SoBe Arts Presents the World Premiere of
HAMLET
Soundtheater/Opera
Music and Libretto by Carson Kievman
Based on
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare Friday, February 24, through Sunday, March 11, 2012
Little Stage Theater at SoBe Arts, 2100 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach
SoBe Institute of the Arts presents the World Premiere of Carson Kievman’s HAMLET Soundtheater/Opera in the Little Stage Theater on Miami Beach. This provocative, sophisticated, and radically re-imagined musical setting of Shakespeare’s masterpiece was the final commission by legendary producer Joseph Papp (“A Chorus Line,” “Hair,” etc.) for the New York Shakespeare Festival / Public Theater. Due to Papp’s tragic passing soon after the work was completed, HAMLET remained unperformed, until now.
"I worked on HAMLET Soundtheater/Operaw ith Papp for four years, and his intention was to produce it at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park," Kievman remembers. The loss of Papp affected the composer deeply. A main theme of HAMLET is, painfully and ironically, the death of fathers, and during Kievman’s years of preparing the libretto and working on the score, several other important mentors and father figures in his life passed away, including Florida Philharmonic’s General Director Joseph Leavitt, visionary Luigi Nono and Olivier Messiaen, and Kievman’s own father, Michael. Kievman continues, "...so I placed it in my desk drawer, and there it remained for 21 years, until now."
HAMLET Soundtheater/Opera is interwoven with spiritual and sexual conflicts, it challenges boundary lines, and is multi-dimensional in its cultural and musical reference points. Pulsing with collective zeitgeistan d new shapes, the chilling vocals spiral beyond the confines of language to articulate emotional truths behind literal meaning.
Conducted by celebrated New York opera conductor John Yaffé, lighting by award-winning designer Robert Perry (http://sobearts.org/ROBERTPERRY.html), HAMLET Soundtheater /Opera is being performed by a top-flight cast of 13 singers from Miami and New York including:
Expressive and critically-acclaimed lyric baritone Kenneth Mattice as Hamlet
Unique and versatile Meagan Brus as Ophelia
Powerful bass Richard Zuch as Claudius and the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father
Internationally trained Finnish soprano Danielle Krause as Gertrude
Recording artist and actor Richard Cassell as Polonius
Rising young tenor Justin John Moniz as Horatio
Also rounding out the dramatis personae are Jeffrey Wienand (Laertes), Enrique Estrada (Rosencrantz), David Schnell (Guildenstern), Jillian Staffiera (the Player Queen), Kunya Rowley (Marcellus), Enrique Coizeau (Cornelius) and John Cabrali (Fortinbras).
Kievman states, “My intention was and is to create a HAMLET with the highest impact to contemporary audiences primarily with actions and gripping music, while maintaining a clear respect for Shakespeare’s genius. This HAMLET takes place as a ‘medieval carnival’ visits Elsinore Castle. The sense of Elsinore being on the border (and shore) of Denmark will hopefully evoke the excitement of mystery and instability caused by the constant questioning of what lies just across the border. As Hamlet confronts his fellow characters, a merry-go-round, a house of horrors and a house of mirrors are brought to mind.”
“Carson Kievman is a composer of extremely original music, which is rare"
Olivier Messiaen, composer
"I never thought it could be done - you have done the impossible…
