So it’s no surprise that in adapting the famed play, Dean and librettist Jocelyn, grapple with the original work’s form in their adaptation. The work, like its eponymous lead’s resolve, grows sloppier and sloppier as it progresses, resulting in an apocalyptic ending in which all of the main characters end up corpses. A revenge thriller about a man trying to avenge his murdered father, the play revels in abrupt tonal shifts from existential brooding to farcical circumstances from one moment to the next. “Hamlet,” both the work and its famed protagonist, are renowned for their ambivalent contradictory nature.

That article was written with a single question in mind – was Brett Dean’s work, which premiered that year at Glyndebourne and then bowed on the Metropolitan Opera stage on May 13, 2022, to be the one that breaks that hex? And was it, given the work’s elusive history on the operatic stage, even necessary? Perhaps the lone work with staying power is Ambroise Thomas’, though it takes great liberties with the text (it’s also in French) that leave the Bard’s iconic play but a shadow of itself. The article notes that despite there being about 40 actual operatic adaptations, none have stood the test of time or held the stage. Back in 2017, The Guardian meditated on why, despite being one of the world’s greatest plays, “Hamlet” had no great corresponding operatic adaptation.

The met opera