Hamlet (Opera Australia) ★★★★

Composed by Brett Dean. Libretto by Matthew Jocelyn after William Shakespeare. Sydney Opera House. Joan Sutherland Theatre. 20 Jul – 9 Aug, 2024.

With an Australian composer, Brett Dean, and director, Neil Armfield, Hamlet was originally commissioned by Britain’s famed Glyndebourne Festival before touring to The Met in New York, and beyond. That’s quite the pedigree behind this show, even before you mention the S-word (that’s Shakespeare). 

Taking a liberal approach to Shakespeare’s text, this opera plays with your senses to put the audience in the headspace of the Danish prince which can be a disorienting experience. The show opens with a fractured echo of the play’s Act 3 soliloquy “To be, or not to be” before throwing us into the dining hall at Elsinore. It sets the tone for an adaptation that is part deconstruction of the original, which is happy to crib from Shakespeare’s other works to make a point.

Dean’s score is decidedly modern in its outlook, echoing the essence of a film score at points, and playing with tonality and sound design to fill the theatre. The orchestra’s percussionists, positioned in the balconies, transport the audience into the realm of the supernatural. This is by no means an atonal piece, but those wanting soaring operatic melodies may be left wanting.

British tenor, Allan Clayton, plays Hamlet (as he has in previous productions) with a surly flare. Lorina Gore has her work cut out for her as Ophelia with a particularly technical part to sing. In a wonderful move, Dean has written Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Russell Harcourt and Christopher Lowrey) as counter-tenors who constantly echo each other and those around them; it’s a wonderful comedic touch.

Ralph Myers’s set shifts as easily as Hamlet’s mental state, giving scenes a dream-like quality, and Alice Babidge’s costumes clearly mark each character. Armfield’s direction is as assured as always. Placing the ensemble cast around the aisles of the audience for the start of Act 2 is a master stroke. This is an opera that doesn’t stay on the stage, but gets inside your head.

Hamlet takes the elements that are obviously classic and manages to present them with a modern vision through the medium of opera. It’s the kind of iconoclastic blend that Australian creatives do best. While I think this is aimed more at those with a solid operatic knowledge (and understanding of Shakespeare’s plot) it’s nice to see another fresh piece spice up the Opera Australia repertoire.