The Met: Live in HD’s ‘Hamlet’ takes to the screen

Above : Allan Clayton stars in the title role of The Met: Live in HD’s production of “Hamlet.” (Photo/Fathom Events)

Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” is one of the best-known theatrical works the world has ever seen. It’s been produced in every format imaginable, from straight theaters to comic books.

Several years ago, the composer Brett Dean began working on an operatic version of the tragedy. And with his librettist partner Matthew Jocelyn, he constructed a musical work that New York Times critic Matthew Woolfe calls “brooding, moving and riveting.”

Now the opera is being screened in theaters by The Met: Live in HD at two area Regal Cinemas theaters. It will show at 9:55 a.m. Saturday at Northtown Mall and Coeur d’Alene’s Riverstone Stadium, then at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Northtown only.

Dean’s “Hamlet” premiered in 2017 as part of the Glyndebourne Festival, which was held just 50 miles from London’s Globe Theater where it was performed some four centuries ago.

This production, which was staged by Neil Armfield and conducted by Nicholas Carter, stars many of the cast from that 2017 show. Tenor Allan Clayton plays the title role, while soprano Brenda Rae plays Ophelia, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly plays Gertrude, baritone Rod Gilfry plays Claudius and bass John Relyea plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father.

“It’s a work both traditional and innovative,” Woolfe wrote, “elegant and passionate – a hit, to quote the play badly out of context, a very palpable hit.”

Shakespeare himself might well agree.