Hamlet isn’t brooding on the battlements in Denmark. He’s in the Hague; starring in a new production from Oper2Day, the Dutch “new energy from old sources” opera company. Its premiere was broadcast live on OperaVision – www.operavision.eu – a cultural gold mine partly funded by the EU Commission (grant about to expire in 2020). It is now available on demand.
That’s my commercial. Here’s the threat. If funding for OperaVision is not continued beyond 2020, in some shape or form, I shall see to it personally that the ghost of post Brexit Britain returns to stalk the corridors of Brussels, demanding righteous retribution; “Alas, poor OperaVision, I watched it well”.
Tout court, OperaVision is an amazing cultural resource, allowing unlimited access to a raft of productions across Europe’s opera houses, and a full library of concerts and music documentaries. In the battle to make opera relevant to the many not the few (sorry for the tired trope) OperaVision is a gladiator par excellence. It combines the well-loved mainstream with the cutting edge, broadens taste, educates and draws opera watchers well beyond their comfort zone.
It is supported by 29 production companies spanning Europe (loosely defined) from Ireland in the west to Moscow in the east. It performs an important educational function, providing accessible materials to pupils and teachers alike. A library section is a cornucopia of back productions, documentaries, concerts and – well I never – a “For Fun” section. While most intellectual bien pensants the world over are having the glooms, the tribe at OperaVision dares to have fun. Heaven forfend.
On, to the battlements. Hamlet was a compositional bullet that even Verdi dodged: Otello, Macbeth and his triumphant finale, Falstaff – but no Hamlet. Too complex. It is Shakespeare’s longest play and difficult to adapt to the operatic medium – too many subtle emotions, subplots and twists. That’s true of mostly all Shakespeare plays. Others have struggled manfully. There are over 200 operas based on Shakespeare’s work, the majority – probably thankfully – mouldering in dustbins.
David Garrick had a go with The Tempest as early as 1756. He was accused of “castrating Shakespeare”. Lord Byron, no less, accused Rossini of “crucifying” Othello in a letter to a fellow poet in 1818. English composer Thomas Adès brought The Tempest to stage in 2004 in a coproduction of The Royal Opera House, Copenhagen Opera and Opéra National du Rhin. It received great acclaim and was staged at The Met in 2012 to rave reviews and then dumped.
Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably the most performed Shakespeare based opera in today’s repertoire, because the plot line lends itself well to operatic presentation, asses, love potions and all.
Then there is the “riff” Shakespeare category. The Enchanted Island, which premiered at the Met in 2011, was a pasticcio rewrite of The Tempest, jumellé avec A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed by – wait for it – Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau, Campra, Ferrandini, and Purcell. The whole mishmash was assembled by Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott. Believe it or not, it worked.
Descending to the depths, there is (stop press, premiered on 21st September in Manhattan) Scotland PA, a musical version of a black comedy retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, set against the backdrop of a fast food restaurant in the early 70s, rural Pennsylvania (PA is the state abbreviation). Reader note: I am NOT making this up.
This classic junk food tale of guilt and betrayal centres on the McBeths, Joe “Mac” and Pat who are stuck in their dead-end jobs at Duncan’s Restaurant. Pat is getting restless and hatches a plan as Mac starts to see things – the three hippies (witches). It’s about supersizing – and a monument of towering piffle. But, it is opera-ish. Perhaps.
So, where in this galaxy shines Hamlet? Francesco Gasparini – we all remember him – had a go in 1712 with his Ambleto (Hamlet rendered in Italian), performed in London by the celebrated castrato, Nicolini. Takes all sorts. Funny to reflect that gender selection is nothing new. Didn’t really work – the opera, that is.
Only one composer cracked the Hamlet curse, Ambroise Thomas in 1868, a French composer who won the Paris Conservatoire’s Prix de Rome and is now best know for his operas Mignon and François de Rimini. His Hamlet was performed 153 times in the era, but is hardly heard of today. The neglect was spotted by Opera2Day.
Australian composer, Brett Dean, had a moment in the Sussex countryside sun in his Glyndebourne Hamlet in 2017. But the sun went in and the strange effort – which drew on the words of Shakespeare’s First Quarto version of the play – has not seen the light of day, let alone basked in the sun, since. “To be or not to be, ay, there’s the point”. Eh?
Opera2Day has based its production on the Ambroise Thomas work, itself a much condensed version of the play. Then the team picked up the pruning shears and clipped away even more vigorously. The work’s runtime is 140 minutes. The play lasts four hours. Does the pruning work?
Some of it does. Some of it doesn’t. The action is staged in the 20th century, using props like digital cameras to record “the conscience of the King”, during the play reprising the murder of Hamlet’s father. The background is innovatively set as film noir, allowing ghosts to strut their stuff in the background and the inner workings of the characters’ minds – especially Hamlet and Ophélie – to run in parallel with the onstage action.
I started out thinking, “hokum”, but was quickly enthralled. The multi dimensional effect allowed the plot to be advanced quickly and understanding was enriched. It was like watching a YouTube video running at 2X speed – very du jour amongst geeks, I’m told – to pack in more content.
In this advancing era of simulcasts, global transmissions and on–the–fly editing pioneered by New York’s Metropolitan Opera, it makes perfect sense for opera companies to utilise technological developments to the full. This is a slick and clever production.
Less so, the choices made of where to cut. There were clunky jumps in plot throughout, but the strangest was the closing scene in which Hamlet, after a brief exposition of his predicament and grief following Ophélie’s funeral, suddenly shoots himself. Lights out. In more senses than one. The surprised audience took a moment or two to catch on before the applause started – tentatively.
Comments on the two principals. Quirjin de Lang, the Dutch baritone, who sang Hamlet, is a true singing actor and needed all his dramatic talents to pull off some of the visuals, especially the scene in which he is tempted to kill murdering Uncle Claudius who is kneeling in prayer, but stays his hand because the penitent king may make it straight to heaven. Best to do him in when he is performing some unforgivable act. This was a struggle of the mind M. de Lang portrayed vividly alongside many of his soliloquy moments. He did introspection well – a Hamlet, to his boots.
French-Dutch soprano, Lucie Chartin, sang Ophélie. The litmus test of this role in the Ambroise opera – as it is in the play – is the mad scene and Mme. Chartin was mesmerising. She flipped from sanity to madness with a glance of her eyes and sang the swooping mood changing passages effortlessly.
The performance was conducted by Hernan Schvarzman, who cracked the New European Ensemble along at a great pace. They made the most of Ambroise’s score which is frankly deficient. For a tragedy there are too many ascending–chord–progression aria finales. It’s uplifting rather than foreboding. Ambroise was writing for audiences who insisted on romanticism with everything. I was listening for the occasional blazing trumpet of doom – but it never came. The music is pleasant, but unexceptional. For once, I was lusting after a bit of 20th century dissonance.
All in all, this was a brave attempt to revive a former repertoire favourite in a manageable form. It could be better if in future productions some of the vital action – such as the final scene – is not treated in such a peremptory fashion. And, I would probably not have gone to The Hague just for that performance. So, thank you, OperaVision.
More like OperaVista. The folk at OperaVision have a veritable flood of new and interesting productions on the schedule. Janacek’s Jenufa, from the Brno Festival, Henze’s The Bassarids, performed by Komische Oper Berlin and Der ferne Klang by Schreker, from Royal Swedish Opera. And that’s just a taste of what’s available in October alone. Their mandate was to open the opera experience to a wider European audience and offer new horizons for seasoned opera goers. They are succeeding beyond expectation.
(Image via Oper2Day)