Insights into an opera stage director's work from an internationally acclaimed director and teacher. Opera is nowadays performed worldwide. But as an art form it is little understood by performers and audiences alike. The Crafty Art of Opera wants to change that. Here, Michael Hampe brings glimpses of the director's work to a wider audience, uncovering the many techniques and rules that should inform an opera's staging: the need for singers to know their orchestra, the importance of space around singers, the gestures of languages, what we all can learn from Mozart, and the primacy of sense over effect, to name but a few. He shows how stories, through music, become tangible and real. Packed with many anecdotes from the author's luminous career, this book is dedicatedto opera-lovers who want to understand 'how it is done'; to opera-makers who want to better understand their craft; and, last but not least, to those who loathe opera, in order to prove them wrong. Eminently readable, it brings both insight and wit from a life spent in opera as director and teacher. MICHAEL HAMPE is an internationally acclaimed opera stage director. The Crafty Art of Opera was published in German as Opernschule.

In this original and thought-provoking book philosopher Michael Hampe sets out to help us understand happiness. The right and proper path to a happy life is a topic that has been debated for millennia. There are many theories, from those of ancient philosophy to those of modern neuroscience, but can any one of them ultimately tell us how the objective of a perfectly fulfilled life might be achieved? By telling the story of two friends - the unhappy philosopher Stanley Low and the happy gardener Gabriel Kolk - alongside a presentation of four essays that examine prominent and very plausible theories of happiness, Michael Hampe illustrates that there is no easy answer to our search for unadulterated bliss. Four Meditations on Happiness is an erudite and illuminating investigation into one of mankind's most elusive quests, one that allows us to reconsider what it means to be happy.

Gianluigi Gelmetti leads the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in this performance of Rossini's opera, recorded live at Sweden's Schwetzingen Festival in 1989. Performers include Alessandro Corbelli, Amelia Felle, David Keubler and Alberto Rinaldi.

What is the state of philosophy today, and what might it become tomorrow? With What Philosophy is For, Michael Hampe answers these questions by exploring the relationships among philosophy, education, science, and narrative, developing a Socratically inspired critique of philosophical doctrines. Philosophers have generally thought that their distinctive commitment to critical reflection entailed the development of systematic theories that lay out the basic structures of human experience, in order to teach the rest of humanity how to conceive more truly our place in the world. Hampe argues against this line of thinking, positing that the world consists fundamentally of individual things whose nature can never fully be captured by general concepts. As a result, philosophy should strive to challenge the false authority by which established patterns of thought and feeling hold us captive, enable the creative imagination to develop new forms of self-understanding, and thereby restore a sense of individual possibilities that would bring philosophy closer to the practices of literature and the arts. What Philosophy is For is simultaneously an introduction, a critique, and a call to action. Hampe shows how and why philosophy became what it is today, and, crucially, shows what it could be once more, if it would only turn its back on its pretensions to dogma: a privileged space for reflecting on the human condition.

vor dem Hintergrund fanatischer religioser Konflikte und in Kenntnis der im 17. Jahrhundert aufbluhenden exakten Wissenschaften entwickelte Spinoza einen der anspruchsvollsten Entwurfe der Philosophiegeschichte: seine in geometrischer Ordnung dargestellte "Ethik." Seine funf Teile werden in diesem kollektiven Kommentar durch jeweils drei Aufsatze erlautert. Eine Einleitung schildert die Ambitionen und historischen Folgen der "Ethik.""

Michael Hampe untersucht anhand einer Input-Output-Relation einen der bedeutendsten Trager multilateraler Entwicklungszusammenarbeit, das United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Der Autor analysiert Ziele und Aufgaben, zentrale Programme und Reformvorschlage."

Rossini's opera 'La Scala Di Seta' is performed at the annual Schwetzingen Festival by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. Gianluigi Gelmetti conducts.

Three peformances of Monteverdi's opera 'L'incoronazione di Poppea'. In the first peformance, Ole Anders Tandberg directs his debut production for Norwegian National Opera. Recorded live in 2010, Birgitte Christensen, Jacek Laszczkowski and Tim Mead head an international cast, with Allesandro De Marchi conducting. In the second performance director Michael Hampe provides a modern interpretation of Monteverdi's opera, recorded live at the Schwetzinger Festspiele in 1993. The performers include Patricia Schumann, Richard Croft, Kathleen Kuhlmann and Harry Peeters. René Jacobs conducts the original-sound ensemble, Concerto Köln. The third and final performance is of choreographer Christian Spuck's ballet with film and dialogue, recorded in 2013 at the Theaterhaus Stuttgart under the direction of Nikolai Vialkowitsch. The production is performed by Gauthier Dance and includes music by, among others, Monteverdi, Martin Donner, Robert Schumann, Emiliana Torrini and Cat Power.