Murder most foul can happen anywhere, anytime. Thaddeus Strassberger proves this point in his staging of Ambroise Thomas’s “Hamlet” for Washington National Opera. The award-winning director and designer makes his company debut with his astounding production first presented in 2006 by Kansas City Lyric Opera.
If you go
‘Hamlet’
Where: Kennedy Center Opera House
When: Opens Wednesday, runs through June 4
Info: $25 to $300; 202-295-2400; dc-opera.org; performed in French with English supertitles
The Denmark setting no longer harks back several centuries, but merely a generation ago behind the Iron Curtain. To those who argue that Denmark was not positioned so precariously during that period of history, Strassberger points out that he is following Shakespeare’s own policy. “He was brilliant in his use of contemporary sets and costumes for his Globe productions,” he said. “The story is timeless, but you can’t represent timelessness. You must root it in a time and place, and once you root it, it will grow. My concept is distorted, like a parallel universe. It’s what Denmark might have looked like during the Cold War of the 1950s, a special space we’ve created. And because the Kennedy Center has a bigger stage than Kansas City, I’ve added some scenery.”
Strassberger, winner of the 2005 European Opera Directing Prize, is a favorite worldwide for his imaginative productions, among them “La Cenerentola,” “Aida,” “Euridice,” “Die Zaberflote” and “La Fanciulla del West,” not to forget his amusing take on Wolf Trap Opera’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” in 2008. When Placido Domingo heard of Strassberger’s Kansas City adaptation and saw the images, he invited Strassberger to bring the concept to WNO.
The star-studded cast includes soprano Elizabeth Futral as Ophelia, bass-baritone Samuel Ramey as King Claudius, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Bishop as Queen Gertrude, tenor John Tessier as Laertes and baritones Liam Bonner and Michael Chioldi sharing the title role. Strassberger sees many advantages to having two singers sharing a single role.
“I have lots of ideas about the classic ‘Hamlet’ and no way of using them all,” he said. “When I throw out several ideas, one singer will latch on to a few and the other singer will latch on to others. It’s like a lottery for me because it allows me to explore many different ideas in a single production. It also makes everybody else think on his feet. There’s lots of interaction between the characters, and when each Hamlet takes my ideas and brings them to life, the others on stage have to react accordingly.
“Ophelia will also be surprising. In the play, she is humming in her mad scene, but in this opera her humming is a license for going off into total insanity, singing about and possibly contemplating suicide. In this pure musical moment, her text melts away.”
A career as an international opera director is not the typical goal of a Cherokee native growing up in Tulsa, Okla., but Strassberger is anything but typical. From childhood, he cultivated his interest by immersing himself backstage at the local opera house in every aspect of their productions. By the time he was ready for college, his goal of positioning himself near East Coast opera companies by attending Columbia University quickly shifted to Cooper Union. Both were listed alphabetically on the same catalog page, one requiring a hefty tuition, the other free.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts from Cooper Union, he won a Fulbright Fellowship and studied scenic design at Milan, Italy’s La Scala. From there, he was hired as assistant director at opera companies in Naples Venice in Italy, Karlsruhe, Germany, Houston, Pittsburgh, and other cities. Now in great demand for his creativity, he enjoys the exhilaration of coming back to “Hamlet” four years later.
“I was originally drawn to this opera because I’m always looking for new pieces with strong and well-known stories,” he said. “Once I have some knowledge of a work, I can push ahead with fresh new ideas and bring the audience along with me.”
