Two Operas in one week.

On Friday evening 2 August 2024 we arrived back in Sydney after 3 weeks in France and London.  We started in London on Thursday via Dubai and took 23 hours.  After nearly 2 weeks we have nearly recovered from the jet lag.  Flying East is much tougher to recover than flying West.   Old age does not help either.

I had booked to see the opera version of Hamlet on the following Monday and Cosi Fan Tutti on the Thursday at least 6 months earlier.   Those of my special followers who have actually read The Humm Handbook or availed themselves of my special offer will know in final third of the book  I discuss five case studies:  Antigone, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear and Death of a Salesman.  I was following the advice if my tutor, Professor Charles Handy at the London Business School: “Businesses come and go, but the Great Plays last forever.” So, whenever one of these 5 playa is being performed in Sydney, I try to see it.  This year I have seen Lear and DOAS and an opera version of Hamlet piqued my curiosity.

I was not the only one, It was a full house at the Sydney Opera House on a Monday night,  I must confess that I was disappointed with the performance and left at the interval.  Jet lag was happening and I fell asleep several times.  The opera appeared to me as singalong version of the play.  Verdi, for example, has composed operatic versions of Othello and Falstaff which are operas with arias, duets, trios, etc.  I kept remembering the old joke where a women after attending her first performance of Hamlet opined she could not understand why it was a great play.  All Shakespeare had done was string along a mass of old and famous quotations.

Since walking out I have now seen the second act of this opera, which was first staged at Glyndebourne in 2017.  The film is nearly all close-ups and with captions turned one a much more pleasurable experience but still it felt more like a singalong play than an opera.

I must make an exception for Lorina Gore who played Ophelia. She is stunning to look at and, can sing, and acted everyone off the stage.  In the play (and Opera) Polonius attempts to prove that Hamlet is mad by attributing his behaviour to unrequited love for his daughter, Ophelia.  Here you can safely say Hamlet is mad because he dumps Lorna.

Finally in the program is a note that the first opera version of Hamlet was performed in Venice in 1706 some 100 years after the first performance of the play.

Cosi Fan Tutti was a completely different experience.  I had never seen a performance and this one is a new version and is brilliant.  The opera not only has some of Mozart’s greatest music but the libretto is very funny and witty.  One of the great lines is in Scene 8.  “In this world It’s always wise to be a bit suspicious.”

Despina the maid is terrific introducing relationship reality to the romantic sisters.

The trio “Soave sia il vento”  is Mozart at his finest and to me is what opera is all about.

If you would like to know why people find pleasure in opera, this is a performance to go and see.