The Definite "To Be" of Hamlet

When stellar cast withdraws from an opera production, Hamlet’s question comes up naturally. To be or not to be?

Truly, will the production even survive a major cast change? Will it be a lot worse, average or possibly better?

There is no right answer to any of those questions, and things are different every time. I guess, you just have to rely on your own intuition of an opera lover and decide for yourself if you want to see that production, all things considered.

Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet is not the most widely staged opera in the world (and most undeservedly, I should say). For it sure has the music to remember and listen to over and over again. Therefore, when I learned that WNO was presenting Hamlet this spring, I knew I wanted to see it. After all, it would be my first Hamlet. When it was announced that both Diana Damrau and Carlos Alvarez had withdrawn from the production, I said: “Oh well, the stars won’t be there, but the music will!” and decided to go anyway.

Apparently, those twists of fate are not rare in the world of opera. Besides, it is at those times that new discoveries take place, and lucky are those of us who are there to witness them.
Earlier this season, a rising baritone Liam Bonner sang Horatio in the Met production of Hamlet. Only a couple of months later, along with his counterpart Michael Chioldi, he stepped into the principal role in WNO, stunning the audience with his incredible Hamlet and making the whole production a definite “to be”.

I came into opera rather late,” says Liam Bonner, 29.
“I went to an all boys’ Catholic high school and the only way to meet girls was to join the drama club. So that’s how I started singing. I did a lot of musical theater and then I [met] this gentleman who used to sing opera. He was retired and living in Pittsburgh, where I am originally from. He introduced himself to me and said “You need to sing opera. Your voice is too big for musical theater – you are going to blow up the microphones and we should work. And that was really how it started. I said “OK, I’ll look into it.” I tried it out and immediately fell in love with it. It sort of was the perfect combination of everything I was looking for. But I never sang in a church choir. My dad listened to Irish folk music and Bob Marley when I was growing up.
”I don’t come from a musical family”, he adds.
“I come from a very supportive family, but no one else is a musician in the family”.

R: On Monday night you won the audience over with a deep, multi-faceted and complex character that you created. Therefore, my question is what was your biggest artistic and personal challenge in portraying Hamlet?

L.B : It’s probably the vocal demand of the role. It’s the biggest role that I’ve ever sung in the sense of the length and the size, and also just the fact that it’s a heavier role than the roles that I currently sing. It’s sort of that in-between singing Donizetti and Mozart and going full fledged right into Verdi, it’s sort of that in-between bridging the gap. That was probably the most difficult part of it. I was fortunate enough to have sung the role of Horatio in the Met production several months ago, which I think actually helped me in the sense of finding the character.

I got to watch Simon Keenlyside [who sang the title role in the Met’s Hamlet – R.] quite frequently, and he is an incredible actor, which, I am sure you are aware, is rare for opera singers. I was very conscious not to do what he did because it’s all a very personal thing, what he brings into the role in his own interpretation. But I would be lying if I said I did not get a few ideas from him, because that was absolutely true. Some of the ideas that he had for the character and interpretation - I could not really see it any other way myself. It just made so much sense, and I think it’s one of the big things for this production too, why it seems to have been such a success with the audience here in DC - the fact that it does make so much sense, even though it is not word for word literally what the Shakespeare’s Hamlet is.

R: While I was watching the production, I was thinking that your interpretation of Hamlet was so incredible for many reasons, but primarily because every time you came on stage, you managed to bring in yet a new and different Hamlet. You really lived the part. What is the significance of this character to you personally? What does Hamlet signify to you?

L.B: Well, I like the fact that I am fortunate enough to be doing this at such a young age, because Hamlet is a younger character. He has to deal with his mother and his uncle, and all these adults in the world that are sort of manipulating and scheming and trying to sabotage his world and his life and the perspective that he sees. It’s nice to be able to really connect with that sort of age difference with my colleagues as well and make that feel really real and honest.

Significantly, I like the fact that it’s actually a story and, with regards to what you were saying about a different Hamlet coming on stage, because it is such a great story and so well written, you are really going through this. Just like in real life, when you are going through trials and tribulations and all sorts of drama in your own personal life, sometimes you are completely angry and upset, and sometimes you just want to break down and cry and other times you just have to laugh because it is so utterly ridiculous that this is happening.

All those things were sort of the draw that this role has for me, and then our director Thaddeus Stassberger was able to assist with [it] also. That was a lot of his staging as well and his interpretation of the piece that I think both myself and the other gentleman playing Hamlet Michael Chioldi were both able to do with this character to show all these different sides that is not sort of “Oh God, no! Here goes that whiny character again in the opera that’s way too long!”
We sort of tried to eliminate that feel. There is always something new to discover and learn in every scene.

R: It was very impressive. The character that you created, like I said, was so complex, that, as a member of the audience, I was sitting there and thinking “Oh my God, what other Hamlet am I going to see now?” It was incredible, really.

L.B: Well, it’s very flattering.

R: To you personally, which aria, duet or scene is the pinnacle moment of the opera and why?

L.B: By far for me, it’s the duet with Queen Gertrude.

R: That’s what I thought!

L.B: Absolutely. That scene has everything you could think of and I think that it’s so well written dramatically, vocally and musically. It really seems to me the most perfect part of the entire opera and it’s the scene that I find the most enjoyment doing. There is so much information and it’s so real. It’s one of those arguments that mother and child are having. The manipulative way that they work each other and sort of one up each other with an insult here and a jab there, sometimes screaming , sometimes physical violence, sometimes sarcasm and just always different facets, which again, one of the reasons why I think this piece is so incredible.

And what we’ve all been able to figure out is that this is not just some, you know, not to downplay some of the great operas, but there is so much more in this piece and the more you do it, the more you discover about it.

R: That’s very true.

L.B: But it’s definitely that scene. I love the fact that it turned into such physical violence at one point, when he almost threatened to bash her head in with the sculpture of Claudius and then arguing over the corpse of his dead father and then that screaming over his dead body, is just really intense and dramatic in the best sense.

R: If your Hamlet did not die, would he ever be able to forgive his mother?

L.B: I don’t know, but I will tell you that I am really glad that we are not doing that version.

[ In Dumas-Meurice version, widely staged in the 1840s, as Gertrude, Claudius, and Laertes are dying, the ghost of Hamlet's father reappears and condemns each of the dying characters. When the wounded Hamlet asks: Et quel châtiment m'attend donc? – "And what punishment awaits me?", the ghost responds: Tu vivras! – "You shall live!"– R.]

I think that Hamlet needs to at the end.

I am really glad that we did the common version. You know, you go through this whole evening and for them to suddenly end on an up note “Oh, long live Hamlet – he is now the king’, to me that was never Hamlet’s mission. To me, he was never ambitious and wanted to be king – he wanted to avenge his father’s death. And once that was accomplished, that was it. I gladly did that version. It makes the most sense in my mind.

R: Your repertoire includes both tragic and comic roles. What is more challenging for you as an artist: to make people cry or laugh?

L.B: Comedy by far is the hardest thing, I think. People with comedic timing are absolute geniuses. And to me that’s definitely the hardest. It’s also hard because you can go very sort of cheesy campy things in the comedic operas that you go for a cheap laugh. It’s much more difficult to go for that honest “Oh my God, I cannot stop laughing – that was absolutely hilarious!, especially in opera. And sometimes that’s what you need. And when you got a great actor and a great cast to work with, those moments do happen. They are much rarer to me than someone being on stage alone with the right lighting and the orchestra and then singing so beautifully that it brings the audience to tears. That for me is a little easier than comedy, actually.

R: You mentioned the cast, your colleagues that you work with in this production. Could you speak a little about your collaboration with the rest of the cast?

L.B: Well, I have to tell you the success that we had with this production here in DC is due largely, if not all of it, in fact, to the cast that they have assembled here, which of course, as you know was not even the original cast that they were trying to get here. So it’s sort of by all this twist of fate that the production [that] has come together has been probably even more successful than it would have been. You know, I can only assume that, maybe it’s a little arrogant to say that,

R: No, not at all!

L.B: But I think that because the product that we have - everyone is really thrilled about it, and there are some of the best colleagues that I have had the good fortune to work with so far in my very brief career. Sam Ramey has been incredibly supportive and helpful with all of his years of experience. Elizabeth Futral could not be any sweeter and more gracious. I have nothing but great things to say about the entire cast. I mean they are just top notch! I would absolutely be thrilled to work with any of them again.

R: Lately opera as an art form has been experiencing some changes. Audiences nowadays are left with little to rest their eye on. Often times there is no scenery on the stage and the artists wear street clothes. Sometimes stage directors even take liberty to change the opera plot. As a new generation artist, what is your opinion of this staging approach?

L.B: I am for it, when it makes sense. I think it’s good to know what the original was/is and to not know that tradition or that style does not do the art form any justice. I think there are some very modern productions that work very well and some that absolutely make no sense whatsoever. Then to me it’s the question “What’s the point? Why did they do that? Did they just do it to do something different? There has to be a reason behind it for me. You know, it’s cheesy, but it’s sort of like – what’s the motivation? Well, truly, what is it? Because if you are just doing something to do it and you don’t understand it, there is no way you can communicate it for the audience to understand it, and it’s just a pointless evening. To me, to do this art form is one of the highest forms of communication and not in the sense of elitism, but just that there are so many aspects to opera that affect people in different ways. You know, it oral, it’s visual. It’s emotional.

R: It speaks to people in so many different ways.

L.B: It does – it takes in all art forms under one roof. To me, it’s the ultimate. It’s not that I don’t appreciate other art forms, but this is definitely the one that I connect most with and feel that I have something to say and something to offer. I don’t know if I quite answered your question though.

R: Yes, you did, definitely.
Unfortunately, nowadays many people consider it old-fashioned to like opera. In your opinion as a young artist, what can be done for opera to gain its attraction and popularity with young audiences?

L.B: Well, I know what a lot of companies have tried to do. They form these young professionals’ groups. Some are more successful than others.

But I think one is accessibility.

One of my missions is always to be accessible, especially to people of my generation. I want people to know that I am an opera singer and that I do this professionally, and when I have complimentary tickets to give them if they’ve never been before, I am more than happy to say “Come!”
You know, one of the biggest challenges for young people getting involved with opera is cost. They finish college, and they are starting their lives, their new job, they are buying a house, they are starting a family, they are paying off college debt and you know, it’s much cheaper to go and see a movie than to go and sit in an opera.

Also think that it’s not, you know, older generation sort of grew up listening to it because of their parents or their grandparents, so they were sort of exposed to it and were around it a bit and at some point went back, tried it and became addicted.

In this age of modern media and everything in your face and so immediate, it is difficult I think sometimes to say “I am going to the theater” and this is all theater, I think it’s dance, it’s straight plays, musicals, whatever. It’s not a real part of the American culture, naturally.

I think to get people to go and say “You know what, I need some down time and I need to just breathe and listen and take things in, rather than going to where it’s always loud and crowded, (depending what you are looking for, but everyone is different), but I definitely try and make myself available and help people understand what this is what I love and what I do.

But I am not nervous about the art form dying out. I think it lasted this long for a reason and the people that are really passionate about it will make it happen. Where there is a will, there is a way.

R: What was the first opera that you saw live?

L.B: Actually, I was in an opera before I saw one.

R: Oh, my goodness!

L.B: Isn’t that crazy?

R: Yes!

L.B: I sang in the Pittsburgh Opera Chorus in my sophomore year. Actually, I should take that back, I guess technically then the very first opera that I saw was Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites in my freshman year in college. It has a very small baritone role in it, [but] I was blown away by this piece and it’s absolutely one of my favorites to this day, even though there is not really a role for me.

R: I have a funny question: if you could only keep one opera for the humanity, which one would it be?

L.B: The Marriage of Figaro - hands down. I think it’s the most perfect opera, it’s got everything and when it’s done right and well, it’s a very real and honest story. I think Mozart is the god, he is just genius there. There are days like you’d be having the worst day ever, and if I just listen to a little bit of Mozart, I am completely out of my mood. He is good for the soul.

R: For aspiring artists, what should an opera singer never be afraid of?

L.B: Being themselves. Whatever [you] have to offer, [you] have to trust that not everyone is going to like you. It’s art, so it’s subjective, and somebody is going to love you, and somebody is going to hate you. And if you get wrapped up in that, you end up not being confident enough or secure enough in what you have to offer and what you have to say.

I think some of the most successful singers, even if they are not technically perfect and all this sort of thing, it’s real and honest and that’s why they become successful. You know, you look at somebody outside of opera, like Frank Sinatra. He did not have the most beautiful voice in the world, in my opinion. Some people may think he did. But there is something about him as a performer that I love and I love listening to him. It’s him, and nobody else sounds like him.

And I think those opera singers that are world famous throughout the years it’s because they sing with their own voice, they have a very distinct sound that nobody else has and they don’t sound like anybody else or [try to] be like anybody else.

In conclusion, Mr. Bonner shares his operatic plans for this season, which include Donizetti’s Don Pasquale in Opera New Jersey, Weill’s Royal Palace at the Bard Music Festival, Britten’s Peter Grimes in Houston Grand Opera and covering a couple of principal roles at the Metropolitan Opera.

“I guess, in the long term in this business I have no desire to be famous”,- he adds.

“I just would like to work consistently and be able to eventually get married and have a family, support them and do what I love do. You know, at this point, I have been very fortunate for a lot of things happening in a very brief amount of time. And if I woke up tomorrow and the wave I am riding comes crashing down, I’ll know that I’ve gone as far as I could go and done everything that I possibly could to be successful in this business and would not regret a thing.”

[I truly hope that this interview will be some kind of revelation for those readers who mostly go to the opera “for the big names”. Please, do not let yourselves be led or rather, misled by prestige. Let your passion for music lead you instead. Marvel on your way to new horizons, enjoy each and every one of your discoveries and do not deprive yourselves of the miracles that they bring into your lives. You might be up for quite a few surprises. Seriously. -R. ]

(The photos are courtesy of WNO)