Glyndebourne: Hamlet

Brett Dean's multi-award-winning opera received its world premiere at Glyndebourne Festival 2017. The world premiere recording of Brett Deans new opera based on Shakespeares best-known tragedy: To be, or not to be. This is Hamlets dilemma, and the essence of Shakespeares most famous and arguably greatest work, given new life in operatic form in this original Glyndebourne commission. Thoughts of murder and revenge drive Hamlet when he learns that it was his uncle Claudius who killed his father, the King of Denmark, then seized his fathers crown and wife. But Hamlets vengeance vies with the question: is suicide a morally valid deed in an unbearably painful world?

Cast

Allan Clayton

as Hamlet

Barbara Hannigan

as Ophelia

Rodney Gilfry

as Claudius

Sarah Connolly

as Gertrude

David Butt Philip

as Laertes

Kim Begley

as Polonius

Jacques Imbrailo

as Horatio

James Newby

as Marcellus

John Tomlinson

as Ghost/Gravedigger

Rupert Enticknap

as Rosencrantz

Reviews

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