October 2017 Dean Hamlet at Glyndebourne & beyond Brett Dean’s new opera Hamlet won acclaim at its Glyndebourne premiere in June, tours in the UK this autumn and travels to the Adelaide Festival in March. Shakespeare’s classic play has been successfully put it on” – discussions are already underway recast by composer Brett Dean as a powerful with leading opera houses in Europe and North and multi-layered opera, attracting acclaim from America to schedule territorial premieres. press and public alike at its premiere in June. The Glyndebourne staging of Hamlet by Neil Armfield Matthew Jocelyn’s libretto for Hamlet is a masterly featured a starry cast led by Allan Clayton in the title distillation of the various versions of Shakespeare’s role, Barbara Hannigan, Sarah Connolly, Rod Gilfry text, reduced from 30,000 words into a two-act and John Tomlinson, with the London Philharmonic opera. The dramatic focus points towards family Orchestra under the baton of Vladimir Jurowski. dynamics rather than affairs of state, allowing Dean to probe characters and inner conflicts while walking the tightrope between tragedy “…it rises to the challenge and comedy. set by Shakespeare’s great “A magnificent new opera on Hamlet... Forget play…” The Guardian Cumberbatch. Forget even Gielgud. I haven’t seen a more physically vivid, emotionally affecting or psychologically astute portrayal of the Prince of Denmark The production was webcast, screened in than Allan Clayton gives in this sensational production. UK cinemas and returns this autumn on Dean’s skill at creating a supercharged orchestral subtext Glyndebourne’s tour, visiting Canterbury, Norwich, to each scene is matched by his immense theatricality. Milton Keynes and Plymouth. Hamlet will be Quite apart from his unerring pacing of the story, he also Hubert Smith Photo: Richard screened on BBC4 TV and a DVD is planned for creates at least a dozen moments where sheer sonority Hamlet at Glyndebourne with Jacques Imbrailo (Horatio), John Tomlinson (Gravedigger) and Allan Clayton (Hamlet) future release on the Opus Arte label. The Armfield alone sends shivers up the spine.” The Times staging will be a highlight at the Adelaide Festival “…a dark, complex, sometimes wryly postmodern slant in March when Hamlet receives its Australian “Brilliant music, rapturously received... Dean is rare on the play… there are no limits to where Dean finds his premiere with Allan Clayton repeating his star among contemporary opera composers in understanding “…a fascinating spectrum music – amplified chattering noises, singing groups from turn as the moody Dane. The Times summed up how to present people singing together – the forceful of colour and unerring the balconies, and a virtuoso array of orchestral effects Hamlet as “an opera audiences will want to hear duets, ensembles and choruses are highlights of the like the gravedigger’s otherworldly whistling.” The Sunday Times again, and the world’s theatres will queue up to score...” Daily Telegraph virtuosity…” Financial Times Arnesen Jenkins requests for a full SATB version, thus including Chin on Rattle tour male voices. In response to this, I considered signs with B&H new Decca contract changing the orchestration, expanding the original instrumentation of string orchestra to that of the Norwegian composer ‘Romantic’ period of music history, resulting in a Kim André Arnesen has basic orchestra of 84 musicians before adding a signed a new publishing galaxy of ‘world’ percussion. contract with Boosey & Hawkes. Specialising in “There is a school of percussion playing that choral music, Arnesen has is rarely heard with an orchestra, even in a growing reputation on contemporary works, but which is featured on Photo: Priska Ketterer both sides of the Atlantic Symphonic Adiemus, and that is hand percussion Simon Rattle has commissioned a new work from thanks to his accessible which is common in ‘world music’. Some of the Unsuk Chin for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s melodic style and rich expressive vein. Latest instruments used are: from Africa the shekere, tour to the Far East this autumn, a major musical works include the Holy Spirit Mass for choir, djembe and the caxixi which is also found in journey in the conductor’s final season with the piano and strings, composed for the National South America; from Afro-Cuban culture, congas, orchestra. Chorós Chordón is dedicated to Rattle, Lutheran Choir in commemoration of 500 years maracas and ‘shaker’; and from Arabic culture, who has conducted a number of Chin’s works over since the Reformation, receiving its premiere riq and darbuca. The drum patterns generated the past 15 years including Acrostic-Wordplay, in Washington DC on 22 October with further here are more generic than specific to these the Violin Concerto and Le Silence des Sirènes. performances in Minneapolis and St Paul. cultures and employ a multitude of techniques Following its premiere at the Philharmonie in Berlin to create a varied palette of sounds and colours.” on 3 November, the new score travels to Hong Born in 1980 and now resident in Oslo, Arnesen Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Kawasaki and Tokyo. grew up in Trondheim, singing as a chorister at the Nidaros Cathedral and studying at the Music The title Chorós Chordón is literally translated Conservatory. He composed his first works for Karl Jenkins has signed a new exclusive contract “Adiemus can now be as Dance of the Strings, though the music performance by the choirs at the cathedral, the with Decca and the first recording under the sung in concert by mixed proliferates beyond the string section to the full St Olaf Festival and for the award-winning TV agreement is Symphonic Adiemus, released last orchestra. The ten-minute work also carries special Christmas in Norway. His output includes month (Decca 5793828). This new incarnation voice choirs.” Karl Jenkins hints of celestial music with the cosmological a Requiem, Magnificat, anthems, carols and of Adiemus rescores hits from his best-selling theme continuing from Chin’s recent Le Chant secular choral works. series for SATB choir and full symphony orchestra, des Enfants des Étoiles. As the composer notes, making the music available for concerts by The autumn tour programme also includes “physical and biological processes have been a In the USA Arnesen’s music has been performed mixed choirs for the first time. Selections from numbers from The Peacemakers and a full constant source of inspiration, and a number of at Carnegie Hall in conjunction with DCINY, by Symphonic Adiemus were also heard in concert performance of The Armed Man: A Mass for my scores offer musical and poetic reflections on the St Olaf Choir in Minnesota, at the Oregon at the Royal Festival Hall in London last month, Peace in the lead up to the centenary of the end natural phenomena and our physical relationship Bach Festival, and at The White House for touring in the coming months to Symphony of World War I hostilities in 1918. One of the with the cosmos”. president Barack Obama. A recent album, Hall in Birmingham and the Bridgewater Hall in most popular works by a living composer, The collecting his music written as composer-in- Manchester. A new vocal score of Symphonic Armed Man has received over 2000 performances Chin’s music is profiled in Melbourne this season, residence for the Denver-based choral ensemble Adiemus is published this month. around the world and has been a fixture on the with the Australian premiere of Mannequin Kantorei, is released by Naxos later this year. For classical charts ever since the CD was released for orchestra last month and a feature at the further information visit www.kimarnesen.com. Since it was first heard in 1994, Karl Jenkins’s in 2001. Metropolis festival in April. Adiemus has captured the imaginations of music Contemporary Choral sampler lovers worldwide thanks to its unique combination A new 2CD sampler has been released exploring of classical principles with the flavours of ethnic the Boosey & Hawkes Contemporary Choral music. The first release in the series, Adiemus: Inside this issue… Series, with 73 audio clips from 19 composers. Songs of Sanctuary, has sold over 1.5 million Music ranges from well-established international albums worldwide. The new Symphonic Adiemus figures such as Henryk Górecki, Einojuhani draws on numbers from the first three CDs in the Rautavaara, Karl Jenkins and James MacMillan series – Songs of Sanctuary, Cantata Mundi and to the finest emerging composers of our time Dances of Time – all of which topped the charts. including Will Todd and Kim André Arnesen. As well as recasting the new version for traditional The sampler features music for mixed choir mixed SATB choir, Jenkins has rescored the and upper voices and highlights latest choral accompaniment for full symphony orchestra: Clyne Birtwistle Chen Andriessen publications for the Christmas season. To Interview explores Deep Time Orchestral works Theatre of the request a free copy of the sampler visit “The original was scored for female singers only creative impulses revealed in Berlin travel from China World released www.boosey.com/CCSsampler. but over the years I’ve been inundated with beyond music and London to the West on Nonesuch Coming to orchestral composition from an This very evocative imagery was a natural point electroacoustic background has also brought of departure for an orchestral work, with all the a different perspective historically. colours and textures at hand. Movement, such as running, and the sounds of the air and waltzes How do you view the pre-compositional translate very naturally into music. phase? You are just as likely to be talking to choreographers, or painting ideas on a wall, than How was the experience of creating the BBC sketching on manuscript. Proms theme music from your Last Night The process may begin with a conversation with commission Masquerade? an artist or a choreographer, an image, a poem It was a great honour, and an exciting process, – many things.