The reference books generally list up to half a dozen operas based on Hamlet, but the only one that maintains even a fingertip-hold in the repertory is the version by Ambroise Thomas, which was premiered in Paris in 1868. Though Opera North revived it seven years ago, Thomas's Hamlet has not been performed at Covent Garden since 1910.
It arrives at the Royal Opera House now in a production by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser first seen in Geneva in 1996. This revival has much of the same cast, including Simon Keenlyside in the title role and Natalie Dessay as Ophelia, as well as the same conductor, Louis Langrée.
The libretto by Carré and Barbier does not quite give us Hamlet without the prince, but it does dispense with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as well as Fortinbras; yet it keeps Polonius alive to the very end.
But then Hamlet survives too, crowned as king after, urged on by the ghost, he has killed Claudius and dispatched his mother Gertrude to a convent. A few of the best couplets survive, but not many, and the rest of the text is reduced to stock mid-19th-century libretto cliches; it may be Shakespeare, but not as we know it.
No one would claim that Thomas's score is top quality either. It does have its moments, especially in Hamlet's third-act confrontation with his mother, and in Ophelia's mad scene, which occupies all of the fourth act. And some of the orchestration is striking. But the tunes are unmemorable, and the big set pieces just go through the conventional motions.
Good performances are crucial - a badly sung Hamlet would be purgatory indeed - and Langrée's purposeful conducting and the Royal Opera's fine cast ensure that at least. Keenlyside's portrayal is riveting; he squeezes every bit of meaning out of each phrase, and demands attention whenever he is on stage. In his depiction of Hamlet's madness he does everything but chew the scenery, though he does run headlong into it at one point and drenches himself from head to foot in red wine at another.
Dessay's effortlessly spun coloratura is a constant delight, and Yvonne Naef's Gertrude is dramatically formidable, despite the handicap of the most horrendous wig.
The production adds very little. Christian Fenouillat's ugly set consists of high, curving walls that noisily perambulate about the stage, and Caurier and Leiser are hardly a team to probe beneath any dramatic or musical surfaces.
They put the opera on the stage convincingly enough (though the chorus is sometimes clumsily handled), and leave the singers to flesh out their characters as best they can. It is lucky that Keenlyside, Dessay and Naef in particular are able to do that so well.
· In rep until May 30. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
