Shakespeare's plays have proved a seemingly irresistible source of inspiration for opera composers over the centuries, from Verdi to Thomas Adès. Hamlet has been given the operatic treatment by several composers, indeed Faccio’s version is our current DVD of the Month, with the production from the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Paolo Carignani labelled ‘a major operatic rediscovery’ by our writer Mark Pullinger. 

Earlier this year, Brett Dean’s Hamlet was premiered at Glyndebourne with Barbara Hannigan as Ophelia and Allan Clayton as Hamlet. In the video below, presented by Alexandra Coghlan, Samuel West recites the famous ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy and discusses Dean’s opera with singers David Butt Philip and Jennifer France, who perform an extract from Dean’s opera.