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Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Shakespeare: Hamlet
Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:
Spoken word presentations have always been part of my broad spectrum concept of lyric theater programming. I have broadcast recordings of many of the plays of William Shakespeare. Often these were on old early stereo Decca/Argo LP's. These studio recordings, made between 1957 and 1964, were part of Decca's series of the complete recorded works of the Bard, issued to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. It was an audio project of historic significance equal to Decca's first-ever complete stereo recording series of Wagner's Ring cycle made during the same period, with Georg Solti conducting the Vienna Philharmonic and a singing cast of some of the greatest operatic voices of the mid twentieth century. Decca's Shakespeare project engaged renowned director George Rylands and the Marlowe Dramatic Society of Cambridge University, plus other "professional players" who were the best Shakespearean actors and actresses that Britain had to offer. Many of them remain famous names even now in the twenty first century.
In 2016 the entire Decca Shakespeare series--all thirty seven plays, the sonnets and narrative poems--were reissued on compact disc to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the playwright's death. I have acquired the 100 CD boxed set and this Sunday I begin to broadcast the plays contained therein.
First before any others, I present the world's most famous play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1600). I have broadcast Hamlet once before on Sunday, January 18, 1987, but not using those old Decca LPs. Columbia Masterworks issued its own Hamlet on four stereo LP's in 1964, also in celebration of the quadri-centennary of Shakespeare's birth. Hamlet was staged on Broadway in that year, as directed by John Gielgud with a cast of mostly American actors. Starring in this production was Richard Burton. He was an absolutely convincing and compelling Hamlet, one of the greats in the role. The Prince of Denmark in Decca's audio-production is Anthony White.