Michael Hampe (director)

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Michael Hampe (born June 3, 1935 in Heidelberg ) is a German actor, theater and opera director and artistic director .

Life

Hampe was born in Heidelberg in 1935 as the son of an architect, his grandfather was the historian Karl Hampe . After attending humanistic high school, he studied cello at Syracuse University in the USA (with a concert diploma). After graduating from high school, he trained as an actor at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich . He then completed his studies in theater and music sciences as well as German in Heidelberg with a dissertation with Heinz Kindermann on the development of stage technology at the University of Vienna .

First engagements in 1958/59 followed as an actor at the Nordmark-Landestheater Schleswig and in 1959/60 as an actor and assistant director to the theater director Heinz-Joachim Klein at the Nationaltheater Mannheim. From 1961 to 1963, Hampe was engaged as an actor, director and dramaturge under the direction of Horst Gnekow at the Stadttheater Luzern , where he wants to play Giraudoux Intermezzo , Max Frisch's Biedermann and the Arsonists and The Big Fury of Philipp Hotz as well as Nestroy's Joke staged. 1963–65 he was responsible for around ten plays and operas at the Bern City Theater , for example Sophocles' King Oedipus , Goethe's Faust I , Bertolt Brecht's Life of Galilei , Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and Idomeneo and Heinrich Sutermeister's The Red Boot . At the same time assistant director for Leopold Lindtberg's productions of Goethe's Faust I and Faust II at the Salzburg Festival.

From 1965 to 1970 Michael Hampe worked as a director and personal assistant to the director Leopold Lindtberg at the Schauspielhaus Zürich until 1969, then as a guest director. There he directed Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm , Brecht's Mann ist Mann , Nestroy's Der Talisman , Molière's The School of Women , Miller's Der Preis and Arnold Wesker's Die Küche . In 1967, Hampe also directed the world premiere of Heinrich Sutermeister's Madame Bovary at the opera house and taught at the International Opera Studio. At the same time and afterwards other opera and theater directors, for example at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and at the Bremen Theater.

1972–75 he was artistic director at the National Theater in Mannheim with a teaching position at the State University of Music. In 1975 Hampe left Mannheim again and followed the call to the Cologne Opera , where he worked as artistic director for 20 years and shaped the house. This era was decisive for the Cologne Opera, because the management was characterized by extraordinarily high-quality and powerful works. Michael Hampe gave the Cologne Opera an artistic and scenic quality that continues to this day.

Cycles with works by Richard Wagner, Rossini, Mozart, Janáček and Britten have been drawn up, and many famous interpreters have been engaged. Important Cologne productions were Verdi's Falstaff (1976), Henze's We Reach the River (1977), Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1979), Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" (1980), Offenbach's Hoffmanns Erzählungen (1980), Rossinis "Barber of Seville" (1981), Britten's The Turn of the Screw (1983) and Berg's Lulu (1994). His production of Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage (1979) was a global success and was shown as a guest performance in numerous locations (including Edinburgh, London, Paris, Stockholm, Tokyo, most recently at the Dresden Music Festival) and was awarded the London Olivier Award in 1983.

In addition to the overall artistic direction of the Cologne house , he staged operas at the most famous European houses such as B. London, Paris, the Scala, San Francisco, at the Edinburgh Festival, in Munich, Pesaro and Florence and directed performances at the Schwetzingen Festival and the Lucerne Festival, with which he coordinated a close cooperation from 1984 to 1995. In Switzerland he staged Puccini's Manon Lescaut at the Zurich Opera House in 1975 , Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri in 1987, Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier in 1988 and Verdi's Un ballo in maschera in 1989, and Nestroy's Höllenangst at the Schauspielhaus in 1976 and Mozart's Le nozze at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva in 1977 di Figaro .

In addition, from 1985 to 1989 he was a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Festival , for which he created several productions in collaboration with Herbert von Karajan, Riccardo Muti and Henze, including the 1985 world premiere of Henze's Monteverdi adaptation Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria . His productions of Mozart's Così fan tutte and Le nozze di Figaro were performed in the Mozart Year 1991, and in 1987 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni under the musical direction of Herbert von Karajan .

From 1993 to 2000, Hampe was the artistic director of the Dresden Music Festival , which he developed internationally from 1994 with Kim Ry Andersen as administrative director and deputy artistic director, so that after the fall of the Wall, the music festival established itself as the largest music festival in the New Federal States. In its time, the Dresden Music Festival still had the unique selling point of presenting international opera performances and enabling composer commissions. There he staged the world premiere of Siegfried Matthus' Farinelli (1998), a cooperation with the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe, as well as the world premiere of Winfried Maria Danner's Die Sündflut (2002). His Handel Opera Serse was the world's first setting of an opera on the Internet, also as PAY-TV.

His productions in world-famous houses are still valued today. Many of his more than 200 productions were filmed for television and are available on DVD / Blu-ray Disc.

A large part of his personal archive is in the Theater Studies Collection of the University of Cologne.

literature

  • On Theater: Speeches and Writings Hardcover - 2000
  • Opera - play without rules (lectures on theater) - 2013
  • Opera school: For lovers, doers and despisers of musical theater - 2015

Teaching and honors

Michael Hampe is a professor at the Cologne University of Music and a visiting lecturer for the University of Cologne (theater management), the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (theater construction) and the University of Southern California .

1977–82 he was Vice President of the German Theater Technical Society. He is on the board of the European Music Theater Academy (EMA) in Vienna.

In 1995 Michael Hampe was awarded the Great Federal Cross of Merit, 1st Class, the Golden Medal of Honor of the State of Salzburg and was appointed Commendatore della Republica Italiana .

Works

The selection includes only the performances available as video:

Fonts

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Opera Director Leads Aria Master Class at Newman Recital Hall , USC News, March 5, 2001
personal data
SURNAME Hampe, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German theater and opera director
DATE OF BIRTH June 3, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg