HAMLET: A Ballet to music by Sir Michael Tippett

(in the repertory of the Hamburg State Ballet)

John Neumeier's acclaimed ballet Amleth, originally created in 1986 for the Royal Danish Ballet and set entirely to music by Sir Michael Tippett, was re-created in 1997 for the Hamburg Ballet Festival and is now part of the regular repertoire of the Hamburg Ballet during the following season. Its three acts utilise Symphony No. 2 and two movements from the Divertimento on Sellinger's Round (Act 1), the Triple Concerto (Act 2) and Symphony No. 4 (Act 3). .

Neumeier based his ballet not only on Shakespeare, but on the pre-history of the Hamlet story. He explains:

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the ghost appears to his son and demands revenge for his murder. It is at that moment, when the need for revenge is passed on from Father to Son, that the central conflict of the piece is stated: a young man's dilemma in dealing with his responsibility for the past.

In the play, knowledge of what has happened previously is essential to an understanding of the plot. Shakespeare's text provides the necessary background. In ballet, however, the dancer cannot dance in the past tense: there is no step to communicate, 'My father was murdered.'

To choreograph the hero's dilemma, I have to make the audience see the past as the present. Situations and characters from other earlier sources became helpful in finding a suitable visually clear concept for the translation of the text information into dance. I made use of certain dramatic constellations involving the mytho-historic Danish King Amleth from the Danmarks-kronike of Saxo Grammaticus, as well as ideas from other later editions of the story. I believe many sources may be used if out of them all a specific, personal, new Hamlet is born.

And, by using certain dramatic situations from his Danmarkskornike as well as ideas from other later editions of the drama, have been able to develop my own Amleth saga. [transl. by Christian Kronman]

In other words, an artist's words may be inspired by myth, history or an artistic masterpiece but it achieves its substance, its individual life only through the specific point of the creative artist. As creator of Amleth /Hamlet for the ballet present - and future - I had to find a part of myself in the source material of Shakespeare, Saxo Grammaticus and Oehlenschlager.

Michael Tippett's music was a great inspiration in the realization of this new Hamlet. I became curious about Tippett's music at first through the Triple Concerto, which I wished to choreograph long before ever considering a particular theme for ballet. Later it became, of course a part of Hamlet. Because of its relation to myth, Danish history and to the play of Shakespeare, I searched for "Hamlet sounds" which had the same archaic but human character. A musical world evoking the atmosphere of a mythic, pre-Christian period while possessing the deeply emotional qualities of Shakespearean drama. I discovered Tippett!

Before Hamlet, I had never choreographed Tippett's music. While creating this ballet, his music touched untouched areas of new movement in me and led me on a wonderfully creative journey through his world of mythic sounds. [transl. Christian Kronman]

HAMLET remains in the regular repertoire of the Hamlet Ballet.