This is a thing that exists.
Honestly, I enjoyed it; it is BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, I loved the music, the set,
the costumes, the concept behind staging it all with a an iron curtain/fascist
context.
But. Uh.
Ok. So, there
are apparently a couple different versions of the opera—the original has Hamlet
and Ophelia living at the end of the play. You heard that right.
The original composer thought that Hamlet was too bloody of a play, so
he…wrote…a fixit fanfic, and set it to beautiful music. And the French loved
it.
When they took it to England, they realized that the
English…might not appreciate the happy ending. Y’know. They
had a hunch. Hamlet is just
considered one of the greatest English plays ever written, and if you called it
a national treasure you wouldn’t be laughed out of the room.
So, he grudgingly put in the end where everybody dies. He just…added it. So everybody dies.
But not in the context of the story, and certainly not as a tragic family all
getting their comeuppances and having their tragic flaws exposed for all the
world to see, and resulting in their demise—they just…die.
So, it’s a fixit fanfic, fixed again.
It also had some interesting stuff in it,
traditional-Hamlet-wise.
A lot of parts were necessarily…uh...not there. Like. Polonius has like one line in the
entire show. And he’s super
competent, and totally in on Claudius’s plot, and doesn’t make an ass out of
himself at all. And Horatio…
Ok. So in this
production, its pretty clear that Hamlet is completely off his rocker, and it’s
all set off by Horatio and Banquo being drunk and telling Hamlet they saw his
father’s ghost. Then passing out
and forgetting about it.
They don’t really do much else, Hamlet and Horatio don’t
bother talking, they aren’t really buddies. Like I said.
Fanfiction.
The oddest addition to the opera vs the play has got to be
the wine is awesome, lets all drink our troubles away song. Where Hamlet gets totally plastered and
the players have just done their thing, and Claudius is freaking out, and
suddenly, in front of the whole court, Hamlet starts shrieking (singing
beautifully!) that there is the proof of Claudius and Gertrude’s guilt, and the
whole court starts staring at Hamlet, and then they all start singing about how
drunk poor, mad, Hamlet is.
That, ah, didn’t happen in the play. Just in the opera.
See, I’m going to have trouble talking about this as an
opera and not as Hamlet. Because I
love Hamlet. And this opera was
great—really! It was great! But I
couldn’t separate it from Hamlet.
And I just felt like I was
watching the highest budget fanfiction I’ve ever seen.
Now, I do love fanfiction. So go. See
it. Watch Hamlet lose his mind,
and Ophelia finally getting her death monologue, and singing one of the most
amazing arias I’ve heard on the stage (not as awesome as Lucia or Night
Queen’s, but in that category.
Seriously, it was good).
Watch Ophelia’s madness be more than literary madness—she sort of went
with a borderline/depressive/manic angle, complete with self-harm behaviors
from the beginning.
So! Onto my wife’s sketches!
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| Hamlet's father gives him a coat, and Ophelia tears up her book in a fit of being bonkers |
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| Hamlet has trouble letting go of his father. That's his father's statue he's laying on. |
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| The new King and Queen greet their subjects |
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| Ophelia being introspective |
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| Ophelia terrorizes some homeless people |
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| Hamlet in his father's crypt |
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| Ophelia's dead, shattered, spirit floating away |
