After the drama of restoring a missing Hamlet from 150 years ago, what can we say about the music-drama itself? Could the production be as interesting as the story of its resurrection? (Click here for the story)

Now that we know how Arrigo Boito and Franco Faccio wanted to inaugurate a new style of Italian opera, the most obvious question must be: what does it actually sound like?

Amleto relies less on catchy vocal melodies than do typical 19th-century Italian operas, and more on a meshing of voices with orchestra. Gone is the pattern of Rossini and Donizetti and early Verdi of having slow arias followed by fast cabaletti. This is a “newness of form,” as Boito and Faccio touted their collaboration.

Yet it’s not so “new” that it’s intimidating. There are hummable arias and duets, with lovely orchestral passages emphasizing woodwinds and the lower strings. Solo instruments like clarinet or cello introduce some arias.

The vocal writing is somewhat parlando, like extensions of speech. Hamlet’s soliloquies sound a bit like Giordano’s Andrea Chenier or (in the case of “To be or not to be”) Federico’s lament from Cilea’s L’Arlesiana. Keep in mind that Amleto was written decades earlier.

A first-act aria for Ophelia reminds me of the Veil Song from Verdi’s Don Carlo which was not written until two years after Amleto.

As with the Shakespeare play, everything revolves around the title character, so we can see why the malfunction of their tenor doomed the production at La Scala in 1871. A slender Joshua Kohl was appealing as Hamlet and sang with a youthful voice enriched by the bright edge of squillo. The role goes no higher than B-flat, so Hamlet has to make his points with nuance and vocal color rather than trying to dazzle audiences with high notes.

The role requires a voice that might sing Don Alvaro in Verdi’s La forza del destino. That is, a vibrant voice with some metal. Among past tenors, Franco Corelli would have been ideal in the role; Richard Tucker had the notes but his quality was too warm and golden, and Mario Del Monaco was too mature-sounding to portray a naive young Hamlet. Among today’s singers, I’d like to hear Jonas Kaufmann or Michael Fabiano in it.

Boito’s libretto sticks to Shakespeare’s plot instead of reshaping it to fit into the conventions of the time as Ambroise Thomas did with his Hamlet . Thomas omitted many characters, and Ophelia ludicrously stabbed herself to death instead of drowning.

Boito did make a few changes. The opening scene was the festive wedding reception for Gertrude and Claudius, with Hamlet brooding on the sidelines, before we heard his friends tell him that they’ve seen the ghost of his late father. The confrontation of Hamlet with his father’s ghost followed immediately after.

On the other hand, Boito and Faccio gave us a “To be or not to be” aria, and “O what a rogue” and “Alas, poor Yorick”, and many other faithful (though abridged) versions of Hamlet’s soliloquies. Hamlet’s showdown with his mother in her bedroom made a terrific duet. The first half ended with the famous Mousetrap scene in which Hamlet has a troupe of traveling players perform a drama of a queen and her lover poisoning her husband the king, just as Queen Gertrude and her paramour Claudius did to Hamlet’s father.

Here an on-stage string quartet accompanied the enactment. Claudius broke down and revealed his guilt as Hamlet sang “The mousetrap has worked!” to bring down the curtain for the intermission. 

Boito and Faccio added some material which worked surprisingly well. After Hamlet confronted his mother, the two of them were joined by the ghost of his father, who was visible to him and to the audience but not to Gertrude, and they sang a dramatic trio in which the deceased king urged Hamlet to avenge his murder.

In Shakespeare, when Laertes learns that his father, Polonius, has been killed, he accosts King Claudius angrily. Here Boito added a nice touch. Laertes, believing that it was Claudius who killed Polonius, burst into the castle along with rebellious troops who wanted to depose the king. Boito was adding the concept that Claudius’s reign was tenuous, and foreshadowing that an invading army would soon be at the doors of Elsinore.

The team added an aria of regret by Gertrude, and Ophelia’s death was followed by a funeral march that allowed the chorus to sing an attractive dirge. These provided gratifying vocal moments, and the overall time of the opera was not long. Written in four acts, it was played with just one intermission and the total time was less than three hours.

This opera is no idle curiosity, but is a potentially important addition to the repertory of major houses.

Every role was filled by performers who looked their parts, and the level of singing was high. Soprano Sarah Asmar was Ophelia, baritone Timothy Mix was Claudio, mezzo-soprano Lara Tillotson was Gertrude, Matthew Vickers was Laertes and Ben Wager was the ghost.

Ballet dancers added luster to the scenes at court, and the costuming was correctly of the medieval period.  E. Loren Meeker directed a production where the fencing duel scene was particularly well-executed.

Amleto alternated with Falstaff as part of a Shakepseare Festival by OperaDelaware. That final composition by Verdi, with libretto by Boito, received a fine production. No gimmicks such as updating to the 1950s. This was staged simply by director Dean Anthony, and conducted idiomatically by Giovanni Reggioli. The attractive cast was well-matched, and the Falstaff of Steven Condy was one of the most amiable and likeable of any I’ve ever seen.