Hamlet.
Composed by Brett Dean. Libretto by Matthew Jocelyn. Conducted by Nicholas Carter. Directed by Neil Armfield. A Glyndebourne Festival Production. The Adelaide Festival Theatre. Adelaide Festival Centre. Adelaide Festival. March 2-6. 2018
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Allan Clayton as Hamlet in Brett Dean's opera.Photo by Richard Hubert Smith |
My first thought while watching Neil
Armfield’s Glyndebourne production of Brett Dean’s operatic composition of
William Shakespeare’s Hamlet was to ask myself, “Why has Shakespeare’s most
enigmatic tragedy not been composed before? How did it escape the Verdi canon?
Dean answers this partly in the programme when he says, “My initial response
was to say no, that I couldn’t possibly tackle something so big.” My second
thought was to express my gratitude that Dean dared to take on the Herculean
task over five years and create a superb reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy
in operatic splendor – powerfully dramatic, splendidly staged, musically
evocative and totally absorbing. Librettist Matthew Jolcelyn has wisely and
creatively pared back the text, eliminated scenes and superfluous characters
and taken licence with the sequence of Shakespeare’s narrative. The arrival of
the Players in Act Three does not occur. The second gravedigger does not
appear. Rosencranz and Guildenstern
survive the ship voyage but are slain by Hamlet in the final scene of the
opera. And yet, as it must be, Dean’s opera remains entirely true to Hamlet’s central
dilemma of how to avenge the murder of his father by his uncle who has since
married his mother and assumed the throne of Denmark.
It is in every sense the epitome
of an Aristotelian tragedy, in which the fatal flaw of a noble hero brings
about his irrefutable downfall. The drama, the consequence and the tragic inevitability
of Shakespeare’s plot reverberates in every moment of Jocelyn’s libretto and Dean’s
colossal score. It is as if every moment has been composed on the rehearsal
floor with the singers. Each movement, each scene has been orchestrated with an
immediacy to capture the moment, to reveal the character, to further the plot
and to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. From the very moment you
enter the theatre, the warming up of the orchestra raises an air of expectation.
The curtain slowly rises to reveal a somewhat disheveled, troubled Hamlet (Alan
Clayton), alone in the centre of the stage, gripped by torment and isolation.
Bearded, dressed in a long coat and carrying weight, Barry appears as a student
from Wurtemburg, returned to Denmark and an unimaginable family tragedy. A more
mysterious sound accompanies the entrance of the dead king (Jud Arthur). The banquet
room of the castle erupts with the glorious singing of the State Opera chorus
as attendants, nobles and dignitaries of the Royal household. Under Chorus Master
Brett Wymark, the chorus lend the production a dynamic sound, and I would have
welcomed more appearances by this superb chorus of singers. They are also
strongly supported by the The Song Company under Artistic Director Antony
Pitts.
Armfield is the actor’s director.
Dean is the singer’s muse. Together, they have inspired a brilliant cast to soar
to the heights of emotional truth. Clayton is older than Hamlet’s nineteen
years, but in his dishevelment, his confusion and his beguiling trickery, he
inhabits the very nature of the tragic youth. Lorina Gore’s Ophelia, defiled
and deluded, creates an extraordinary theatrical moment as her wails and vocal
agonies drive her into the darkest pit of rejection and madness. Hers is an
unforgettable and haunting performance, underscored by the soul-renting playing
by the orchestra under conductor Nicholas Carter’s baton.
Each principal rises
magnificently to the challenges of character and composition. Loyal friend,
Horatio (Douglas McNicol) is played as a father figure to the tormented Hamlet.
Cheryl Barker’s Gertrude, is torn between her love for her son and a painful
guilt. Machiavellian Claudius (Rod Gilfry) is inevitably “hoist on his own
petard” in a fitting end to his villainous fratricide. There is also excellent
support from Samuel Sakker’s Laertes, his pontificating father, Polonius (Kim
Begley) andcomical duo, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Rupert Enticknap and
Christopher Lowrey)
In a final moment, contrasting
the grand guignol horror of the onstage slaughter with Hamlet’s dying words, “The
rest is silence”, the curtain silently and slowly falls on the Australian
premiere of the Glyndebourne Festival production. It is a titanic reimagining
of Shakespeare’s tragedy, a tour de force of contemporary operatic composition
and a most worthy companion to earlier re-imaginings of Shakespeare’s works.
