Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet Castle programme
Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet’s Castle 1st-9th August 2015
Enjoy enchanting summer evenings and an international ambience in the castle courtyard, when worldclass theatre, film, dance and music join forces in August. Prepare for intrigue, madness, power, humour, hatred and revenge in the open air and the historic setting of Kronborg Castle. Staatsschauspiel Dresden’s Hamlet, Companyia Pelmànec’s Diagnosis: Hamlet, Michael Radford’s major film version of The Merchant of Venice and Shakespeare in Concert are this year’s specially chosen experiences for audiences in the castle courtyard as part of the Shakespeare Festival at Hamlet’s Castle from 1 to 9 August 2015
The Festival opens with Shakespeare’s phenomenal tragedy of revenge, Hamlet. The internationally acclaimed theatre company, Staatsschauspiel Dresden presents an updated interpretation of this famous drama for a contemporary audience. Christian Friedel, in the title role, portrays a manic, menacing Hamlet. Together with his band, he delivers an unrivalled tour de force of video, rock music and dazzling acting. This is a contemporary, boundary-pushing production, in which the ensemble will shove Shakespeare, Hamlet and Kronborg Castle in a new and startling direction.
The Festival will continue with a magnificent adult puppet play – Diagnosis: Hamlet. One single actor plays all the roles in a bewitching combination of visual imagery, film, amazing puppetry and highly emotional acting. The impressive Spanish theatre company, Pelmànec has created a production with an intensity and whirlwind of emotions that are incredibly moving. The actor/puppeteer, Miquel Gallardo, invests the life-sized puppets with independent life and dreams. With his brutally honest acting and humorous puppetry he dives down into the darkest ocean of Hamlet’s mind. This is a puppet play with fatal consequences. This year’s Open Air Cinema will be a magical evening of cinema in the company of some of the best actors in the world. Prepare to be captivated by the romance and broken-hearted by the cruelty in the classic film version of The Merchant of Venice, directed by Michael Radford. The Oscar-winning actor, Al Pacino, delivers a supreme performance as the cunning merchant, Shylock, who tricks the lovelorn Bassanio’s best friend, Antonio into a savage loan. So sit back, if you dare, and enjoy Shakespeare’s tale of the dark aspects of mankind, as night descends over Hamlet’s Castle.
Shakespeare in Concert will be conducted by Frans Rasmussen, and Greve Concert Orchestra will accompany the world-acclaimed opera singers, Lise Davidsen and Steffen Milling. The walls of the castle courtyard will echo to the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and extracts from the operas of Verdi based on Shakespeare’s plays. As a new feature this year, we will be uniting the world of dance with the universe of music. The famous New York City Ballet solo dancer, Ask la Cour Rasmussen, will join forces with Susanne Grinder, solo dancer at the Danish Royal Ballet, to perform their expressive interpretation of musical extracts from Prokofiev’s evocative composition, Romeo and Juliet. This will be an exclusive musical experience with wonderful singing, dancing and music – an enchanting conclusion to this year’s Shakespeare Festival.
