Crow’s Theatre opened the season last night with a production of Ibsen’s Romersholm in an adaptation by Duncan Macmillan directed by Chris Abraham. It’s not perhaps Ibsen’s best known play but it’s powerful and somewhat topically relevant and the production at Crow’s is excellent in every way.
Hans Abrahamsen’s let me tell you is a work for orchestra and soprano setting text arranged by Paul Griffith from Ophelia’s lines in Hamlet. It was written for and dedicated to Barbara Hannigan who recorded it in 2015 (I think) with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Andris Nelsons.
It’s a piece in seven sections of varying moods expressing different aspects of Ophelia; both in the play and in the afterlife of the character in paintings etc. Generally the music sits on the fractured edge of tonality with a melodic line that owes something to folk music. Sometimes it’s extremely slow with a bassy, brooding air and other times it’s bright and busy.
operaramblings 