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You Have to Crack a Few Heads to Make a Hamlet! Leeds
Buxton (Opera House)
07/12/2025 - & July 16*, 20, 22, 2025
Ambroise Thomas: Hamlet
Gregory Feldmann (Hamlet), Alastair Miles (Claudius), Yewon Han (Ophélie), Richard Woodall (Polonious), Allison Cook (Gertrude), Joshua Baxter (Laërte), Tylor Lamani (Marcellus), Dan D’Souza (Horatio), Per Bach Nissen (Ghost), John Ieuan Jones (First gravedigger), James Liu (Second gravedigger)
Buxton Festival Chorus, Freddie Brown (chorus master), Orchestra of Opera North, Adrian Kelly (conductor)
Jack Furness (director), Sami Fendall (designer), Jake Wiltshire (lighting designer)
G. Feldmann, A. Miles (© Genevieve Girling)
At a pre-performance talk there was palpable amusement at the thought of a possible happy ending for Thomas’s Hamlet: the 1868 Parisian premiere had one, and the composer had to come up with a gloomier alternative for Covent Garden the following year. I can’t see the problem as the audience already has to cope with ghosts, lurking behind the furniture, feigned and sudden real madness and a slew of deaths, so what difference does one further stretch of the imagination make? Buxton International Festival looked to its heritage as it had mounted a famous production forty‑five years ago, starring Thomas Allen and Josephine Veasey. I would like to say that it had put Hamlet back on the operatic map, but it’s always just about hung on to the edge of the repertoire. I’ve only caught it twice before: a generally dull production in 2003 at Covent Garden galvanised by Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay, and in 2023 at Opéra de Paris, starring Ludovic Tézier and Lisette Oropesa, fascinatingly directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski. It has generally become the province of star singers who will pull in the crowds, so what would Buxton achieve with more modest means?
Quite a lot, as it turned out. Jack Furness directed with a generally firm hand. He gave the work a contemporary setting and maintained a good sense of dramatic propulsion. If anyone who knew the play had walked in halfway through they would have recognised what they were watching. The only directorial gloss was to make Claudius’s rule a totalitarian one: if you didn’t toe the line you were disposed of. A good idea in theory but not so much in practice, as every so often some hooded unfortunate was hammily marched across the front of the stage before being duffed up or shot in the head. It underlined the point but just looked a bit silly. But the main thrust of the show looked effective in Sami Fendall’s black stepped set, atmospherically lit by Jake Wiltshire. With an acting space halfway up the stairs and an apron at the footlights it was flexible and appropriate to the action. And Furness stuck to the original ending, though to call it happy is stretching the point as Hamlet looked anything but thrilled to take the crown.
Adrian Kelly conducted a reduced orchestra with skill. There is a very dark hue to Thomas’s scoring and Kelly relished it and was generally well‑rewarded by his orchestra with some solid playing. The end of Act IV, the Mad Scene with its blend of harp, flute and horn was particularly elegant. The small chorus of twenty‑four was outstanding and they were well‑blocked and acted their various roles with aplomb.
Furness had obviously worked hard with his soloists, but you’ve either got it or you haven’t. Someone who definitely has it is Greg Feldmann as Hamlet. It is a long and exhausting role and, as with the play, tricky to pace without going over the top too soon. Hamlet’s changes of mood are mercurial and Feldmann took us with him through the psychological peaks and troughs of the character, his realisation, anger, depression and resolution. Feldmann is not long out of the Opernhaus Zurich’s International Opera Studio and his time there has obviously been very well spent. As well as his intense stage presence and natural acting ability he has a fresh, unforced baritone with a range of colours, a confident top and good diction – he sang off the text and his Act II drinking song was dispatched with élan. It was a most impressive performance.
Less interesting was Yewon Han as Ophélie. The aforementioned Dessay and Oropesa both seized their opportunity to create a rounded portrayal of a desperate young woman. Admittedly still a young performer, Han sang well – she has a pleasing and accurate soprano, if not a particularly distinctive one – but one felt that she was acting rather than being. Her phrasing against Feldmann’s came across as foursquare and her French was not precise. The tour de force Mad Scene, set amongst reed beds, saw her literally clutching at straws. As she finished running around, unconvincingly blinding herself with a pair of scissors, she received scant applause. A curmudgeonly voice behind me said, a little too loudly, “Thank God for that”. Unkind, but...
Alastair Miles was a solid Claudius, dignified, appropriately smug, and his Act III aria revealed the voice still to be rich at the top, less so at the bottom. Allison Oakes as Gertrude has the most interesting role after Hamlet, and with her magnetic personality she could have stolen the show – her duet with her son was full of drama and tension as she and Feldmann really sparked off of each other. But her voice is quite strange, with a scything top, anonymous middle and honking chest register, and her intonation is suspect. It was all exciting stuff but also incredibly wayward: think Leonie Rysanek on one of her wilder nights. Tenor Joshua Baxter, promoted from last year’s chorus, made a vocally plangent Laërte, who goes MIA for most of the opera, so a good role for a young performer to test their mettle, and Baxter made a positive impression.
To sum, a generally solid production that showcased a galvanising central performance.
Francis Muzzu
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