Hamlet (opera) - Composition

Composition

Very little is known concerning the details of the composition of the music. Thomas may have received the libretto around 1859. The original libretto was in four acts, but the requirements of the authorities at that time specified the premiere at the Paris Opéra of at least one 5-act opera per season. The inclusion of a ballet was also obligatory. The fourth and final act, which included the Mad Scene and the Gravediggers Scene, was simply split into two. To confer more weight to the new fourth act, the ballet was added between the choral introduction of the Mad Scene and Ophélie's recitative and aria.

In 1863 the director of the Opéra, Émile Perrin, wrote in a letter to a minister of state that Thomas had nearly finished writing the music. Later the press conjectured as to the reason for the delay of the opera, suggesting that Thomas had yet to find his ideal Ophélie. Thomas' opera Mignon (1866), an adaptation of Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, had been the composer's very effective response to Gounod's earlier Goethe adaption, the opera Faust, which had premiered in 1859. Mignon had been performed at the Opéra-Comique, and Thomas was under pressure to provide a similar success at the Opéra, in particular as several of his earlier productions there had done poorly.

When Gounod's Shakespeare adaptation, the opera Roméo et Juliette, appeared at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1867, it provided additional impetus for Thomas to finish working on his own adaptation of Hamlet. According to accounts in the press, it was that same year, at his publisher Heugel's office in Paris, that Thomas met the Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson, who had just been engaged at the Opéra. Thomas finally consented to the scheduling of the premiere. Consistent with this press report, parts of the soprano role were altered around this time with Nilsson's capabilities in mind. Thomas replaced a dialog with the women's chorus in the Mad Scene in Act 4 with a Swedish Ballade. This Ballade resembles the first movement of Grieg's Op. 63 (Two Nordic Melodies), and its use was suggested to Thomas by Nilsson.

A tenor suitable for the role of Hamlet could not be found, but an outstanding dramatic baritone, Jean-Baptiste Faure, was available, so Thomas decided to transpose the part, originally written for a tenor, to baritone. In the event, Faure "achieved a tremendous personal triumph as Hamlet."