Conductor(s):
Vladimir Jurowski

Orchestra(s):
The Glyndebourne Chorus; London Philharmonic Orchestra

Artist(s):
Allan Clayton; Sarah Connolly; Barbara Hannigan; Rod Gilfry; Kim Begley; John Tomlinson; Jacques Imbrailo; David Butt Philip; Rupert Enticknap; Christopher Lowrey; The Glyndebourne Chorus; London Philharmonic Orchestra; Vladimir Jurowski

"With a reverent but mischievous take on the text and a superb cast led by tenor Allan Clayton, this world premiere production rises to the challenge set by Shakespeare’s great play
The success of Neil Armfield’s production is partly down to it getting the full Glyndebourne treatment: weeks of rehearsal, a stellar cast, most of whom have worked closely with Dean before, the excellent chorus, the London Philharmonic in the pit and the leadership of Vladimir Jurowski, returning as conductor for the first time since handing over Glyndebourne’s music directorship four years ago. Jurowski secures a performance of this unfamiliar, complex score that makes it sound bedded in already, and draws out some fantastic vocal performances too; new opera doesn’t often get to sound this good.
Clayton takes his tenor to its limits in expressing his desperation, and his slow-burning intensity carries the tragedy to the bitter, grisly end. Shakespeare offers a gauntlet to composers that shouldn’t always be picked up, but Dean’s Hamlet rises to the challenge." (The Guardian ★★★★)

"Superbly sung and played, the opera forms the high point of the festival’s 2017 season and will give the audience plenty to chew on long after their picnic has been digested.
Clayton makes a many-sided, tireless Hamlet. Barbara Hannigan’s Ophelia delivers one of her charismatic show-stoppers in the mad scene. In the other major roles Sarah Connolly, Rod Gilfry, David Butt Philip and Jacques Imbrailo add up to a strong cast. Rupert Enticknap and Christopher Lowrey as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, here a Tweedledum and Tweedledee pair of counter-tenors, inherit most of the comedy.
With a clear-headed, modern-day production from Neil Armfield and predictably high-class playing from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski, everything is in place to give Dean’s Hamlet the best possible send-off. It fades out on the words “The rest is silence” — time after nearly three hours to reflect, absorb, savour." (The Financial Times ★★★★)

"The total work of art cries out to be seen and heard. That’s especially due to the return of Jurowski, the house’s inspirational music director from 2001 to 2013, whose typically meticulous work not just with his magnificent London Philharmonic but also with the singers – he spent a whole day before the premiere making sure the covers were in a state of readiness to go on if necessary – and whose presence at every stage of the production can’t be praised too highly. Every composer needs a conductor like this to realise the ideal." (The Arts Desk ★★★★)

"Brilliant music, rapturously received
Dean’s music offers great brilliance. Sparely but imaginatively scored, it cleverly exploits the trick of spooky clicking and clattering noises emanating from stray points around the auditorium as well as the wheezing of accordion and ondes martenot. The vocal lines are graceful and expressive if not lyrically memorable, and Dean is rare among contemporary opera composers in understanding how to present people singing together – the forceful duets, ensembles and choruses are highlights of the score, along with the fantasia of a prologue, mashing up fragments of Hamlet’s inner musings, and Ophelia’s thrillingly virtuosic if somewhat protracted mad scene.
Vladimir Jurowski returns to Glyndebourne to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra with his customary laser-like intensity, and the cast is vocally exemplary, with stellar performances from Allan Clayton acting his socks off in the title-role, Barbara Hannigan an eerily glamorous Ophelia and John Tomlinson tripling up as the Ghost, Player King and Gravedigger." (The Daily Telegraph ★★★★)

"It’s mad chutzpah for a composer to take on Hamlet as an opera, but Australian Brett Dean largely pulled it off with a work that greatly pleased at its world premiere for Glyndebourne, who had commissioned it. What Dean has in spades is an absolutely sure touch with drama: how to create it and how it works.
Dean undoubtedly benefited from a dream cast: Sarah Connolly as a distraught Gertrude, matronly and sexy as she does so well; the great John Tomlinson tripling-up as ghost, grave-digger and first player, adding to the destabilising implication of Hamlet’s psychosis; and the comic turn of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as twin countertenors. Barbara Hannigan everyone’s go-to mad soprano was suitably deranged in Ophelia’s near-naked mad scene – a disturbing reminder that real madness is profoundly transgressive. Triumphing yet again with his unimpeachable vocal and acting credentials was tenor Allan Clayton as Hamlet. Combined with Glyndebourne’s returning music director Vladimir Jurowski in the pit, it packed a powerful punch. " (The Independent ★★★★★)

"Then, in the second half, something extraordinary happens. A trio of Ophelia scenes (mad; dead; buried) is everything an opera ought to be: theatrically coherent, searing and gripping... The opera's new dynamic allows Barbara Hannigan's courageous charting of Ophelia's decline to shake the soul, while in Gertrude's "There is a willow grows aslant a brook" Sarah Connolly is gifted a gratefully crafted vocal aria. The gravedigger scene allows Jacques Imbrailo to stamp his mark as Horatio while John Tomlinson (who also sings the Ghost and the Player King) digs up skulls, and the swordfight is properly climactic with the requisite trail of deaths.
It's always a good sign when you can't wait to re-hear a new opera, and that's very much the case here." (WhatsOn Stage ★★★★)

"No one does bonkers like Barbara Hannigan, and here she was again in mad modern mode, turning what could sound like shrieks into poetry and creating an Ophelia who does not make you squirm – brilliant casting again. No one does regal hauteur with an undercurrent of insecurity like Sarah Connolly, and here she was giving us yet another icy queen with a malleable heart (she allowed the proper weight to the lines about strewing the grave and not the bridal bed) and singing with lovely, warm tone. No one does youthful sincerity better than Jacques Imbrailo, and his was an ideal Horatio who made you wish he’d been left with more lines." (Musicomh.com ★★★★)