![]() ![]() Gertrude, crazed by guilt and terror, behaves more like Lady Macbeth than Denmark’s Queen. The acting, initially fairly dignified, grows increasingly excessive. The stage is bare, with moveable walls at irregular angles at first, there isn’t a chair in sight, so the singers have to stand, or sit, crouch, and lie on the floor. ![]() The production is an amalgam of starkness and overkill. ![]() Polonius reveals his complicity in the dead King’s murder Hamlet and Ophelia are engaged the opera ends with Hamlet and Laertes fighting at Ophelia’s grave both die after Hamlet stabs the King. The story is drastically truncated the situations are simplified and perverted, the characters’ actions and interactions largely changed. In the case of “Hamlet,” first of all, forget Shakespeare – not an easy task. ![]() Of his 13 operas, “Mignon”(1866), based on Goethe’s novel “Wilhelm Meister,” and “Hamlet,” both with librettos by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, were most successful to celebrate Mignon’s 100 th performance, Thomas received the Grand Cross.Ĭhoosing librettos from the world’s greatest literature is risky: the words tend to eclipse the music, and the originals have to be “adapted” out of recognition. Though rarely remembered today, Thomas (1811-1896) was a prolific composer so highly esteemed during his lifetime that he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and Director of the Paris Conservatoire. Taped at the March 27 performance, it was telecast on July 15 as one of Lincoln Center’s truly “Great Performances at the MET.” Ambroise Thomas’ “Hamlet,” premiered in Paris in 1868, was last performed at the MET in 1897 it was revived this season in a new production by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser, created for the superb English baritone Simon Keenlyside in the title role. If an opera has lain dormant for 100 years, only a great performance can awaken it. Hamlet- Marlis Petersen and Simon Keenlyside- Photo Credit Brent Ness ![]()
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