Obscene and heard
Which suave singer, perhaps distracted by his not-so-noble legal problems, suffered a meltdown at a public master class this weekend, repeatedly snarling “motherfucker” at his startled students? Shocked witnesses swore that the event should have been retitled “I hear America swearing!”
parterre box 
August 22, 2005 at 7:18 am
Not Tommy Hampson
I am just shocked!!!!
August 22, 2005 at 1:25 pm
I haven’t seen the legal problems reported in English, and I don’t read German well enough to have any idea what they are.
August 22, 2005 at 5:31 pm
la cieca, who is it? i am just dying to know!
August 22, 2005 at 7:12 pm
Well, seeing as “I Hear America Singing” is kind of Thomas Hampson’s thing, it must be him…
August 23, 2005 at 2:48 am
Hmmmm, but La Cieca talks about his “not-so-noble” legal problems. Timothy Noble? On the other hand, he sure isn’t a “suave singer.”
August 23, 2005 at 4:08 am
Well, tell us about the legal problems! I too am shocked!!! Deeply shocked!!!!
August 23, 2005 at 11:18 am
And the review in the Times of his Germont at Salzburg isn’t exactly glowing either……
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,1554371,00.html
August 23, 2005 at 9:46 pm
“not-so-noble”… Isn’t Hampson’s girlfriend/partner an Austrian Baroness type?
August 23, 2005 at 11:50 pm
It is Hampson, and there was an article about his problems in the NY Sun yesterday. I am not a subscriber, so I could only read a couple of paragraphs of the article. There is a link to it on operatoday.com
August 24, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Didn’t Hampson leave a wife and family to go off with some kind of ersatz Countess or somenthing – if so’ I hope the wifey soaks him for everything he has!!! The man has a huge ego problem.
August 31, 2005 at 9:19 am
Well, since anyone seems to be keen on learning about Hampson’s legal problems which turned him quite edgy these days (he also insulted some journalists in a similar way), here’s the brief version of the scandal, which made him the probably best known opera singer in Austria ever (he even out shadows Anna Netrebko, who has been on the front page of every Austrian magazine because of her Salzburg Traviata):
For almost 20 years now, Hampson lives together with Andrea Herberstein (who insists of being called Frau Gräfing having been married to a “Count” before, though nobility is abolished since the Frist World War in Austria…). She owns a big castle in Styria, a province in Southern Austria with a huge open air zoo. Since the so-called nobility has traditionally very good connections to the conservative government of Styria, it was always easy to get millions of Dollars public funding for her zoo, which is regarded as a tourist attraction for the area. Since they were all such good friends, no questions about the whereabouts of the money and its purpose have been asked. Hampson himself is a chairman of the zoo company’s board. Over the last months however, more and more suspicions came to the surface, probably also because there will be elections in Styria in October.
Finally an official investigation of the case has uncovered incredible irregularities: the bookkeeping was extremely vague, the use of the public money was not explained properly, tickets for the zoo have been sold undeclared before tax, and family members have always taken money out of the zoo’s fund. At first Herberstein and her clan denied everything (After a former worker admitted helping with the family’s criminal activity, Andrea Herberstein ordered a psychiatric report which claimed that the poor man had no perspective for his live and therefore must be a notorious liar), but as more and more became know, they quickly filed a self-accusation and amended return, since that will result in a milder punishment. One juicy detail, which caused special personal embarrassment to Hampson was, that a carpenter, who works regularly for the family, had to admit, that he helped the family by forging and manipulating invoices: for example he built all the furniture for Hampson’s office in his private home in Vienna, but the couple refused to pay him, until he forged the invoice and changed it to works done in the zoo.
Naturally Hampson now sees himself as political victim by the socialists and thinks about leaving the country for good. As he’s doing a project with music of composers which were oppressed, banned and killed by the Nazis he was inspired to a very tasteful allusion, claiming that if he had lived some time ago in Austria he himself would certainly have been killed.
Turning his back to Austria might prove to be a bit difficult at least for the moment, since he has been ordered not to leave the country during the legal investigations…
Helmut
September 16, 2005 at 2:40 pm
I’m not really concerned about the legal problems….the fact that he (or at least his partner) has been involved in financial irregularities doesn’t make him less of a musician). However, I am worried that he’s behaved unprofessionally towards students, or is alleged to have done so….
The idol has fallen far from the pedestal, if this is really the case.