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Based on the 1967 play of the same title by Tom Stoppard,
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead retells the story of
Hamlet from the point-of-view of two minor characters in the
Shakespeare play. Allowed only a highly restricted view of the
tumultuous events of Hamlet unfolding around them, and deceived by
nearly everyone, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern play games to pass
the time and tirelessly devise strategies to make sense of their
place in the grander scheme. In this, they are like a philosophical
Laurel and Hardy, or a postmodern Vladimir and Estragon. The opera
takes them from the castle of Elsinore (in Act I) out onto the high
seas (in Act II), dispatched to England with Prince Hamlet and in
the company of a stowaway troupe of actors. On shipboard they will
confront their destinies, and make a crucial choice between
friendship and duty.
The opera begins with the celebrated scene of Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern alone on stage, flipping coins. The coins always land
'heads' - and have done so for ninety-two flips in a row. We are
immediately put on notice that their story will be operating
outside the bounds of realism. The opera is peopled by the
characters of Hamlet, filled with the incidents of
Hamlet, but glossed from a wholly modern perspective. In
effect, the significant events of Hamlet are unfolding offstage,
just out of view of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and they are
powerless to understand the implications of those events for their
fate. When the characters from Hamlet do sweep onto stage,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can do nothing but play their assigned
roles from Hamlet verbatim. And there is a wonderful Stoppardian
running gag that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are so insignificant
as to be indistinguishable from each other. Not only does their
good friend Hamlet confuse one for the other; at times, they
themselves forget who's who, a confusion the opera happily
reinforces by assigning both roles to baritones.
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