Michael Hampe (3 June 1935 – 18 November 2022) was a German theatre and opera director, general manager (Intendant) and actor.
During this time he spent a year in the United States, where he studied chamber music as a cellist at Syracuse University, New York,[2] with Louis Krasner.
His time at the Bern Theatre between 1963 and 1965 proved key to his development as a director,[5] where he staged works including Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, Molière's The Misanthrope, Goethe's Faust I, Brecht's Life of Galileo, Mozart's operas Idomeneo and Die Zauberflöte,[6] and Heinrich Sutermeister's Der rote Stiefel.
His productions of works by Richard Wagner and Gioachino Rossini are remembered, as well as his engagement for the operas of Benjamin Britten and Leos Janáček.
[7] Other organizations where he directed include La Scala in Milan, as well as in Paris, Munich, Athens, Stockholm, Helsinki, San Francisco,[18] Los Angeles, Washington,[19] Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Sydney and Tokyo,[20][21] and at festivals in Florence, Pesaro, Ravenna, Drottningholm, Edinburgh and Lucerne Festival.
[22] After the Reunification of Germany, Hampe assumed the artistic direction of the Dresden Music Festival,[2][23] which he led to new international recognition, together with Kim Ry Andersen [de] as managing and deputy director.
During his tenure from 1993 to 2000,[24] he commissioned works from composers such as Siegfried Matthus (Farinelli, 1998)[25] and Wilfried Maria Danner [de] (Die Sündflut, 2002), directing their world premieres.
[10] Part of Hampe's archive is located in the University of Cologne's theatre collection, which will also receive and administer his complete theatrical estate.