Hamlet

by Brett Dean (libretto by Matthew Jocelyn after Shakespeare)

seen by live streaming from Glyndebourne on 6 July 2017

Vladimir Jurowski conducted and Neil Armfield directed this newly commissioned opera based on Shakespeare's play, with Allan Clayton as Hamlet, Barbara Hannigan as Ophelia, Rod Gilfry as Claudius, Sarah Connolly as Gertrude, and John Tomlinson singing the Ghost, the Player King and the Gravedigger.

It is a huge challenge to condense the complex and very long text of Hamlet into a satisfactory opera, but Dean and Jocelyn have succeeded with an extremely clever and effective adaptation. Many aspects of the play are perforce omitted - but they often are in stage productions as well, since the longest version of the text would take about four hours to perform. There is no Fortinbras, and so very little of the political plot; not even a trip to England. What remains is the personal drama of Hamlet's confusion and collapse, the destruction of Ophelia's sanity, and the final catastrophe as the king's plot to rid himself of his troublesome nephew backfires leaving all the principal characters dead except for Horatio.

The opera opens with the feast - not on the battlements as one picnicking audience member observed during the interval interviews - but the decision is entirely sensible, and the unease of the situation is immediately brought into focus by Hamlet's strange and disconnected behaviour. He seems already to have adopted the 'antic disposition', or at least he seems to be 'on the spectrum', as they say, walking in careful but obsessive patterns around the room and then disconcerting everyone by striding along the dining table. The icy perfection of the court, all assembled in a room of classical eighteenth century elegance with white walls, is gradually fragmented as the walls are moved around in later scenes, often exposing the unpainted backs and supporting struts, until the banqueting hall is recreated for the final duel. (Excellent set design by Ralph Myers.) Throughout the production, all the people wear exaggeratedly pale make-up on their faces - but not on their necks - a subtly disquieting indication of alienation.

Several strands of the play can take place simultaneously with the hep of musical lines. Not only are we privy to Hamlet's inner turmoil, but Laertes's cautious but oppressive advice to his sister Ophelia co-exists with the public festivities of the new King, his Queen and the court. And, in an audacious twist, phrases from the famous soliloquies are used completely out of place, in terms of the play, but immediately appropriate in terms of the opera. In fact, Hamlet's first words sung in the piece, after an impressively low rumble from a tam-tam, are 'or not to be', the second half of the most famous phrase from the play. In other dextrous reshapings of the text, the players declaim fragments of the soliloquies instead of the bombastic Hecuba speech, and during the duel between Hamlet and Laertes, while the chorus sings instructions from a fencing manual, Hamlet sings weirdly relevant extracts from his advice to the players on how to use hand gestures in their acting styles. This is all brilliant stuff.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern perform their thankless task of being pawns out of their depth, their ineffectuality somehow enhanced by their intertwining counter-tenor voices. As they, too, are not sent to England, they become the messengers for the final duel (replacing Osric) and are slain as hapless defenders of the king when Hamlet attacks him with the poisoned rapier.

All this must be matched by effective music and by the performances of the singers. The music is fascinating and powerful, with many interesting effects and textures. Unfortunately some of this was lost in a cinema screening, since Brett Dean has specifically placed some instrumentalists in the high spaces of the auditorium, and some of the chorus in the orchestra pit, but the specific sources of the sound were somewhat flattened out in the cinema - it must have been far more effective in the theatre itself.

As for the cast, they were extremely good. Allan Clayton's Hamlet was always a powerful presence in what must be a draining role, while Rod Gilfry presented an outwardly charming but increasingly sinister king, matched by a proudly reserved Sarah Connolly as Gertrude. Barbara Hannigan'e Ophelia was a revelation. Already an awkward young woman, she spiralled down into an electrifying and horrifying madness, throwing herself about the stage and onto other characters with a frightening abandon, a real tour de force.

Glyndebourne can be justly proud of this fascinating production.