Sicklist: Hampson’s out

Sicklist: Hampson’s out

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norman lebrecht

February 22, 2018

Thomas Hampson has withdrawn from Munich’s Cosi fan tutte next month.

His replacement is Luca Tittoto.

Also out at Munich is Isabel Leonard who was meant to be singing Angelina in Cenerentola. Her substitute is Margarita Gritskova.

 

Comments

  • Marna says:

    Did anybody expect Hampson to show up? I saw a Liederabend of his last year in Vienna. He was really a ghost of himself— the voice has lost most of its color and shakes at any dynamic beyond mezzo-whatever.
    Whereas I used to consider Hampson a master interpreter, I left the concert asking myself why. The music seemed “schlampig einstudiert.”

    I was fully expecting Hampson to cancel his Toscas in Vienna last year… which he did. He is on the books to sing Boccanegra in a few months. Please don’t report it as “news” when he doesn’t show up.

  • CJ says:

    Luca Tittoto was very good as Don Alfonso in Venice.

  • Andrea says:

    And a very good Don Alfonso in Munich too, he already sang in that production.

  • Pedro says:

    I have heard Hampson in the Deutsches Requiem a few weeks ago and his voice was not well.

  • Sharon says:

    I have a nurse’s question: What determines how some people like Placido Domingo, can sing well as he approaches his eighties while other voices burn out when a person is in his/her forties? Is it anatomy? How he/she takes care of the voice? Genetics?
    What can a singer do to keep singing well longer?

    • Bylle Binder says:

      Singing roles suiting his voice and don’t thinking he could perform six times a week? It’s pretty obvious: Voices wear off with usage – and in Hampson’s case I sometimes thought he did things not really suited for his voice. I remember an “Arabella” with him and thinking that with Mandrika he certainly overextended himself. And I thought of Sir Thomas Allen, who once said he’d have tried Mandrika, but learned rather quickly it doesn’t suit his voice. He was always rather clever when it came to the roles he sang (Karajan got to feel it) and the result – I’ve heard him two years ago with Winterreise and despite of Sir Thomas now being over 70, he still sounds wonderful.

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