Just as Hollywood producers often change familiar books and plays to suit what they feel their audiences desire, so did French composer Ambroise Thomas alter Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” to adhere to operatic conventions of the 19th century, beefing up the love story and mother-son conflict.
Director/designer Thaddeus Strassberger’s Minnesota Opera production of Thomas’ “Hamlet” hews considerably closer to Shakespeare’s original, but don’t expect Elizabethan attire and a conventional castle: Strassberger has set it in a wintry, gray 20th-century totalitarian regime east of the Iron Curtain. Lest you think this a tired example of modernizing for modernizing’s sake, you should know that the setting works quite well for the work. But a cast full of outstanding singers is what makes it such a success.
From the opening moments, it’s clear that Strassberger has a rich imagination and he’s not afraid to use it, as a funeral procession through the Ordway house gives way to a joyful coronation. That’s where we’re introduced to Hamlet, the melancholy (and, in this interpretation, a bit mad and possibly alcoholic) prince whose father has died and whose uncle has seized the throne and married Hamlet’s mother. His father’s ghost soon reveals that he was murdered and sets Hamlet on a mission of vengeance.
Just as in his staging of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Nabucco” that opened the Minnesota Opera season in September, Strassberger makes one interesting artistic decision after another, from the king’s ghost showing up in unexpected places to an abstract setting that offers a glimpse inside the shattered psyche of Hamlet’s spurned girlfriend, Ophelia.
But it’s the magnificent voices that make this “Hamlet” a production well worth experiencing. Baritone Brian Mulligan carries each scene he’s in as a Hamlet who’s far from the aloof and indifferent Dane found in many interpretations of the original drama. He wears his troubled spirit on his sleeve and makes each aria a maelstrom of emotional turbulence.
Similarly powerful in voice is mezzo Katharine Goeldner as a palpably conflicted Queen Gertrude, her full and fluid tone proving an ideal match for Mulligan during an Act III argument that might be the production’s peak, if you don’t count the mad scene of Marie-Eve Munger’s Ophelia. This young soprano is clearly one to watch, displaying a sweet, smooth sound throughout her ample range and a convincing characterization of an ingenue clearly struggling with mental illness from the first time we meet her.
Bass Wayne Tigges gives King Claudius both the booming bellow of authority and the uncertainty of a man struggling with his conscience, some over-the-top acting being his lone flaw. Composer Thomas may have been more skilled with orchestration than vocal lines, and conductor Christopher Franklin and the Minnesota Opera Orchestra make a convincing case for that with a performance as deeply involving as the rest of this imaginative production.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at rhubbard@pioneerpress.com.
What: Minnesota Opera’s production of “Hamlet” by Ambroise Thomas
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, March 5, 7 and 9, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 10
Where: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts, 345 Washington St., St. Paul
Tickets: $200-$20, available at 612-333-6669 or mnopera.org
Capsule: A cast full of fabulous voices in a marvelously imaginative staging.
