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Classical Music

Engaging Hamlet Solidifies Fort Worth Opera’s Reputation for Excellence and Innovation

Fort Worth Opera presents the once all-but-forgotten work, a French operatic interpretation of the Bard's classic.
By Wayne Lee Gay |
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Until a few years ago, nineeenth-century French composer Ambroise Thomas’s operatic re-working of Shakespeare’s Hamlet pretty well sat on the shelf and gathered dust; Saturday night, Fort Worth Opera presented the once all-but-forgotten work in a production (conceived for Washington National Opera and Lyric Opera of Kansas City in 2009) that is constantly engaging visually, musically, dramatically, and vocally.

A huge portion of the credit for making this period piece viable for a twenty-first-century audience goes to director and scenic designer Thaddeus Strassberger, who moved the tragedy of the troubled prince to a modern police state (Stalinist or Fascist, take your pick), complete with uzi-wielding guards, featuring Claudius, Gertrude, and the ghost of Hamlet’s father in military uniforms. The opening scene, announcing the wedding of the murderous usurpers Claudius and Gertrude is played as an adrenalin-rousing Fascist rally, including a leaflet drop and action spilling out into the audience; for anyone who ever wondered what it’s like to be at such a rally, here’s your chance. (Indeed, the resemblance of Strassberger’s version of “Denmark” to Romania under Ceauşescu.)

Although composer Thomas had been largely forgotten until recently, his score (here trimmed down from nearly four hours to just under three, including intermission) does what any operatic setting of a great literary masterpiece should do, complementing, commenting, and in some instances, underling the original meaning. The musical style most strongly resembles that of Thomas’s more familiar contemporary Charles Gounod, with plenty of good tunes, colorful orchestration and pleasantly striking ideas; a recurring trumpet fanfare motif lends an appropriate military mood at times, for instance, and the listener may well be impressed by just how effectively Thomas allows the orchestra to accompany the singers. The setting of the play’s most famous lines, “To be or not to be” is exemplary in its succinct, unobtrusive, and masterful setting of that text, indicating that Thomas was more than just a musical craftsman, but a composer worthy of some attention.

And this was a cast that knew what to do with Thomas’s often gloriously effective music. In keeping with the darkness of the story, Thomas gave the title role to a baritone (rather than, as one might expect, a tenor); Wes Mason was, after a slightly cool first act, warm and generally rapturously lyrical—as well as handsomely effective in capturing the essence of this troubled, complex character. Mezzo-soprano Robynne Redmon as Gertrude and bass Kim Josephson as Claudius likewise brought vocal power and dramatic power to the role of the murderous tyrant and his wife, as did bass Stephen Clark to his part as the Ghost of Hamlet’s father.

But the biggest ovation of the night went, deservedly, to soprano Telise Trevigne as Ophelia. Most familiar to area audiences for creating the role of Pip the Cabin Boy in the premiere of Heggie’s Moby Dick for Dallas Opera in 2010, she navigated the bel canto flourishes of her part with a beautiful tone quality while portraying the unfortunate young woman’s decay into a madness reflecting the world around her.

Conductor Joe Illick occasionally allowed the orchestra to overshadow the singers; on the whole, the traversal of this hitherto little-known work (it’s a safe bet that not more than three or four members of the audience at Bass Performance Hall had previously heard any live performance of a work by Thomas) was excellently held together.

Under general director Darrin K. Woods, Fort Worth Opera has managed to produce a three-production season that encompasses, all in superb productions, everything an opera season should: a standard repertoire work (Verdi’s La Traviata), a revival from the rich trove of the past (Thomas’s Hamlet), and a thought-provoking contemporary work (Little’s Dog Days). Driving into Fort Worth, one observes a community that seems hardly scathed by the economic turmoil of the past decade; this company, under its current bold leadership, clearly deserves greater financial support (and the ability to create a longer season) from a community that clearly has resources to do so. Under Woods, the company has earned a well-deserved national reputation for excellence and innovation, and that reputation should be cultivated and allowed to expand with an even more substantial season.

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