Today is the premiere of Hamlet: Sein oder Nichtsein at the Kinder und Jugend Theater Dortmund. This is a new work by Timo Jouko Herrmann and André Meyer based on the Hamlet story, though it diverges in a few meaningful ways.
In December I wrote this on Facebook:
And that remains mostly true. It’s not as atonal as I originally thought (Ophelia has some especially lovely and melodious passages), and it’s actually meant for teenagers from the age of 14 and up (this hews much closer to Hamlet than, for example, The Lion King).
But I had thought that I’d never get to do any of Hamlet’s famous speech, and here we are singing it in the chorus in a dark but colorful and rich production. This is an exciting work visually, thematically and aurally (the sounds coming from the orchestra are especially thrilling).
Toi toi toi to all involved!
