Style & substance: Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet in Buxton is a rewarding musical & dramatic feast with the festival confidently stepping on the shoulders of its previous production

Thomas: Hamlet – Gregory Feldmann – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

Ambroise Thomas: Hamlet; Gregory Feldmann, Yewon Han, Alastair Mile, Allison Cook, director Jack Furness, Orchestra of Opera North, conductor: Adrian Kelly; Buxton International Festival at Buxton Opera House
Reviewed 20 July 2025

Buxton’s return to Hamlet does the work proud with a stylishly minimal production from Jack Furness allowing the two astonishing young principals to shine, all under Adrian Kelly’s loving musical direction

Ambroise Thomas was the nearly man of 19th century French opera. His opera Mignon followed Gounod in adapting Goethe, first with spoken dialogue then as full grand opera, and Mignon echoed Faust‘s popularity. His Shakespeare adaptation Hamlet sat on the cusp between the older grand opera and the lyric drama espoused by Massenet. Hamlet retained a hold on the repertoire, thanks to the spectacular mad scene for Ophélie. But in modern times, neither of Thomas’ operas has retained anything like its 19th century popularity.

In 1980, the fledgling Buxton Festival presented a production of Thomas’ Hamlet (with Thomas Allen in the title role) in an enterprising Shakespeare-themed season that included Berlioz’ Beatrice et Benedict. Since then, sightings of the opera in the UK have been relatively rare. Covent Garden presented it in 2003, for the first time since 1910 (!) and Opera North gave it in 1995, but it remains a rarity, dependent on the right baritone and soprano.

45 years on, Buxton International Festival decided to return to the work in a new production directed by Jack Furness and conducted by the festival’s artistic director, Adrian Kelly with the Orchestra of Opera North in the pit. We caught the performance on 20 July 2025 at Buxton Opera House. Adrian Kelly is also head of the International Opera Studio at Zurich Opera of which both the leads, Gregory Feldmann (Hamlet) and Yewon Han (Ophélie) were members. Alastair Miles was Claudius, Allison Cook was Gertrude, Joshua Baxter was Laërte, Tylor Lamani was Marcellus and Dan D’Souza was Horatio. Designs were by Sami Fendall and lighting by Jake Wiltshire.

Thomas: Hamlet – Yewon Han – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

The strange thing about watching Thomas’ Hamlet is the way that in each of the play’s familiar scenes, the opera responds with standard French grand opera tropes. The libretto was by experienced hands, Michel Carré and Jules Barbier, and if you can forget Shakespeare, then Hamlet makes a striking piece of operatic drama. Some of the differences may be laid at the libretto’s source which is not Shakespeare, but the 1847 French version by Alexandre Dumas, père, and Paul Meurice which already has differences to the English. Most of the smaller roles are cut, the libretto focuses on Hamlet, Ophélie, Claudius and Gertrude. Polonius is not killed in the closet scene (he is not present) and the role is reduced to a cipher. Here it was admirably performed by Richard Woodall.

Jack Furness’ production was not lavish but it was certainly remarkably effective and stylish. With a contemporary setting based around a staircase that filled the stage, Sami Fendall’s set used few props yet remarkable visual effects were conjured by Furness, Fendall and Jake Wiltshire, with some super stage images. The contemporary setting meant that from the outset, it was clear that Alastair Miles’ Claudius was a usurping tyrant. Throughout the opera soldiers with guns were present, often rounding up the unsuspecting. Unsubtle perhaps, but Furness did not belabour it and certainly the interpretation chimes in with the dramaturgy. It also meant that the somewhat gimcrack feel of some of Thomas’ ceremonial music was entirely apt as it was accompanying not a 17th century Danish royal court but a modern usurping demagogue.

Whilst the musical spectacular in the opera is the Act Four mad scene for Ophélie, it is in the role of Hamlet that the drama rests. It is a large role, in front of the audience for significant amounts of time and was written for a great singing actor, baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure. These are roles that mature singers could covet and do justice to, but the great virtue of Buxton’s production was that they had cast a pair of young singers, Yewon Han and Gregory Feldmann, who not only looked the part of the young lovers but sounded it too whilst having the technical resources to bring this off. Han had the right sort of slimline voice with a hint of steel that could shine in both the filigree of Thomas’ writing and the theatrics of the mad scene. Feldmann’s upper register seemed endlessly fluid and flexible, combined with an engaging stage presence and seemingly tireless stamina.

Thomas: Hamlet – Alastair Miles – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

Thomas’ prelude was the dramatic accompaniment to the burial of the late King Hamlet, a scene where Furness concisely set out all the problematic strands of the drama. The Act opened with the Coronation, establishing Claudius (Alastair Miles) as imperious and Gertrude (Allison Cook) as colluding and besotted. Initially Hamlet (Gregory Feldmann) was carefree and his duet with Han’s Ophélie was engaging as well as giving us a chance to appreciate Han’s way with the filigree music. Joshua Baxter’s Laërte was rather stiff and proper in his injunction to Hamlet and Ophélie, but it is a somewhat ungrateful role.

Having established the setting, the meat of the act was the ramparts scene. Tylor Lamani and Dan D’Souza as Marcellus and Horatio provided strong support here, but the essence was the dramatic interaction between Feldmann’s Hamlet and the ghost (Per Bach Nissen). Nissen felt rather stiff, but that could be a genuine way with this supernatural character and what counted was the intensity and drama of Feldman’s reaction.

Act Two opened with Ophélie’s anxious aria with Han’s expressive lamenting of Hamlet’s coldness. Allison Cook’s stylish yet rather distant Gertrude did little to assuage her, and we learned why as in this version of the story Claudius and Gertrude admit their guilt. The opera is clear cut about the issues, all is either good or bad. Miles and Cook made a terrific pair of villains, smiling whilst plotting. The scene with the players relied heavily on Feldmann, with Hamlet having an extended solo based around a drinking song. Feldmann was terrific here, really holding our attention and making Hamlet rightly the centre even if we suspect that Thomas’ music for this scene was more effective than memorable. The act ended, of course, with a terrific ensemble as Claudius and Gertrude were seemingly unmasked.

Thomas: Hamlet – Alastair Miles, Gregory Feldmann – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

Act Three was the closet scene. Feldmann was magnificently affecting in Hamlet’s monologue, his voice having an admirable suppleness of phrasing and feel for the French prosody. (It helps here if you can forget ‘To be, or no to be…’). Alastair Miles’ Claudius seemed genuinely intense and repentant in prayer, though still unlikable and Feldmann made Hamlet’s hesitation all the more believable. But the core of the drama was the terrific scene between mother and son where Cook and Feldmann really knocked sparks off each other yet stayed true to the music. Gertrude was written for one of those French voices that moves between mezzo-soprano and soprano. Here Cook, a real Falcon soprano, did it full justice whilst looking stylish throughout.This scene is the essential part of the drama of the opera, and what follows is, to a certain extent, frippery.

Act Four is Ophélie’s extended mad scene, here touchingly sung by Han, who brought a sense of style to the music and impressed with her command of the virtuosic elements. Furness’ staging was visually arresting and imaginative when it came to Ophélie’s final drowning. Sensibly, the production omitted the ballet that begins the act.

Act Five opened with the grave diggers, here John Ieuan Jones and James Liu (both from the chorus) in fine form, having fun yet engaging with the drama. Feldmann was impressive in Hamlet’s touching aria here where he expressed regret for the way he treated Ophélie, this was an invention of the opera. The scene between Feldmann’s Hamlet and Baxter’s Laërte was all bluster and somewhat unsatisfactory till the advent of Ophélie’s funeral, Feldmann’s fine depiction of Hamlet’s grief and then the reappearance of the ghost (something that comes from Dumas’ French version of the play) which provided a moment of concluding drama. This act was effective whilst lacking the musical meat of earlier in the opera.

The hard working chorus of 24 made a more than admirable job of both filling the auditorium with a rich noise and creating some dramatic stage pictures. In the pit, Adrian Kelly drew and admirably subtle performance from the Orchestra of Opera North, and you could here the way he drew out the pre-echoes of later French opera alongside the traditional grand opera features. Ambroise Thomas was anything but a revolutionary but treated with love and care, as here, there is lots to enjoy in Hamlet.

Thomas: Hamlet – Gregory Feldmann, Allison Cook – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)

Whilst the fortunes of Hamlet have revived somewhat in the last few decades, it is still not a common occurrence and I count myself fortunate to have seen not only this production, but Buxton’s original one in 1980, along with those at Opera North and Covent Garden. Given the right singers, there is no reason for the opera to be ignored, it is enormously effective as operatic drama and perhaps only the British audience’s response to a mangling of Shakespeare can explain its absence.

There was a great sense of style and simplicity to Furness’ production which allowed the two young leads to shine. All the other roles were finely taken, and the whole ensemble provided a fine setting for Feldmann and Han. This was a superb team effort, but what stays in the memory is the performance from the young principals.

Thomas: Hamlet – Allison Cook, Alastair Miles, Gregory Feldmann – Buxton International Festival (Photo: Genevieve Girling)