HAMLET Live in HD from the Met at Town Hall Theater, 3/27

When we think of operatic adaptations of Shakespeare, they all seem to come from Verdi: Otello, Macbeth, and Falstaff. Hundreds more have been attempted, but most are deemed failures, unable to translate the complexity of Shakespeare's plots into music.

Others, successful in their day, have simply been lost to history. One such opera is Hamlet, by French composer Ambroise Thomas. It premiered at the Paris Opera in 1868, and would become the French composer's most popular opera. Last performed at the Metropolitan Opera in 1897, it receives a new production this year and will be broadcast live on March 27, as part of the Metropolitan Opera "Live in HD" series, at Middlebury's Town Hall Theater.

English tenor Simon Keenlyside will appear in the title role. Marlis Petersen replaces Natalie Dessay, who is ill, in the role of Ophelia.

Like many 19th-Century adaptations of Shakespeare, the opera takes liberties with the original. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are nowhere to be seen. Hamlet fails to murder Polonius, and Fortinbras never invades the country. Strikingly, in the original version Hamlet does not die after his duel with Laertes and finds himself, at the curtain, crowned the new King of Denmark.

Thomas soon revised the work to adhere more closely with Shakespeare's ending.

Hamlet will be broadcast live on Saturday, March 27, at 1 pm. Tickets are $22. an Encore presentation will be shown on Sunday, March 28, at 3 pm. For the encore presentation, a $10 student ticket is available. Tickets may be purchased at www.townhalltheater.org, 382-9222, at the THT Box Office (Mon-Sat, Noon-5 pm) or at the door, if available.

Photo of Simon Keenlyside in Ambroise Thomas' operatic version of Hamlet

 

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