#shakespeare and music
Today we’re listening to French soprano Sabine Devieilhe sing Ophelia’s Mad Scene from Ambroise Thomas’s opera Hamlet.
What is happening in this scene?
Ophelia cannot understand or accept the fact that Hamlet has rejected her.
When Ophelia appears, villagers gather in a quiet spot in the woods near a lake.
Despite Hamlet’s rejection of her, she imagines herself as his wife. The scene is one of the opera’s highlights, recalling another of opera’s great mad scenes, the one from Donizetti’sLucia. Ophelia’s struggle is represented by extravagant coloratura, interspersed with music that’s delicate and moving.
Ophelia sings: “There he is! I think I hear him!”. As she leans over the water, she repeats some moments from her love duet with Hamlet in Act I. As the act ends, Ophelia enters the water to drown.
I read that the melody at 6:22 is from a Swedish folk song called Näckens Polska. And that Ambroise Thomas heard Swedish soprano Kristina Nilsson (pictured above), whom he wrote the part of Ophelia for, perform it at a concert, and he found it so incredible he incorporated it into the opera.
Puppet Designer Rachael Canning talks about puppeteering the Changeling in Scottish Opera’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
