Glyndebourne is now streaming on its YouTube channel Hamlet, the opera by composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn, who uses only words from Shakespeare’s original text.
Commenting on the score, Erica Jeal writes: “Dean’s music is many-layered, full of long, clear vocal lines propelled by repeated rhythmic figures in the orchestra, and has moments of delicate beauty – string harmonics tiptoe around Barbara Hannigan’s Ophelia as we first see her mad – and the chorus whispers almost as much as it sings.”
Richard Bratby compares Jocelyn’s approach to the Shakespeare original with what Boito did for Verdi. Richard Morrison gave a powerful rave in The Times, with quite the lede: “Forget Cumberbatch. Forget even Gielgud. I haven’t seen a more physically vivid, emotionally affecting or psychologically astute portrayal of the Prince of Denmark than Allan Clayton gives in this sensational production.”
Here is Brett Dean’s commentary:
There is no definitive version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. There were at least three versions printed within his lifetime or shortly thereafter, and endless variations, including the most commonly used 1st Folio, and an incalculable number of conflated versions.
Our Hamlet relies heavily on Shakespeare’s verse, if not necessarily on the standard chronology of scenes. The opera concentrates primarily on the domestic drama, exploring the depths of Hamlet’s quest for both understanding and revenge, from the death of his father through to his own demise.
This quest is relayed through the fragmentary nature of his relationships with those in his inner circle. It is this very fragmentation – as well as the lack of a definitive text upon which to base the opera – that allows us to explore the most effective and poetically resonant assemblage of story-lines.
Allan Clayton and Barbara Hannigan as Hamlet and Ophelia lead the vast, which includes Rod Gilfrey (Claudius), Sarah Connolly (Gertrude), Kim Begley (Polonius), David Butt Philip (Laertes), and John Tomlinson as the Ghost/Gravedigger. Vladimir Jurosky conducts. Catch it before it goes offline on Sunday 23 August.
Filed under: Glyndebourne Opera, new opera, Shakespeare
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 