Hamlet – June 4, 2022 at select Cineplex locations LiveEvents May 28, 2022 1496 The Metropolitan Opera presents Hamlet Live in HD When Australian composer Brett Dean’s Hamlet had its world premiere at the Glyndebourne Festival in 2017, The Guardian declared, “New opera doesn’t often get to sound this good … Shakespeare offers a gauntlet to composers that shouldn’t always be picked up, but Dean’s Hamlet rises to the challenge.” On June 4, this riveting contemporary masterpiece appears live in cinemas, with Neil Armfield, who directed the work’s premiere, bringing his acclaimed staging to the Met stage. Many of the original cast members have followed, including tenor Allan Clayton in the title role. Nicholas Carter makes his Met debut conducting a remarkable ensemble, which also features soprano Brenda Rae as Ophelia, mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly as Gertrude, baritone Rod Gilfry as Claudius, and bass-baritone John Relyea as the ghost of Hamlet’s father. Brett Dean is one of today’s most prominent composers, with a body of work encompassing numerous orchestral, choral, chamber, and vocal works, as well as two operas and concerti for a variety of solo instruments. Matthew Jocelyn, who crafted the opera’s text, is a Canadian director, translator, and librettist. While the material is sometimes rearranged or sung by other characters than those in the source text, nearly all of the words in Jocelyn’s libretto are by William Shakespeare, the prolific playwright whose many masterpieces stand as history’s greatest showcases of the English language and its linguistic possibilities. Like the original play, which unfolds in an imprecise period in Elsinore Castle in medieval Denmark, Dean’s opera is set in an imagined Elsinore at an indeterminate date. This production, by Neil Armfield, draws upon visual motifs of the 18th and 20th centuries to create a simultaneously modern and timeless feel for the action. This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe. June 4, 2022Encore July 23, 2022 For information and tickets: www.cineplex.com/Events