Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn on Their Hamlet Opera

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.7 • 837 Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2022

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

A new opera version of Hamlet is onstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera through June 9. Composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn talk with host Barbara Bogaev about adapting the texts of the earliest editions of Hamlet to create a libretto that subverts expectations and composing orchestrations that take audiences inside the minds of Hamlet and Ophelia. The Saturday, June 4 performance of Hamlet will be transmitted live to movie theaters around the world via The Met’s Live in HD series. Watch it at a cinema near you. Brett Dean is the composer and Matthew Jocelyn is the librettist for Hamlet, which premiered at Britain’s Glyndebourne Festival in 2017. The opera is onstage at the Metropolitan Opera through June 9. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Published May 24, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, “Sing Thee to Thy Rest,” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster. Ben Lauer is the web producer. Leonor Fernandez edits our transcripts. We had technical help from Andrew Feliciano and Evan Marquart at Voice Trax West in Studio City, California.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There are plenty of people who say that Shakespeare's words really sing.
0:04.9	Well, now, in New York, they actually do.
0:08.6	Oh, Horishu, I'll take the goose word, saw on the coin in Denmark.
0:29.6	Now could I drink hot blood?
0:42.3	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folger director.
0:45.0	Starting this month, the Metropolitan Opera in New York is premiering an opera based on Shakespeare's
0:50.3	Hamlet.
0:51.7	The writers have cut down the story considerably.
0:55.0	They've also made a number of unique choices.
0:58.0	For one, this hamlet is a conflation of all the known versions of Shakespeare's play,
1:04.0	so you're never quite sure which lines you'll hear.
1:07.0	You're also never sure who's going to say what. Also, the opera tends to focus
1:13.5	to a larger than normal extent on Ophelia. The libretto for this hamlet was written by Matthew
1:19.9	Jocelyn, and the score was written by Brett Dean. Brett and Matthew joined us recently from
1:25.2	New York and London to talk about their process,
1:28.3	their choices, and why it was that they chose to tackle Shakespeare in the first place.
1:34.3	We call this podcast Sing The To Thy Rest.
1:38.3	Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn are interviewed by Barbara Bogave.
1:42.3	I am convinced that you guys could write an opera about anything.
1:46.4	And that's because Brett, you wrote one about an advertising executive in hell.
1:51.3	Is that right?
1:52.3	That is correct.
	...

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