The Catskill Chronicle

Photos courtesy of Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera.  

Review by Barry Plaxen

LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY – Hamlet, another in the Live From the Met in HD series was seen on March 27, 2010 in the Seelig Theatre of Sullivan County Community College. It’s an opera in five acts by the French composer Ambroise Thomas, with a libretto by Michel Carré and Jules Barbier based on a French adaptation of Shakespeare’s play by Alexandre Dumas and Paul Meurice.

Thomas (1811-1896) is best known for his opera Mignon (1866), and wrote almost two dozen operas which are no longer in the standard-opera repertoire. Carre and Barbier are known for their libretti for Faust, Tales of Hoffman, Romeo and Juliet, and Mignon. Until recently, Hamlet was forgotten except for Ophelia’s mad scene, which as been recorded by just about every major coloratura soprano.

The presentation was full of what normally would be considered contradictions. Second-rate music that was lovely to listen to, second-rate music that fulfilled the dramatic needs of the characters (and librettists), and an episodic series of successful dramatic vignettes that were not necessarily motivated by the action or result of prior scenes.

I would guess the most disappointed viewers would be those who compared the libretto to the original play. Is this fair? Do we expect Verdi’s Macbeth to follow the original play closely? Or Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette? Or any others? I think not.

What was not clear at viewing time was that the adaptation was based on an adaptation, not the original play. And that adaptation was created at a time when all Paris was abuzz with an out-of-the ordinary performance of Shakespeare’s play with Irish actress Harriet Smithson re-creating the role of Ophelia to fit her idea of making the play all about Ophelia.

And so what we saw in Loch Sheldrake was not a true mishmash of Danish royalty, intrigue, humor, war (with Norway), and human behavior with Shakespeare’s brilliant poetic dialogue. What we saw was a four-person musical drama, five if you count Laertes, all based on Gertrude, Claudius and Ophelia reacting to Hamlet’s behavior, with a good deal of the dramatic stress on Ophelia.

A superb cast of singing-actors would be called faultless were it not for Jennifer Larmore’s (Gertrude) mugging — her obvious facial contortions. This was another contradiction because of Larmore’s excellent singing and her right-on vocal expressions of the understandable feelings of a scorned mother, an accomplice to a murder, a liar, a queen. We just did not need to see it all indicated by unneeded facial expressions.

The superb cast included remarkable comprimario performances of lesser characters, each one a standout. For me, the singing/acting of Liam Booner (Horatio) and Matthew Plenk (Marcellus) along with Simon Keenlyside (Hamlet) in the scene where Hamlet first sees his father’s ghost helped set the stressful tenor (no pun intended) of the rest of the opera.

Along with Ms. Larmore, we saw Met favorite and longtime star James Morris as Claudius, the one thankless major role in the opera. Dramatically, there was not much for him to do.

Which brings us to the two starring roles and the reason for the Met reviving Hamlet after a hundred or so years. I repeat: two starring roles, as per this libretto.

As Hamlet, baritone Simon Keenlyside has made a name for himself all over the world and we are grateful to the Met for bringing his powerful performance here for us to witness. He enabled us to totally understand his dilemma, confusion and behavior. Last minute replacement Marlis Petersen did the same with her outstanding characterization of Ophelia. Both performances were indicative of the new opera singer who can act well while offering us their vocal dexterity along with their thoughtful and moving musical phrasing. These two superb performers deserve all the accolades they have recently been given.

I need to mention conductor Louis Langree. His, and the Met orchestra’s attention to the details of the music and the desire to perform it with great respect, made the second-rate music not only music-to-our-ears, but enabled (most of) us to be emotionally caught up in the music and its dramatic quality.

And the icing on that cake is the theater itself. Sullivan County Community College’s acoustically perfect and sightline perfect auditorium. What a joy it is to sit in that theater and watch the operas come to us live from Manhattan. I can’t wait for the next one.

Hamlet – March 27, 2010
Conductor: Louis Langrée
Ophélie: Marlis Petersen
Gertrude: Jennifer Larmore
Laërte: Toby Spence
Hamlet: Simon Keenlyside
Claudius: James Morris

The Production Team

Production: Patrice Caurier, Moshe Leiser
Set Designer: Christian Fenouillat
Costume Designer: Agostino Cavalca
Lighting Designer: Christophe Forey