(Kenneth Branagh directs Richard Madden and
Lily James as Romeo and Juliet and Derek Jacobi as Mercutio)
Shakespeare is my fauvorite poet and, besides, I
am an opera buff. That’s to say that Shakespeare in Opera seems to me an
interesting topic.
I’ve always wondered why there was no mention
how, in particular, Verdi wrestled quite successfully in
"translating" Shakespeare to opera. Most modern film attempts have
met with less than stellar popular success.
I also found his ideas rather intriguing as they do often
"translate" in another area that fascinates me: namely, music. My wife "hates" going to concert
events or listening to recordings that deviate even in the slightest to studio
recordings that she is mostly familiar with but I actually like improvisation
so long as it doesn't get too carried away from the main theme. Attempts to "update" Shakespeare
can be seen as a -- forgive me--bastardization -- of his original concept but if
that is what it takes to reach a mass audience--who am I to complain. Well, of course I can "complain" if
the production loses what I in my purely narcissistic sense think what the play's
about and find the "interpretation" to have missed the boat... but
thus far that has been rare. I remember
the last production of Othello I saw starring Ruy de Carvalho in 1998 at Teatro
D. Maria II. As we were leaving the
theater I overheard a woman uttering in disgust to her companion," the
producer of that mess should be shot" (said in Portuguese)...believe or
not I resisted my inherent urge to "strangle her" ...then again, I
guess it is what makes interpretation so much fun...as long as the general ideas
don't get lost in the mix...
Others famous composers considered to write
operas based on King Lear. Britten was one of them but abandoned the project.
Re Lear (King Lear) is an operatic libretto written by Antonio Somma for
Giuseppe Verdi. Although the Italian composer considered the project of Re Lear
for many years, no music for the opera was ever composed. Instead, German composer
Aribert Reimann wrote the opera Lear premiered at the National Theatre Munich
on July 1978. And the English composer Alexander Goehr wrote “Promised End”
based on Shakespeare’s King Lear and first performed by English Touring Opera
in 2010.
What’s your favourite representation of a
Shakespearean play?
