A five-part series from Singers on Singing
Above: Kirsten Flagstad
The Hampsong Foundation has invited the internationally distinguished and venerated authority on opera and its performance Roger Pines to co-present with the acclaimed great baritone Thomas Hampson five features in which they discuss the art of some of the most important historical figures from the past in the recorded heritage of opera singing.
Iconic Voices of the Past is a unique opportunity for students, young singers and the general public to hear two exceptionally deeply informed experts reveal the vocal, stylistic and theatrical qualities of singers who were extolled in their times for their artistic and technical mastery.
The series has been initiated to profile artists from the past that many listeners may well not have heard before, and in doing so it also illustrates the many specifically different individual voice types and stylistic characteristics that are required for various contrasting opera roles and art songs performed in diverse languages.
Jon Tolansky is the producer of Iconic Voices of the Past. Launched in 2022, Iconic Voices of the Past is a five-part series in the Singers on Singing archive.
Iconic Voices of the Past Series
More on the presenters:
Thomas Hampson is internationally acclaimed not only as one of history’s greatest virtuoso baritones with extolled mastery in an exceptionally wide repertoire spanning over more than 400 years of music from 1610 to 2022 but also as a major influential scholar, writer and pedagogue on the performance of opera and art song. He is profoundly committed to research, education, musical outreach, and bringing the highest awareness of music to the widest possible public through technology. One of the most highly sought after and greatly loved figures in the world’s top opera houses and concert halls, Thomas Hampson has recorded more than 150 CD and DVD albums, some of which have received extra special commendation in winning the highest prized trophies: they include a Grammy Award, five Edison Awards, and the Grand Prix du Disque. Through the abundantly lauded Hampsong Foundation which he founded in 2003 he employs the art of song and opera to promote intercultural dialogue and worldwide human and social understanding.
Roger Pines is internationally revered and in demand as one of the world’s most informed and enlightened opera writers, broadcasters and lecturers. He recently concluded a 26-year tenure as Dramaturg of Lyric Opera of Chicago, where he also co-hosted the company’s live opening-night broadcasts for eight seasons. Additionally, he was Special Lecturer/Consultant for the Ryan Opera Center, Lyric’s young-artist program. He is a regular writer for major American and European publications, among them Opera News and Opera. For the latter, he has also conducted in-depth interviews with many of the most celebrated opera singers of the past six decades. Roger Pines has provided specialist opera education in his residencies at the University of Texas in Austin, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, and currently Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music (Evanston, Illinois). Since 2005 he has been a worldwide radio celebrity as a favourite panelist on the Metropolitan Opera Quiz, heard during the intervals of the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.
Jon Tolansky is the producer of Iconic Voices of the Past.
