06 Aug 2020
Glyndebourne Open House - Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Brett Dean’s Hamlet
Glyndebourne has announced the next two opera titles in its virtual festival, Glyndebourne Open House - Handel’s Giulio Cesare (pictured) and Brett Dean’s Hamlet.
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Commentary
Glyndebourne Open House throws open our doors to everyone, everywhere: join us at 5.00pm each Sunday and enjoy world-class opera in your living room for free.
In true Festival style, we hope you’ll use this as an opportunity to make memories - dust off your finery, clink a glass with friends and family and be united with opera lovers from across the globe. We can’t conjure the smell of the Glyndebourne roses or a view of the lake, but we can still create an experience to share.
Coming up on Sunday 9 August is David McVicar’s production of Giulio Cesare, followed on 16 August by Neil Armfield’s staging of Brett Dean’s Hamlet. These two operas will be available to watch on Glyndebourne's website and YouTube channel.
Visit glyndebourne.com/OpenHouse
9 August - Giulio Cesare: from 5pm on 9 August and on demand for one week.
Watch on the Glyndebourne website or YouTube channel.
When Egypt’s seductive queen meets Rome’s powerful ruler, the stakes are high, both for politics and passion. Horrified by the brutal murder of his rival by Cleopatra’s brother Tolomeo, Cesare joins forces with Cleopatra to depose her unscrupulous sibling. But is their alliance one of love, lust or just mutual ambition?
A true Glyndebourne classic, David McVicar’s production brings all-singing, all-dancing energy to one of Handel’s greatest scores. Sumptuous designs that nod to Britain’s colonial history transform a tale of political intrigue into a dazzling spectacle, sweeping the audience up in its tangled web of power, revenge and romance.
The resourceful, complicated Cleopatra and smooth statesman Cesare are two of Handel’s most fascinating creations - characters whose music, by turns heart-breaking and ecstatic, includes so many of the composer’s finest arias.
William Christie conducts a cast led by Sarah Connolly as Cesare and Danielle de Niese as Cleopatra.
16 August - Hamlet: from 5pm on 16 August and on demand for one week.
Watch on the Glyndebourne website or YouTube channel.
Tormented by his father’s death, Hamlet plots revenge. But it’s a long way from anger to murder, and soon the Prince finds himself losing his grip on sanity, strength, love and even life itself.
Rapturously received at its 2017 premiere, Brett Dean and Matthew Jocelyn’s Hamlet is an award-winning reimagining of Shakespeare’s most famous play. Placing his audience at the heart of the drama, immersing them in sound and even physical sensation, Dean invites us all into Hamlet’s consciousness, to inhabit the mind of one of the cleverest, wittiest, most troubled heroes in all literature.
Transforming the Glyndebourne auditorium into a ‘theatre of sound’, Dean’s richly lyrical score finds the music of Shakespeare’s language, amplifying it to create an evocative, disturbing soundscape. This is Hamlet, but not as you’ve ever heard it before.
Neil Armfield directs an all-star cast led by Allan Clayton and Barbara Hannigan. Vladimir Jurowski conducts.