Towards Cultural Courage: Brett Dean’s Hamlet

Hamlet (Dean)
Opera Australia
7 p.m. July 20, 2024
Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
★★★☆☆

In July, having observed the celebrated work from afar for some time, I decided to take myself down to the Sydney Opera House for the opening night of Opera Australia’s season of Brett Dean’s Hamlet (2016). I remember that news of Hamlet’s successful first run at Glyndebourne quickly reached Brisbane. If the opera premiered on Sunday, June 11, 2017, it must have been the following Saturday morning that I, a back-desk violist in the Queensland Youth Symphony whose sausage fingers were regarded as a curse upon the whole orchestra, overheard John Curro murmur from the podium, “Dean’s latest opera has done well, very well.” From then, I longed to hear it live. In those intervening years, I actually met Dean and gratefully received from him a handful of lessons in composition. The knowledge I gained during those masterclasses was formative and, today, better equips me, I think, to critically reflect on his Hamlet.

In 1978, Solzhenitsyn declared that the West had “lost its civil courage”. What remains missing today, among other things, is the West’s cultural courage.

Hamlet is the longest of Shakespeare’s plays, written around the turn of the seventeenth century (and, subsequently, revised across multiple editions). Epic in both its proportions and themes, it is little wonder that many a composer has been inspired by it. Preliminary research alone has turned up more music history than one knows what to do with, at least within one review article, and so, far from being exhaustive, the following preamble largely concerns itself with the operatic beginnings of Prince Hamlet of Denmark, found not in England but Italy.

With their immense wealth, secured through dominating and far-reaching maritime commerce, the merchants of Venice had by the seventeenth century built for themselves a cultural metropolis. In music, Adrian Willaert’s celebrated Venetian School of composition, followed by Monteverdi’s tenure at the Basilica di San Marco, brought prestige to the Most Serene Republic. Early Venetian composers of opera included Francesco Cavalli, Giovanni Legrenzi and, of course, il Prete Rosso. But in the decade before Vivaldi’s operatic infamy, there emerged, as part of the carnival of 1706, a new work by librettists Apostolo Zeno and Pietro Pariati and composer Francesco Gasparini: Ambleto (1705). Zeno and Pariati’s text is not based upon Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which they were unfamiliar with, but rather Saxo Grammaticus’s thirteenth-century Gesta Danorum (Deeds of the Danes). In fact, it was Zeno and Pariati’s Ambleto that reached London in 1712. By contrast, Paolo Rolli’s translation of Shakespeare’s “To be” soliloquy was not published in Italy until 1739. The tragedy’s first staged performance, which occurred in Venice as late as 1774, followed Francesco Gritti’s translation of the 1769 French adaptation by Jean-François Ducis. In editing a 1796 reprint of the Gritti, the editors noted that Ducis “should have left [Hamlet] entirely to the English stage, since it turns on a fact quite outside of nature … and disgusts every reasonable spectator or reader”.

Yet, despite this moral certitude, Italy’s Hamlet fascination was insatiable, and Zeno and Pariati’s libretto soon inspired other composers to try their hand. Domenico Scarlatti, who had studied under Gasparini, premiered his Ambleto (1715) at the Teatro Capranica. Some kind of collaborative Ambleto, involving Giuseppe Vignati, Carlo Baglioni and Giacomo Cozzi, took place during Christmas 1719 at the Teatro Regio Ducale, and the Teatro San Angelo produced Giuseppe Carcani’s Ambleto (1741) in 1742. By the last decade of the eighteenth century, Ducis’s adaptation had superseded Zeno and Pariati’s in popularity; the Frenchman’s text served as the basis for a new class of Italian Amleto (furnished with this updated spelling) by Luigi Caruso (1790) and Gaetano Andreozzi (1792).

The first Italian opera to directly base itself upon Shakespeare’s play was, in all likelihood, Amleto (1822) by librettist Felice Romani and composer Saverio Mercadante—though it was not the first opera ever to do so; that honour probably falls to Hamlet: Prinz vom Tandelmarkt (1807) by the little-known Austrian composer Ignaz Schuster. From Romani and Mercadante’s Amleto followed operas by Antonia Buzzola (1848), Angelo Zandarini (1854), Luigi Moroni (1860), Alfredo Grandi (1898), and, notably, Franco Faccio (1865). The nineteenth century saw the spark that had been lit by Zeno, Pariati and Gasparini erupt across Europe. Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet (1868) would be, today, the most remembered; other Hamlets were composed by Max Maretzek (1840), Alexander Stadtfeld (1882), Charles S. Clark (1886), Jean-Louis-Aristide Hignard (1888) … the list rolls on. And none of this is to mention those composers who contemplated their own operatic Hamlet, like Schumann and Verdi, or who started and then abandoned such, like Prokofiev.

What, in amongst all this, to expect of Dean’s offering? The reason I have put you through these historical pains in some detail is because it is vital to understand that Dean’s Hamlet is no island but, rather, another development in a specific Shakespearean literature. In 2017, Dean virtually acknowledged as much, admitting to David Allenby of Boosey & Hawkes that he “didn’t wish to turn [his] Hamlet into a kind of pseudo-renaissance sound-byte fest, especially given the ongoing relevance of [the story] across the centuries”. He posited during the same interview that there were “something like fourteen extant Hamlet operas” preceding his own; the above research suggests there could be more than thirty. Here again does Quadrant Music demonstrate its importance. But I doth protest too much; time for more matter with less art.

In the recently expressed view of composer Samuel Andreyev, a review article that “just restates the composer’s own opinions about their work” is little more than “thinly veiled promotional writing”. I share this view.

In 1978, Solzhenitsyn declared that the West had “lost its civil courage”. What remains missing today, among other things, is the West’s cultural courage. For example, in the recently expressed view of composer Samuel Andreyev, a review article that “just restates the composer’s own opinions about their work” is little more than “thinly veiled promotional writing”. I share this view. On the whole, contemporary reviews of new or existing Australian compositions, as well as of domestic musical performances and productions, read more as advertisements than they do inquisitive studies. This situation, whether it arises through ignorance or fear, is not one we should tolerate, for Western music owes its flourishing not to timidity but robust, erudite debate. So, in the words that follow, I have sought to realise the axiom that Prince Hamlet ultimately could not: that there is either being or not being, one or the other, and that truth, justice and progress are sustained only through active decision-making that is informed by critical, authentic thought. There can be no fence-sitting or seat-warming in any review that claims to be meritorious or to respect its subject. Fortunately, Opera Australia’s “diversity and inclusion” statement asserts that the company “celebrate[s] different perspectives and ideas that assist [it] to create successful opera for the 21st century”, and so I am sure that my musings will be received in the spirit in which they are intended: objectively. And now, let us begin.

The review

I cut fine my arrival at Bennelong Point. Hastening in from the winter evening, I collected a complimentary program and took my seat. A quick survey of my immediate company revealed Hamlet’s artistic team, as well as Opera Australia’s hierarchs and special guests. Directly in front of me came to sit John Graham, the state Arts Minister (somewhat politically offset when I eventually spied Bronwyn Bishop). To my right in the row in front of me was Dean himself, accepting shoulder taps and well wishes. His demeanour was calm—but then this was the opera’s fifth run, having gone from Glyndebourne to the Adelaide Festival in 2018, The Met in 2022 and, in the year following that, Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper. Yet it could hardly be said that this Australian Hamlet of international stature had drawn out every cultural patriot, for the Joan Sutherland Theatre’s 1500 seats were noticeably pockmarked (and, admittedly, even more so after intermission), with vacant splotches. There was only one lady beside me—who, as later paragraphs reveal, proved herself an invaluable companion.

You may have formed the opinion that my three-star rating is too harsh—I appear to give the impression that, ultimately, the opera was successfully conceived and that I enjoyed its performance. It was and I did. But…

And then, as the theatre’s lights dimmed—but of course; how else could any cultural production in Australia begin than with a pre-recorded welcome to country? The applause that followed this monotonous killjoy was, unsurprisingly, not enthusiastic. For the most part, audience discomfort is threefold: philosophically, we question the sense of inviting racial tokenism into the theatre; artistically, we debate the musical or dramatic relevance of the experience; and, glaringly, we know that when we purchased our tickets, we did so to attend an opera, not an ideology. Nor can the Australian psyche, despite the intense campaign waged against it, so easily forget the historical fragilities upon which the welcome to country is constructed. For as long as this practice continues in our theatres and concert halls, opera companies and orchestras will insult the intelligence of their patrons.

The two hundred minutes which next ensued are now best reflected upon through the following methodology. My assumption shall be, reader, that you are familiar with the Shakespearean tale, in which the indecisiveness of a princely Dane proves fatal—though, I stress, Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto is no simple regurgitation of such.

Jocelyn’s libretto is where we must begin. Through an understanding of the text, we can progress to Dean’s music. Without access to either the printed libretto or score, my commentary must, by necessity and in fairness to the two focal architects of this Hamlet, adopt a broader posture. Then, having considered the blueprint, we may turn to its interpretation and performance, as well as some further observations of mine. From all this I shall package a handful of conclusions that justify why my complete experience—and, yes, I reiterate that this review addresses all the components I encountered that night—was not one of overt elation.

When a staging of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet took place at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1872, Tchaikovsky, who attended its performance on December 20, was not particularly impressed. In the dismissive review he wrote for the Russian Register, he captures, I think, an intelligent observation:

Music, no matter how powerful it may be in conveying the various moods of the human spirit, would be quite incapable of doing justice to that most outstanding aspect of Hamlet, namely the caustic irony which pervades all of his speeches and those purely intellectual processes which go on in his mind … It goes without saying that after being transferred from the dramatic stage onto that of the French opera-house, Hamlet must lose all his characteristic traits and become no more than an ordinary operatic hero.

Moreover, though he does not specifically lament of the complexities of adapting Shakespearean text, Gordon Bottomley, in 1923, wrote a response to Arnold Bax, the extensive subject of last issue’s Quadrant Music. Bottomley argued to Bax what he considered a proper relationship between music and poetry:

Music is not a way of supplementing and completing poetry: music and poetry are different ways of doing the same thing, often incompatible though sometimes magically at one for a brief space … The imagery of music is rarely identical with the imagery of poetry and makes the latter unnoticeable and the music of notes obscures the music of speech. That matter of the imagery is most salient, for when a poetic image is sung it is very hard to take in. For these reasons I believe that opera texts should be written on purpose very simple and immediate in statement, avoiding complexities of metaphor, inference and suggestion and not relying much on the atmosphere and quality of words … If it does more the musician will sometimes have to ignore it.

Perhaps both Tchaikovsky and Bottomley would have adjusted their philosophies if they had lived to see the Canadian Opera Company’s 1983 production of Elektra, in which Lotfi Mansouri pioneered the use of surtitles. Regardless, the above extracts well illustrate a couple of important realities: one, that Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a text of advanced linguistic properties; and two, that such texts seldom retain their successes when adapted into libretti. Jocelyn’s writing, therefore, is to be commended. Whilst the plot to his libretto, in two acts, is always accessible, none of the Bard’s “caustic irony” is lost. The flavoursome languages of Hamlet, Ophelia and Polonius are retained to great artistic reward. More miraculous, then, is that Jocelyn succeeds in his keen avoidance of those clichés that have come to dominate the Hamletian tradition. In a bold decision, he does not assign “To be, or not to be, that is the question” to Hamlet; instead, the prince adopts an ominous, ghostly refrain at various moments throughout the opera: “… or not to be”. There is strong metaphoric emphasis placed on the word dust, notably through the recurring employ of the phrases “returneth into dust” and “the dust is earth”, which appear in the Shakespeare as Hamlet reflects upon the demise of Alexander the Great. Delightfully, stutter is written into certain phrases sung by Hamlet and Claudius (this could be Dean’s invention but, for now, I shall credit it to Jocelyn) and, because of the subtlety of its use, the effect sounds not artificial or overblown but totally natural. This is a most clever technique and if I ever attempt another opera then I shall be sure to draw upon it.

Structurally, the opera is sound. But, for my tastes, the first act is too long; it must run for nearly two hours. During performance, I felt the climax of this act occurred with Claudius’s demand for light following the suspenseful recreation of The Murder of Gonzago. Intermission could naturally have occurred at this point but did not, and this act ran until the conclusion of Shakespeare’s fourth. Now, it would not be advisable to omit from Jocelyn’s libretto the extended confrontation between Hamlet and the Queen, because this drama is quite effective. But I do wonder just how much the opera is improved by the inclusion of fragments from the King’s “My offence is rank” soliloquy. Even in the Shakespeare, Claudius’s introspection strikes me as a difficult thing to execute well. Franco Zeffirelli’s cinematic Hamlet (1990), which stars Mel Gibson, makes a good go of it; Zeffirelli concentrates an intense focus not upon the praying king but, rather, the vacillating prince. The scene intends, I think, to more develop Hamlet’s character than Claudius’s. In Dean’s opera, just slightly too many bars are dedicated to the King himself, contriving an audience sympathy that feels misguided. (And, in any case, it is a sympathy that is not at all lasting; in the opera’s second act, any allusion of remorse is shattered when the King enthusiastically plots Hamlet’s death with Laertes.) The difficulty of this moment could have been avoided if Jocelyn simply had not included it, thereby shortening the first act and tightening the opera’s dramatic tension. In making this suggestion, I am content to recall Dean’s words: “Our Hamlet relies heavily on Shakespeare’s verse, if not necessarily on the standard chronology of scenes.”

Dean does not feel he must, contrary to Bottomley’s warning, ignore Jocelyn’s “quality of words”. His score radiates an obvious artistry that well marries the libretto’s intentions. For instance, the duet between Hamlet and Ophelia as the prince demands she banish herself to a nunnery is cleverly handled; the musical complexity, in the hands of a lesser composer, might have obscured the drama, but it does not under the judicious Dean. Generally, repeating cells of several musical contexts—dust-like wisps, perhaps—begin to embody a kind of big, atmospheric leitmotif, achieved through intricate approaches to orchestration. This secure command of craft is rare and should be celebrated and studied. A noticeable evolution in the opera’s harmonic language occurs with Hamlet’s declaration of his love for Ophelia, which may protrude just a fraction too romantically, but otherwise the aesthetic is consistent and engaging throughout.

The score does not always lend itself to lyricism, even in its sung material, and it includes, at least by my recollection, no memorable tunes. But to criticise it for lacking these things would be to misunderstand it.

The vocal writing, particularly in the case of Ophelia and Polonius, is faithful to Shakespeare’s characterisation. Dean makes a number of unique and, consequently, striking decisions concerning instrumentation, like the writing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as countertenors, or the inclusion of a free-bass accordion as both an accompanying and, during The Murder of Gonzago, solo instrument. Electronic components complement the acoustic forces, though I cannot claim to be particularly interested by these.

The employ of spatial music—that is, music which occurs in a certain location, with that location then imparting an intended aural effect upon the listener—bears discussion. Extending beyond the conventional orchestral pit, Dean situates an array of auxiliary singers and musicians in the Joan Sutherland Theatre’s high boxes to rain down sonic fragments. More often than not, and especially when deployed in aid of timbrel purposes, this spatialisation enhances the psychological thrills playing out below. But in infrequent moments of percussive, rhythmic complexity, the effect, for me, began to recall tinnitus, or possums running amok, and irritation exceeded dramatic immersion.

The score does not always lend itself to lyricism, even in its sung material, and it includes, at least by my recollection, no memorable tunes. But to criticise it for lacking these things would be to misunderstand it; it is not at all unoperatic or, in the moment, ineffective. As a drama derived from the Wagnerian tradition and strongly influenced by the later dramatic works of the Second Viennese School, as well as the aesthetic of the now ninety-eight-year-old György Kurtág, Dean’s Hamlet is music that succeeds very well. It was a shame, then, that the composer took his bow alongside director Neil Armfield; he deserved to be acknowledged independently.

Singers and musicians of the utmost musicianship—and, especially, of the utmost rhythmic security—are required to successfully bring off Dean’s music. All the singers and musicians of Hamlet were just so. Since Glyndebourne, Allan Clayton (Hamlet) has been tasked with realising a mammoth part, and did so again in Sydney. Lorina Gore’s (Ophelia) coloratura was spectacular. Kanen Breen (Polonius), Jud Arthur (Ghost), Russell Harcourt (Rosencrantz) and Christopher Lowrey (Guildenstern) all well characterised their parts. For me, however, the star of the show was Catherine Carby (Queen), whose suffering Gertrude was excellently played; Carby’s mezzo tone was rich, her demeanour was noble and her gestures were gracefully nuanced. In all ways, she perfectly suited the role. Paul Fitzsimons’s chorus was emphatic yet polished. The Opera Australia Orchestra under Tim Anderson did very well, remaining tight in ensemble and sensitive in expression. Indeed, Anderson’s previous credits conducting Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek well prepared him to steward his colleagues through Dean’s Hamlet. Temporary issues of balance seemed to commence each act, with the musicians too much above the singers, and had I been sitting ten rows further back then I think I would not have been pleased—particularly during the first act, in which this problem persisted for some time.

If asked to, I should struggle to fault Armfield’s direction. The work of set designer Ralph Myers, costume designer Alice Babidge and movement director Denni Sayers is to be commended. The intimacy of Ophelia’s death was captured to great effect by lighting designer Jon Clark. And how nice it was to experience, after so many plastic equivalents, a real swordfight on stage! Nicholas Hall and then Nigel Poulton deserve praise for their conception of such, as do Clayton and Nicholas Jones (Laertes) for their athletic performances. I do feel, however, and particularly in a work of intense psychological drama, that casting the same singer in multiple roles knocks one or two bricks out from the fourth wall. Arthur played not just Ghost but also Gravedigger and First Player; could the latter two parts not have been bestowed upon deserving members of the chorus, or local emerging artists of talent? For me, it was not satisfying to know that the joking voice interring Ophelia was the same voice that had earlier, as Old Denmark’s spirit, issued foul and most unnatural charges.

As artistically rewarding as this Hamlet was, it did not transcend its price tag.

Now, this is fascinating. During intermission, the lady sitting next to me, whose ancestry was perhaps found in the Subcontinent, leant over and, understandably curious as to why her neighbour was scribbling all over his program, asked if I was reviewing the performance. I said I was and seized upon my chance, probing, “What do you think of it all?” She proceeded to tell me that had she not studied Hamlet the play at high school, she would have been completely confused. In fact, deceived by the Shakespearean subject, the play itself was what she had expected. This medium, opera, was, to her, impressive but totally alien—though, she admitted, the surtitles did provide a degree of context. A first-timer! I pointed out Dean and John Graham in front of us, stopping short of identifying the gentleman off to our left, a prominent artistic director who had started snoring during the first act. My newfound friend laughed that, on the whole, the company closely surrounding us should make her enjoy the experience much more. I think she was serious, too.

There is one final, critical point which this review must note. In considering what I have written above, you may have formed the opinion that my three-star rating is too harsh—I appear to give the impression that, ultimately, the opera was successfully conceived and that I enjoyed its performance. It was and I did. But in no reasonable world should I have had to pay $388.80 for that enjoyment, even for a premium seat—only, immediately, to be fed the one thing I sincerely did not want to pay for: a welcome to country. As artistically rewarding as this Hamlet was, it did not transcend its price tag. This reality cannot and should not be ignored, least of all by Opera Australia and those other musical institutions that describe themselves as forward-looking. How opera companies might go about lowering the costs of their tickets shall form, I think, the stimulus of a future article.

In this issue of Quadrant Music, R.J. Stove upholds our operatic theme, casting a spotlight upon the English record producer John Culshaw, the founding father of Wagner on vinyl. Submissions to these pages, especially reviews of concerts, remain encouraged. Or, to express your support for Quadrant Music, please consider writing a letter to the editor.

Alexander Voltz is a composer and the founding editor of Quadrant Music.

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