Brett Dean's Opera Hamlet for 2018 Adelaide Festival

After its recent world premiere, produced by the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in the UK, Neil Armfield's production of Australian composer Brett Dean's Hamlet, conducted by Nicholas Carter, will make its Australian debut in March, with an exclusive season at the 2018 Adelaide Festival.

The production was hailed as “the operatic event of the year” by the UK's Sunday Times.

Director and Adelaide Festival Joint Artistic Director Neil Armfield AO said: “Directing Brett’s Hamlet has been one of the richest and loveliest experiences of my career. I was able to build on my memory of the Hamlet we did at Belvoir in 1994, seen in Adelaide in 1995, with Richard Roxburgh, Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett and Gillian Jones. Everything seemed to work for us in Glyndebourne: every day was a revelation with Brett's music meeting the power and wit of Matthew’s libretto with profound and thrilling results. When the audience stood and cheered at the conclusion of the premiere performance we knew we’d witnessed the birth of a great new opera.”

Leading a cast of international and Australian singers and reprising the title role of Hamlet is British tenor Allan Clayton, hailed as “physically vivid, emotionally affecting, psychologically astute” by The Times (UK), alongside American baritone Rod Gilfry as Claudius and British tenor Kim Begley as Polonius, with leading Australian sopranos Cheryl Barker as Gertrude and Lorina Gore as Ophelia.  

Fresh from his performance as David in Saul at the 2017 Adelaide Festival, American counter-tenor Christopher Lowrey plays Guildenstern to British counter-tenor Rupert Enticknap's Rosencrantz, alongside Australian singers Sam Sakker as Laertes and Douglas McNicol as Horatio.

Dean’s score captures the modernity of this timeless story, performed in Australia by the State Opera of South Australia chorus and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, conducted by its Principal Conductor Nicholas Carter. The musical grandeur of the production extends beyond the stage with a semi-chorus and extra percussion adding to an all-encompassing theatrical experience. 

Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto is pure Shakespeare, adhering to the Bard’s narrative thread and using only Shakespeare’s words but abridging, reconfiguring and interweaving them into motifs that reveal the main dramatic themes: death, madness, the impossibility of certainty and the complexities and beauty of the human mind. To be, or not to be? This is Hamlet’s dilemma, and the essence of Shakespeare’s most famous and arguably greatest work.

Weaving the entire production together is Neil Armfield, one of Australia’s leading international theatre and opera directors and Joint Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival. He has brought together a creative team including Australian set designer Ralph Myers, Australian costume designer Alice Babidge and British lighting designer Jon Clark.  

Speaking from America where he is currently composer in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival, Brett Dean said: “Back in 1980, as an 18-year-old viola player in my first season as a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra, I travelled to the Adelaide Festival and participated in a truly international arts festival for the first time. It was a revelation to witness such a gathering of culturally like-minded 'obsessives'. To be returning as composer of the Adelaide Festival's featured opera in 2018 is a wonderfully proud moment for me and I wish it and the whole festival every possible success.”

Adelaide Festival Joint Artistic Director Rachel Healy said: “It was thrilling to witness an Australian creative team’s mighty achievements and critical acclamation following Hamlet’s premiere at the globally renowned Glyndebourne Festival Opera.  We are utterly delighted that while the great opera houses of the world are waiting in line to include Hamlet in their future programs, its second international season will be on home turf and that, as with Saul, audiences in this country will have an opportunity to celebrate the creative genius of their fellow Australians.”

Minister for the Arts, the Hon Jack Snelling welcomed the news saying: “It's extremely exciting to have Brett Dean's opera Hamlet coming to the 2018 Adelaide Festival, not only because it will mark the show's Australian premiere, but because it will showcase the talents of Joint Artistic Director Neil Armfield on home turf once again.

The immense response to Saul at the 2017 Festival showed audiences' hunger for grand scale opera, attracting a huge number of interstate and overseas visitors, and Hamlet will no doubt do the same. I can't wait to see what else Joint Artistic Directors Rachel Healy and Neil Armfield have in store for the 2018 program.”

HAMLET
2, 4 and 6 March 2018, Festival Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre 
Tickets on sale to Friends of the Adelaide Festival only: Thursday 17 August 2017 
General public tickets on sale: Thursday 31 August 
Tickets: BASS 131 246 or adelaidefestival.com.au
Sung in English with English supertitles
Composer: Brett Dean
Librettist: Matthew Jocelyn
Conductor: Nicholas Carter
Director: Neil Armfield
Set Designer: Ralph Myers
Costume Designer: Alice Babidge  
Lighting Designer: Jon Clark
Movement Director and Assistant Director: Denni Sayers
Chorus Master: Brett Weymark 
Accordionist: James Crabb
With the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and State Opera of South Australia Chorus

A Glyndebourne Festival Opera production, originally performed in the Glyndebourne Festival 2017. Presented by the Adelaide Festival in association with the State Opera of South Australia and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. The presentation of Hamlet has been made possible by the Adelaide Festival Hamlet Donor Circle.

Image: Allan Clayton as Hamlet. Photographer: Richard Hubert Smith