Hamlet (The Metropolitan Opera) NYC Reviews and Tickets
About the Show
Production Covid-19 Safety ProtocolsShow-Score Member Reviews (19)
See it if You like to experience new types of operas with depth.
Don't see it if You are looking for a traditional type of opera.
See it if Very very little of the libretto is ever repeated. It must have been a monster to learn. Rosencrantz and Gildenstein were a high light
Don't see it if I'm not a big fan of modern opera; however, even if you are like me, this opera is worth seeing.
See it if you like a very dramatic and operatic version of Hamlet. Great singing and staging. Atonal music and modern setting.
Don't see it if you only like traditional style opera or Shakespeare done without changes in verse. The libretto takes many liberties with the dialogue. Read more
See it if Another Met experience. Hamlet reconstructed. Atonal
Don't see it if Atonal. Exhausting in experience and length.
See it if Bean (music) & Jocelyn (libretto) take a deep, unsettling dive into Hamlet's depressed psyche & the unrelenting havoc it causes around him
Don't see it if Haunting & eerie, the electronic score while brilliant is often tough to listen to Jocelyn leaves much of Shakespeare's plot/text in tatters
See it if you want to see an operatic adaptation of Hamlet with an amazing mad scene and reasonable modern music. Ophelia should have been naked.
Don't see it if you don’t want to see Hamlet sung throughout, don’t like modern operas, want to hear To Be or Not to Be, or don’t want to see a fat Hamlet. Read more
See it if you would enjoy a well acted and staged production with some good voices, a little comedy and mostly brutal music and characters.
Don't see it if you want to hear the voices over the harsh orchestration. It is sung in English but you still need the captioning. Over 3 hours-1st act slow
See it if Enjoys innovative opera productions.
Don't see it if If you appreciate Verdi, Mozart, Puccini, etc.
Critic Reviews (7)
"Dean and Jocelyn’s “Hamlet” is brooding, moving and riveting. These two artists have put a softly steaming small choir in the orchestra pit, and musicians in balcony boxes for fractured fanfares. And, through acoustic means and groaning subwoofers alike, they have put the agonized characters nearly inside your bloodstream."
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"In its musical exploration of a shattered spirit, Dean’s score belongs with an extravagantly theatrical mid-20th-century idiom that has never gotten much traction at the Met."
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"In Mr. Armfield’s direction, nothing is ever quite realistic, whether it’s Hamlet leaping around the stage like a child playing hopscotch, or the chorus lined up and facing forward, rigid as automatons."
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"The striking if unengaging work proved to be less a straightforward adaptation of Shakespeare than a spikey, self-conscious meditation on 'Hamlet.' While it’s unlikely to take its place next to Verdi’s 'Otello' and 'Falstaff' or Gounod’s 'Roméo et Juliette,' it did offer the marvelous English tenor Allan Clayton the opportunity to make a remarkable local debut as the tortured and ineffectual Prince of Denmark."
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"Dean makes no secret about where we are headed with a score that is intensely dramatic from the first note. The entire string section seems to creep along the backs of our necks as a nightmarish chorus emanates from the stage, and occasionally from places we cannot see in the house."
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"Clocking in at over three hours, with one intermission, the opera is as unwieldy as most productions of the play. Opera doesn’t need to be an endurance test. By the end of the first act, which runs for 105 minutes, the audience was getting restive. Standing near an exit at intermission, a small, but steady stream of people left, not to return. Since heeding Polonius’ oft-repeated words regarding brevity wasn’t in the cards, surely another break could have been inserted to lighten the load."
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"While watching this 'Hamlet,' a plethora of thoughts came to me. Is this an opera or a sung play with music? Is this a self-aware satire or a tragic melodrama? Is it 'Hamlet' or a commentary on 'Hamlet?' ... This identity crisis in many ways mirrors its titular character quite well, thus creating a situation of form and content being solidly united."
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