myScena

Thomas Hampson needs no introduction. At nearly 70 years old, the American lyric baritone continues to travel the world, not only as a singer and recitalist, but also as a singing teacher. He studied with teachers who themselves had learned from the great masters. Today, he passes on his passion for vocal arts to young artists, notably at the Lied Academy in Heidelberg. On April 26, he will present a recital at the Club musical de Québec and, a few days before that, will sing Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at the Maison symphonique. La Scena Musicale spoke to him on the eve of a recital in Bonn, Germany, in which he performed Schubert’s famous Winterreise.

If there’s one place in which Hampson likes to set down his suitcases, it’s with his family. “Home is pretty much the home that my wife (Andrea Heberstein) and I built together and is available for our family. We have been living in Zurich and we now live in Vienna. I have four kids, five grandchildren, and a miraculous wife. I have my study and my house, my art, my books… That’s home.”

His art, as he puts it, began with the discovery of art song. “My first teacher was a nun—Marietta Coyle—who was living in Southern California in the 1950s and had studied herself with Lotte Lehmann, afterwards in Paris with Pierre Bernac. She was enthusiastic about my innate abilities. She told me I should probably keep exploring the artistic side of my soul that she heard when I sang, which is a lot to take in when you’re 17 or 18 years old. I went to her and studied voice. We started with Schubert songs and Schumann songs, and Fauré songs. She handed me a stack of music books that, of course, I never had (seen) before and a stack of recordings. From the get-go, it was Fischer-Dieskau, Hermann Prey, Pierre Bernac, Gerald Souzay… ‘This is how it goes,’ she said. ‘Go see if something explodes in your mind’,” recalls Hampson.

Opera came later, through another teacher he met shortly afterward. The young baritone’s voice was polished and already stood out from the crowd. “I had a musical voice, a lyric baritone voice strong enough as it was, but nevertheless, not one of those ‘oh my god’ voices. I came to operatic lyric literature through the roles of Guglielmo and the Barber of Seville. My teacher at the time was a German professor, Horst Günter, who spent 40 years of his life on stage. I really learnt my stage feet from him.”

Today, Hampson has a great deal in common with his former mentor, not least in terms of his longevity and career trajectory. His operatic successes, such as his iconic interpretation of Rossini’s “Largo al factotum,” should not overshadow the diversity of venues and repertoires in which he has been heard. “When I started, it was still normal: radio, recitals, opera, concerts to some extent. Then came the television and it was a big deal, recordings and so forth. The idea of the multi-genre singer is not a ridiculous question. This whole kind of focus of a song singer or a concert singer or an opera singer has always remained foreign to me and I still don’t think it’s a good idea. I think that young singers should be learning songs in their first studies and continually as they open into their operatic repertoire. A young girl who can sing “Suleika” by Schubert will have a better go at Pamina than the other way around.”

In fact, an art song can offer as many challenges as an opera aria. “It is far more vocally challenging than what we would assume, mainly because of the different characters of the songs. You have to have control of your sound so that it reflects your thoughts and not the other way around. In order to do that, you must learn how to sing—how language and tone function. The inner psychology of the choice of words lies in the language of music. Like song, I think the world of opera is a book of life, a laboratory of human behaviour. It’s not about plot, but instead the dilemma that is fleshing out a particular text. Every trio, every sextet, raises the question: ‘Why are they here, what are they struggling with?’”

Technology and Teaching

Since 2003, this enthusiasm for art song has been at the helm of the Hampsong Foundation, a digital platform brimming with text, audio and video resources on the works, composers and performers of the art-song repertoire. He designed the site for young singers all over the world, for the curious, but also for concert organizers in search of inspiration. And it’s all free!

More than opera, art song’s richness lies in bringing together two art forms on an equal footing—a richness which, according to Hampson, is underestimated. “Poetry set to music is this dual pillar of fantastic information. To understand a poem, we need to understand the timing, where it comes from, the cultural ideas it has. You already have this aesthetic, historical, sociological, economical conversation between a poet and a composer. Any particular song is like a kaleidoscope of that culture—a diary of who they were or who they are. It has always fascinated me.”

Hampson sees digital communication as a real opportunity for a better understanding of vocal arts. “I’m a big believer in the advantages of technology. Of course there are pitfalls, and we are at a particularly volatile time in civilization. Technology also means social media, access to libraries. I teach in a lied class, I have teaching projects in various opera houses and I try to encourage my young colleagues. They have far more direct, personal access to recordings, scores, references, than I had at their age. I make Spotify or Idagio playlists all the time for them and I made wonderful programs for the Hampsong Foundation called Iconic voices. I’ve become convinced that a lot of them don’t know the big hitters like Lotte Lehmann, Elisabeth Schumann, Giuseppe de Luca, Beniamino Gigli. This is a world of singing and sound that should be in our heads.”

Music and poetry from America

While he has long championed the sometimes forgotten repertoire and artists of the Old Continent, Hampson is just as keen to highlight the vocal repertoire that has developed in his native country. His other major digital platform, Song of America, perfectly illustrates his attachment to his roots, and to expression in his mother tongue through literature. “Americans are not particularly interested in the past, in the cultural waves that brought them here. They’re very focused on the now. Much to my regret, in my opinion. This forgotten cultural development is a huge mistake.”

The whole world would certainly be better off if art had a more prominent place, according to Hampson. “Arts can offer a dialogue that raises what we are actually contemplating. The transactional politics that we are in now. ‘What do I get from what you’re doing or taking’ has nothing to do with the arts. They offer an island where one can go that stops the ticking of the clock to have a moment to think of a bigger presence. I think people really desire that and need that. Yes, realpolitik is extremely damaging in many countries today, not the least of which my own. It’s absurd, and obscene, and I completely, vehemently oppose it.”

A Recital in Quebec City

In the current political climate, with the threat of war everywhere, Hampson will offer a program of songs on the theme of freedom, including poems by his compatriots Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman.

“Programming is all about telling a story and the dramaturgie of a recital. I always try to find ways to bring different composers into a particular subject matter. Here, it is freedom. The question behind that is the following: What is it that we sing to defend a country, what do we sing to commiserate the ones that we lost? I’m not a pacifist but a moralist. I think we should ask serious questions about what we do with our aggression and our defensive notion of identity. I’ve done a first half in German (Freiheit), a second half in English (Freedom), anything from Zemlinsky, Mahler and Hindemith to Whitman and Hughes, lesser-known composers as well. Dvořák’s Zigeunermelodien fits in this perspective. To my friends from Bratislava or Budapest, freedom is at the source of gypsy mentality. It is found in the air, in the sleeves of their shirts, in the songs of their mother, in their walk through nature. Freedom is the ultimate purpose of self-expression.”

To end the evening on a high note, Hampson will include an encore, in French. Recently, he had the opportunity to perform Escamillo’s famous aria in concert, an aria he didn’t think was suited to his voice. “Repertoire finds you more than you find it. I don’t think my voice has changed that much. However, I’m not going to ruin my own memory of me singing the Barber of Seville. I’m happier at the top register. I’ve still got the ringing high F and F sharps so I had great fun singing Escamillo. Probably not in a production, but why not in galas?”

Così in Montreal

There are composers whose works the baritone has rarely performed, and others with whom he has a long history. Such is the case with Mozart. On April 23 and 25 at the Maison symphonique, he returns to Così fan tutte as both singer and director.

The role of Guglielmo brought him his first career successes, but the character of Don Alfonso is certainly no stranger to him. “We think that Alfonso is an old guy, and requires a lower voice but, in fact, I recorded Alfonso with Harnoncourt back in the late ’90s and was not old at all. I sang Guglielmo in my life probably 150 times. I think Mozart is such an unbelievable genius, endemic to any singer who wants to sing opera. Mozart was a big part of my early career, even all my career. I sang Don Giovanni a lot, as well as Count Almaviva. Afterwards, I moved into the (heavier) repertoire, early operas by Verdi, French operas with (conductor, Michel) Plasson. It’s really wonderful to come back to Don Alfonso—to be this whimsical, somewhat cynical uncle, manipulating this quartet so that they finally realize what hurtful nonsense they created for themselves. The genius of Mozart, in his music first and the construction and unravelling of these stories, is extraordinary—unique. Quite frankly, without Mozart we wouldn’t have Verdi. The line between the two is almost direct.”

The idea of staging Così fan tutte came as a result of having sung it so many times, says Hampson. “Having worked with some of the great producers like Jean-Pierre Ponnelle on this piece gives me some insights. I like the symmetry, the youthfulness of this love-blinded quartet. There are a couple of pieces I would stage as a stage director. Semi-staging also works very well for Così. But I’d rather sing and teach. It’s not really an opening of a new career. Same thing with conducting. I just love music, I love what I do and I’m so grateful for being able to do it.”