich Cerha's Der Riese vom Steinfeld, as the title role in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra at the Vienna State Opera under Daniele Gatti and Peter Stein, and in the world premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Sechs Gedichte von Friedrich Nietzsche in Cologne. He also made his first stage appearance as Athanael in Thaïs at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. In 2003, he performed a recital dedicated to Hugo Wolf at Carnegie Hall with Daniel Barenboim and at the Salzburg Festival in 'The Hugo Wolf Project'. He reprised roles in Tannhäuser and Don Giovanni, sang an arrangement of Dover Beach with the Emerson String Quartet, and appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic in Friedrich Cerha's Baal-Gesänge under Zubin Mehta. In 2004, he sang the title role in Don Giovanni at the Metropolitan Opera and on the Japan tour of the Vienna State Opera under Seiji Ozawa, and appeared in Tannhäuser directed by Otto Schenk and conducted by Mark Elder. He also began a collaboration with the Library of Congress that led to the Hampsong Foundation.

2010s

In March 2010, Hampson spearheaded the first-ever live streaming classical music available on a mobile app: a master class on Mahler songs hosted by the Manhattan School of Music's Distance Learning Program. That year he performed in John Adams's The Wound-Dresser and appeared in a production of La traviata under Leonard Slatkin. He was elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010. In 2011, he sang the role of Rick Rescorla in the world premiere of Christopher Theofanidis' Heart of a Soldier with the San Francisco Opera, and performed in over 50 concerts of Mahler's music for the centennial of Mahler's death. The Song of America radio series, co-produced by the Hampsong Foundation and the WFMT Radio Network of Chicago, debuted that year. In 2012, he made role debuts as Iago in Verdi's Otello and the title role in Hindemith's Mathis der Maler at Zurich Opera, and his house debut as Verdi's Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera. He was featured in CNN's 'Fusion Journeys' series filming a musical exchange with Ladysmith Black Mambazo in South Africa. In 2013, he recorded Verdi's Simon Boccanegra for Decca Classics and was inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.