Baritone Thomas Hampson sings Mahler at Carnegie Hall (May 13)
Baritone
Thomas Hampson joins Carnegie Hall’s remarkable series of concerts featuring Gustav
Mahler’s orchestral works on Wednesday, May 13, performing the early song
cycle, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (“Songs of a Wayfarer”) under Daniel Barenboim. Also on the program is Mahler’s
Symphony No. 7, played by the Berlin State Orchestra.
Hampson is
particularly renowned in the art of the recital and as a specialist in American
Song. His expertise as an interpreter
of Mahler is well known all over the world – he has performed the composer’s
songs with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, James Levine, Michael Tilson
Thomas, Bernard Haitink, Christoph Eschenbach, and many others. Two seasons ago, after he sang the
“Songs of a Wayfarer” in a series of concerts with the Boston Symphony
Orchestra under Levine, the Boston Globe’s Jeremy Eichler described his performance as a
highlight of the concert: “Hampson sang beautifully, with a resonant, burnished
baritone, and a striking suppleness of expression that reflected his many years
of immersion in this repertoire.”
That same
season, the Chicago Tribune’s John von Rhein wrote of a Chicago Symphony Orchestra
concert that the program’s high point was:
“Thomas
Hampson’s deeply felt performance of Mahler’s ‘Songs of a Wayfarer’. Hampson is singing at the very peak of
his vocal form and artistry, and I can’t remember when I’ve heard anything
finer from him. His exceptional
range of color and dynamics, his vocal ease and evenness over a wide range, his
flexibility of phrasing, his acute sense of detail – all bespoke a singing
actor of the utmost expressive intensity and musical understanding.”
Hampson
enjoys the intimacy of the recital and concert hall more than many stars of the
opera stage do, but has been especially busy singing opera this season. At the Metropolitan Opera alone he
participated in the opening night gala and portrayed Athanaël in Massenet’s Thaïs opposite Renée Fleming; returned to
the title role in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in highly praised performances
opposite Karita Mattila; and sang an excerpt from Wagner’s Parsifal with Plácido Domingo during the
Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala honoring Domingo’s 40th
anniversary at the Met. In March,
Hampson also made his debut as Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca at the Zurich Opera.
Thomas Hampson sings Mahler’s “Songs
of a Wayfarer” (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday, May
13 at 8pm with the Berlin State Orchestra under its chief conductor, Daniel
Barenboim.
# # #