Hamlet
Theatre Royal, Norwich, and touring until 1 December
I had mixed feelings about Brett Dean’s Hamlet as I went into the Theatre Royal in Norwich and mixed feelings when I came out of it: unfavourable, largely, on the way in and favourable, largely, on the way out. I am still left wondering why a composer would want to set this amazing, flawed and most memorable of tragedies to music, but more than one hundred have, so presumably they must feel they can add something, or alter something, or even improve it in some way.
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The librettist Matthew Jocelyn, working closely with the composer at every stage, has bitten the bullet by only using Shakespeare’s text, though he has resorted to unusual versions of it in places, and has of course only excerpted passages from it, feeling free to re-allot lines and to juggle their order.
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