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Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Shakespeare Plus: A new Hamlet opera, the cuckoo, and Jacob-Ming Trent on Falstaff and Bottom

 

 

Folger Shakespeare Library

 

Shakespeare Plus

 

🎵 "To Be...

A new opera version of Hamlet is onstage at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, with a special live broadcast showing in movie theaters June 4. Composer Brett Dean and librettist Matthew Jocelyn talk with our podcast host Barbara Bogaev about adapting Shakespeare's tragedy.

 

... Or Not to Be" 🎵

In Brett Dean's opera, the very first line is "Or not to be." Tenor Allan Clayton, who plays the title role in Hamlet, shares his favorite parts of the opera as well as the thrill of subverting audience expectations with such well-known source material.

 

 

 

 

 

A Folger for the Future

The Wonder of Will: The Campaign for the Folger Shakespeare Library supports the Folger's renovation and the incredible programming that will fill our new spaces when they are complete.

Step behind the construction fences to discover how our renovated building will welcome generations to come. In this video, which premiered at the Folger Gala last week, Folger Director Michael Witmore, members of the Folger's Board of Governors, and the Folger's new Director of Programming and Artistic Director of Folger Theatre, Karen Ann Daniels, reflect on the future of the Folger and the support needed to accomplish this vision.

 

 

 

The Cuckoo: Birds of Shakespeare

Thanks to its peculiar reproductive cycle, distant migration, and haunting melodies, the cuckoo may hold the title for most folklore among Shakespeare’s birds.

 

Jacob Ming-Trent on Falstaff & Bottom

Jacob Ming-Trent looks back on Shakespeare in the Park's Merry Wives (now on PBS's Great Performances) and ahead to Folger Theatre's Midsummer.

 

Lunar Eclipses in Shakespeare

Did you catch the total lunar eclipse that occurred earlier this month? Take a look at three of the ways Shakespeare used eclipses in his plays and poems.

 

 

 

#FolgerFinds

For more encounters with the Folger collection, follow @FolgerLibrary on Instagram.

 

Instagram post featuring a lute

 

 


 


 

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Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 East Capitol Street, SE Washington, DC 20003  

Main (202) 544-4600 | Box Office (202) 544-7077 | info@folger.edu


Image Credits: Sarah Connolly as Gertrude; Rod Gilfry as Claudius; Chad Shelton, Justin Austin, and John Relea (on floor) as Players; William Burden as Polonius; and Brenda Rae as Ophelia in Brett Dean's "Hamlet." Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera | Allan Clayton in the title role of Brett Dean’s “Hamlet.” Photo: Karen Almond / Met Opera | Jarrett Arp, Karen Ann Daniels, Michael Witmore, May Liang | Common Cuckoo, Cuculus canorus by Missy Dunaway. 30×22 inches, acrylic ink on paper. | Jacob Ming Trent (Falstaff) in The Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park production of MERRY WIVES at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, August 25, 2021. Photo by Joe Sinnott. | Lunar eclipse photo by Claudio Testa on Unsplash