Jim Breen's Blog

Musings on This and That

Last Sunday Julia, Louisa, Simon and I flew over to Adelaide to see Brett Dean's opera `Hamlet', which was on as part of the Adelaide Festival. It was the Glyndebourne production from 2017, with a partly local cast.

It was extremely good - I liked it much better than his previous opera `Bliss'. Hamlet is a tough play, and this was quite a tough opera. The production and singing was excellent. Rather than describe it in detail, I suggest people read Miriam Cosic's review in The Monthly.

It was good to be seeing opera again in the Festival Theatre. I went to the Ring there in 1998 and again in 2004. It was also a nice fleeting trip to Adelaide. Simon's sister Fiona picked us up at the airport and spent the afternoon with us. After the opera, which finished around 8:30pm, we had a very nice Vietnamese meal.